Battling agencies would have far greater impact on homeless crisis by working together

In the midst of one of the most concerted efforts to reduce, if not eliminate, homelessness, why are two of Winnipeg’s more prominent social service agencies fighting each other?

This week, city councillors Cindy Gilroy and Ross Eadie accused Main Street Project of trying to derail efforts by another agency — St. Boniface Street Links — to find housing for people living in homeless encampments. Gilroy and Eadie said as Street Links outreach workers started efforts to move encampment residents into more stable housing, MSP workers arrived to tell the same residents they did not have to leave if they preferred to stay where they were.

This is not the first time these two organizations have clashed, reportedly over the same issue.

In July 2024, Coun. Janice Lukes told the Free Press she called Street Links to help the residents of a Southwood encampment find permanent housing, but as its outreach workers were collecting personal information, MSP outreach workers arrived and told residents they didn’t have to leave.

The truth behind these conflicts has been difficult to divine. Both MSP and St. Boniface Street Links provide valuable services. However, while Street Links founder Marion Willis has publicly acknowledged a profound difference in philosophy between the two agencies, Main Street Project has been annoyingly silent on the causes of the conflicts.

Strip away some of the hyperbole, and things begin to clear up.

Street Links is unapologetically up front about its desire to dismantle homeless encampments to move residents into more stable housing. Street Links does not force anyone to leave an encampment, Willis says, but acknowledges the agency’s desire to get people into more permanent housing.

Willis has repeatedly said Street Links housed more than 350 people in 2025, some at facilities it managed and some in housing overseen by other entities.

MSP, it appears from the details of the two conflicts, has shown a lot more tolerance for encampments. It also generally seems to be more deferential to the wishes of residents to remain in encampments until a housing solution, typically through the provincial government’s Your Way Home initiative, becomes available.

Bottom line? Without picking sides, you have two agencies trying to do largely the same job which, for reasons that remain murky, don’t seem to be able to co-ordinate their efforts because of what appears to be a small, but still meaningful, difference of opinion on methodology.

Whatever the additional reasons, the disagreement is profoundly unhelpful in finding solutions for what is easily one of the most intractable social crises facing society today.

This is where the province needs to step in. Notwithstanding their differences, both MSP and Street Links are valuable players in efforts to alleviate homelessness. It’s impossible to believe the province would want to turn its back on either agency.

Having said that, there are important differences between the two entities that may explain why the province has not stepped in to settle the dispute.

St. Boniface Street Links was created by Willis as a private charitable organization to provide help for the homeless, addicted and mentally ill beyond what government and private social service agencies had been doing. Although it does receive some funding from government, it is primarily financed by private donors and is not considered a partner agency in the government’s Your Way Home program.

MSP is also a private charitable organization, but one that has evolved over its years into the go-to street-level agency to address public intoxication and, to some extent, emergency shelter for the homeless. As such, it receives a lot of operational and capital funding from city, provincial and federal governments to augment its programs and facilities, and is an official partner of Your Way Home.

Sources within the social service agency generally seem to be wary of Street Links, expressing concerns that it operates without appropriate oversight, or that on occasion it oversteps in its pursuit of funding.

However, when you look at its street-level work, Street Links is certainly not inconsistent in either intent or general methodology from MSP and other agencies working in the space. Why isn’t someone or something trying to co-ordinate efforts between the two agencies?

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Despite pledges to the contrary, what we have in Winnipeg is a broad array of organizations with a broad array of mandates all trying to help the homeless. And three levels of government all doing as little as possible to sort out who should be doing what.

You want evidence of the lack of co-ordination? Consider the wildly varying estimates of just how many homeless people there are in the city.

The city, and MSP, both estimate that there are 300-400 people living in encampments. End Homelessness Winnipeg — a federally funded organization that focuses on Indigenous homelessness — estimates the total number of homeless at more than 8,000.

A truly co-ordinated approach ensures we get the biggest bang for our taxpayer bucks. The ungoverned approach, which breeds conflict and waste, isn’t going to get the job done.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.