Hospitality from the Margins - Part 1 (feat. Greg Paul‪)‬ Good Neighbour

Sanctuary Toronto is at the forefront of street-level outreach in Toronto. Throughout the pandemic, they have faced incredible challenges, one of which is the dissolving and fragmented sense of community on the streets. With indoor spaces closed, subway benches roped off, park encampments destroyed, you wonder if the homeless have any spaces in which they could welcome you. Hospitality assumes that you have a space or a community to invite people into. And of course, they exist, but when the urgent and acute emergencies of street life dominate such a community, you don't have the extra space or margin to cultivate community. You got to stop the bleeding. You cut the chit-chat and get straight to the point and meet the need.
Given the aftermath and ongoing struggles of the pandemic, communities like Sanctuary Toronto are presented with limited options to sustain the primacy of community in their practice. When key community members are literally dying in high numbers before you, it's hard to keep up with the ideals of a relationship-driven ministry. This is the first part of an interview I had with Greg Paul, where we begin discussing the oscillation that occurs between being a community or an agency in this season of ministry.