The journey home has gotten a little easier for some of Toronto’s 8,500 homeless people in shelters and out on the street any given night.

It was a different time and a different crisis, but in the small village of Bronte, Ont., work was hard to come by in the early 1950s.

CALGARY -- A few weeks ago, Jamie Hunka sat at a desk in one of The Mustard Seed’s support centres helping job seekers write resumes and master interviewing skills.

EDMONTON -- It started with Edmonton churches asking “How can we help?”

On a recent Saturday morning visit to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a person mummy-wrapped in a dragonfly blue blanket lay motionless a few feet from the corner of Hastings and Main. 

It was one of those nights when I was challenged by Pope Francis’ insightful observation in The Joy of the Gospel: “The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas.”

How young people end up homeless and what happens to them once they’re on the street are basic questions for those who want to end homelessness. 

VANCOUVER – Three Vancouver women have left career and school behind to serve the homeless.

VANCOUVER – “You will look like a new man!” 

I have become used to the cacophony which inhabits the downtown of the city and usually treat it as background noise as I walk around. 

In 2006, after 20 years of stellar work with the Out of the Cold program to shelter the homeless, its co-founder was not impressed.

SAN FRANCISCO – As San Francisco prepares to consider a ballot measure to boost taxes for services to aid the homeless, a U.N. investigator has classed the treatment of the homeless in San Francisco and the Bay Area as a human rights violation.

The summer had been warm and humid, and unlike many churches that can afford air conditioning, the church on the street had to find its own way of surviving the muggy evenings. 

EDMONTON – Frank “Bushy” Stegemeier is struggling.

Abby Pyrz was 18 years old when she was bitten by the travel bug.