Councillors slam city’s decision to pull St. Boniface Street Links funding Setback to mobile outreach work causes ‘frustration, discouragement and disbelief’ By: Scott Billeck Posted: 4:07 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 8, 2025 Last Modified: 6:05 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 8, 2025 Updates

Two city councillors are criticizing the decision to exclude St. Boniface Street Links from a contract to continue its mobile outreach work.

Couns. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) and Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) raised concerns about the city’s recent decision to award Main Street Project its sole contract for 24-hour mobile outreach services in Winnipeg.

“I am very concerned that St. Boniface Street Links may no longer be part of our encampment strategy,” Gilroy said Tuesday in an interview. “I’ve seen first-hand the difference their work makes not only in addressing homelessness, but in helping individuals struggling with addiction navigate systems that are often impossible to access without strong advocacy and support.”

In the email to councillors and Mayor Scott Gillingham, Gilroy slammed the move, saying she was writing with “frustration, discouragement and disbelief.”

“This is real, life-changing work,” Gilroy wrote in the email, obtained by the Free Press. “And yet, we’re pulling their funding?

“Let’s not get involved in the fight over funding between organizations. Instead, let’s fund what we want to see, real results: people out of addiction, on a path to housing, and experiencing true transformation.”

In her email to colleagues, Rollins noted the city’s executive policy committee was “warned” the request for proposal “would result in one group being cut despite the need for all of them.”

“I thought it would be Resource Assistance for Youth. It turned out to be St. Boniface Street Links,” Rollins wrote. “And now we are here, scrambling, as predicted.”

She added, “There are so few organizations able to respond. They deserve to work in partnership with (the city).”

Rollins declined to comment Tuesday on her email, only confirming she wrote it.

“This is real, life-changing work… And yet, we’re pulling their funding?”–Coun. Cindy Gilroy’s email

The criticism follows the city’s June 30 decision to award the $275,000 contract to Main Street Project.

Street Links received nearly $120,000 in city funding between 2022 and 2024. Now, it will have to lean more heavily on donors, said executive director Marion Willis.

“We’re not going anywhere,” she said Monday.

Willis said she has written the city twice since the decision but has yet to receive a response. She’s asking for funding to continue through the end of 2025 to prevent disruptions in outreach services. Gilroy also urged council to continue funding through December in her email.

“This decision reflects a troubling disregard for the interdependence and proven effectiveness of the Street Links continuum of care — a model that has been built deliberately and successfully over years to address the complex realities of homelessness, addiction, and community safety,” Willis said.

Gillingham, who spoke after the executive policy committee’s final meeting before the summer break, said additional funding until the end of the year is unlikely. He confirmed he has received an email from Willis.

“There are so few organizations able to respond. They deserve to work in partnership with (the city).”–Coun. Sherri Rollins’ email

Between 2022 and 2024, the city divided $550,000 in outreach funding between three groups: $356,250 to Main Street Project, $118,750 to St. Boniface Street Links, and $75,000 to Resource Assistance for Youth.

Street Links also receives $250,000 per year from the city to help run its 24/7 safe space.

Willis acknowledged it’s the city’s prerogative to choose Main Street Project as the sole provider for the province’s Your Way Home strategy, which aims to end chronic homelessness by 2031. But she warned that doing so comes at a significant cost.

“Consolidating services under a single-window model risks the unintended loss of critical supports, including the removal of Street Links’ comprehensive outreach across eastern Winnipeg,” Willis said.

A request for proposal was launched May 22 and closed June 12. A city spokesperson said proposals, including a 32-page submission from Street Links, were reviewed and scored competitively.

The contract with Main Street Project runs until Dec. 31, with the option to renew for two additional years.

“It’s all about the politics and what the city needs to do in order to be seen as supporting the province, without regard for what the consequences are going to be.”–Marion Willis

Under Main Street Project’s proposal, Resource Assistance for Youth will continue to receive $75,000 in support via subcontracts, executive director Jamil Mahmood told the Free Press last week.

The request for proposal required a provider “rapidly transition” people out of encampments into safer housing, to comply with the province’s strategy. Willis said she expects all 311 calls — previously split by geography — to now be directed exclusively to Main Street Project, effectively ending Street Links’ work east of the Red River.

“Putting outreach patrol services, centralizing it all under one umbrella, is counterintuitive and it’s dangerous and it’s not productive,” she said.

In May, Main Street Project was criticized after workers were accused of helping to set up a new encampment near a Point Douglas riverbank.

Willis said Street Links has shut down 16 encampments since April.

“How many has MSP closed?” she quipped.

She also questioned whether the city is prepared to risk the future of Street Links’ award-winning Morberg House recovery model — a 12-bed transitional residence offering support for men dealing with addiction, homelessness and mental health challenges.

“While the city and province remain narrowly focused on ending chronic Indigenous homelessness, the reality is that widespread drug use has been the primary driver of encampment growth across every quadrant of this city,” Willis said. “Addiction does not discriminate, and neither did the pandemic. Yet instead of fully acknowledging this reality, the city appears to have aligned itself with a provincial strategy that, to date, has not shown it can effectively respond to the scale and complexity of these challenges.”

Willis believes politics, not performance, influenced the decision.

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“It’s all about the politics and what the city needs to do in order to be seen as supporting the province, without regard for what the consequences are going to be,” she said.

Gillingham said Tuesday there was no political involvement in the move, adding the request for proposal process was was carried out by the public service committee based on the criteria laid out.

“Politically, we were not involved,” he said. “Myself and council were not involved in that process.”

Community members and Street Links supporters will gather Thursday night at Norwood Community Centre for a public meeting aimed at raising awareness about the issue.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

Every piece of reporting Scott produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.