Less than two weeks after Peterborough city council voted against continuing to fund One City Peterborough to provide expanded services at Trinity Centre in 2026 for people experiencing homelessness, executive director Christian Harvey has left the non-profit organization.
One City Peterborough announced in a statement on Monday (July 14) that Harvey has “moved on” from the role after 13 years. The organization provided no details as to the reason for his departure.
“Christian’s leadership has been instrumental in shaping One City into the caring, innovative, and effective organization it is today,” One City stated.
Tammy Kuehne, who has worked at One City Peterborough for 11 years, has been appointed as acting executive director and “will continue to work closely with senior leadership team members Auden Palmer and Michael Vanderherberg.”
The organization added that is does not “anticipate any major changes” resulting from the change in leadership.
“We remain grounded in the values that guide our work: belonging, dignity, trust, courage, and love,” One City stated. “The strength of our mission, our team, and our community relationships continues to carry us forward.”
As a deacon at St. John the Evangelist in Peterborough, Harvey was previously a youth worker and was instrumental in the establishment of the former Warming Room Community Ministries, which provided an overnight winter shelter at Murray Street Baptist Church.
“The shelter system as it currently exists is not able to meet everyone’s needs,” Harvey wrote in a blog post in 2015. “There are those who fall through the cracks, and it is exactly those people we want to serve. We believe everyone has a right to a warm, safe environment to sleep in, and we try our hardest to provide that to anyone, no matter how they come to us.”
The shelter closed in June 2019 after the organization failed to renew its lease with Murray Street Baptist Church, resulting in a tent encampment at Victoria Park. Later that year, Warming Room Community Ministries and Peterborough Reintegration Services merged to form One City Peterborough.
During the pandemic, homeless encampments in the city continued to increase, most notably resulting in a large encampment at the Wolfe Street/Rehill Lot in 2022.
In October 2022, just prior to the municipal election, city staff advised the previous city council that a proposed $200,000 in city funding for a drop-in program at the former Trinity United Church on Reid Street could not proceed.
This was due to a “lame duck” provision of the Municipal Act that prevents city council or staff from making any expenditure over $50,000 during a municipal election campaign, prompting then-mayor Diane Therrien to call for a special council meeting to discuss options to address the homelessness issue over the winter.
In December 2022, following the municipal election, new city councillor Alex Bierk proposed the city support a proposal for an emergency winter response from a coalition of community organizations — including One City Peterborough — and for the city to provide a grant of $100,000 funded from the social services reserve. Bierk’s motion was defeated by a vote of 6-5.
Despite a lack of funding from the city, the coalition committed $200,000 for the operation of the drop-in program at the former Trinity United Church at 360 Reid Street, which was then owned by the Peterborough Poverty Reduction Network.
“People who are unhoused deserve the dignity of being sheltered and included in our community,” Harvey said at the time. “Until that is possible, we want to ensure no one dies in the cold.”
In September 2023, the City of Peterborough committed to provide One City Peterborough with $900,000 annually over three years as part of a service agreement for the operation of an overnight drop-in space and a year-round daytime drop-in centre at Trinity United Church, which opened as the Trinity Community Centre that November — the same time that the city finished constructing 50 modular homes on Wolfe Street to address the homeless encampment.
Fast forward to this past July, when city council voted against allocating an additional $269,280 to One City Peterborough to enhance the overnight drop-in program at Trinity Centre and an additional $244,800 to expand operating hours of the centre’s daytime program.
“I have some serious reservations about extending funding to One City as an organization,” councillor Kevin Duguay said at the general committee meeting. “The difficulty that I have throughout all of this is where some of this funding is going. I don’t believe in funding a bad operator — a bad apple.”
Mayor Jeff Leal criticized One City’s staffing costs and expressed concerns about the number of Indigenous people who are clients of Trinity Centre, suggesting that the federal government should be providing funding. He also criticized the lack of information in the organization’s annual report about the success rate of One City’s programs.
Without additional funding from the city, the Trinity Centre’s overnight drop-in program will close as of March 31, 2026. The expanded operating hours for the centre’s daytime program will continue until the end of this year, after which it would drop from 10 hours to four hours until the city’s funding ends in September 2026.
“We are deeply concerned about the preventable harm this will cause,” One City stated after council’s vote. “Not only for the hundreds of people who rely on Trinity daily, but for the broader community, which will feel the immediate effects of reduced services.”
After voting against additional funding for One City Peterborough, council approved a motion for city staff to proceed with an request for proposals for low-barrier shelter beds for when the city’s contract with One City ends.
