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Cathleen Gretchell

The Impact of St. John’s Kitchen Warming Centre

Cathleen Gretchell June 5, 2026

This winter, The Working Centre opened an Overnight Warming Centre at the new St. John’s Kitchen, opening the doors at 8:30 pm and closing by 8:00 am. For three months, the Overnight Warming Centre provided a continuous overnight place to stay, reducing the daily search for shelter space. The open intake ensured that people could count on the space being available. At the same time, we ensured those using the space were registered as unsheltered.

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The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.

This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.

In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.

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