Open 365 days a year, The Salvation Army's Centre of Hope in Port Hardy, B.C., provides food, shelter, showers, laundry, clothing vouchers, food hampers, free tax filing, weekly legal-aid access and mental-health referrals—and something harder to put on a list: a place where people are seen, known and prayed for by name.

It was just an average Monday morning in May as I arrived at work. As the company’s longest serving employee, I had crossed the threshold hundreds of times over the nine years I worked there. As a result, everything felt comfortable. The week prior, the boss had been on vacation, so there was no inkling that something life-changing was about to