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Have you heard the story about the little boy who shared his lunch with a homeless man?  The little boy had found the older man in a park...

Volunteering with OIM has introduced me to many new experiences, some sad, but most of them great! One defies categorization, however....

…for some of our street friends at least: from December 20 or 23 to the end of January.  It’s the longest time of the year to make your...

The aroma of turkey and all the traditional trimmings wafted from the kitchen at drop-in this week.  Nothing says ‘come, sit and enjoy’...

Often times when people hear that I work with the homeless, they like to engage in a conversation about whether or not our society should...

Yesterday, we held our annual memorial service at drop-in to remember those in our street community who passed away in 2012.  Often times...

Four weeks after Christmas and you are late! Yes, we are, with good intention, for several reasons: right around the time of Christmas,...

There’s been no shortage of bad news about homelessness in our city.  Ottawa did very poorly on the last Alliance to End Homelessness...

I’m so proud of Tammi!  She has had a long time addiction to crack cocaine…somewhere around fifteen years I think.  Like many of the...

Suzanne comes to the drop-in every week without fail. Her story is similar to many others: she immigrated to Canada several years ago and...

It was -27 degrees last night! Sweet merciful crud that’s cold! But the Wednesday night Outreach crew, appropriately bundled up, had a...

Recently I had the privilege of participating in a One Homeless Night activity with OIM staff (go Moira!) and a group of teens from The...

I was working the streets in Ottawa, prostituting.  I had dates all night,  from early evening until late, late – and no place to sleep. ...

This past May, Mark, a long-time member of the art group, was in a terrible accident. He was struck by a car which caused severe head...

As I looked around the room as lunch was in full-swing yesterday, I couldn’t help but feel very blessed to be surrounded by great 39...

I recently had to take a six month break (at least, I hope it’ll only be six months) from street outreach because of health problems.  It...

So last week the Wednesday night group got SOAKED (during that big rainstorm) on our evening walk-around. I mean drenched. I’ve seriously...

Leo is one of the ’rounders’ at OIM (‘been around a long time) and comes weekly to catch up and connect with our people.  Life was very...

OIM hosted our annual Easter Dinner this week.  Over 40 volunteers  served 150 dinners to our street community.  As I stood back and...

One of the most amazing privileges of working with people is the opportunities we have to build relationships. Over the past years there...