It’s Friday night and Winnipeg is under an extreme cold warning, midway through a cold snap that’s lasted for days. Across a dashboard covered with folded scarfs, some hand knit, some sewn from colourful fleece, staff with the Salvation Army’s mobile outreach van staff spot a woman sitting on a snow-covered sidewalk near Main Street, her head down, hands bare.

As the van stops on the other side of the street to allow an outreach worker to exit, the woman gets up and walks away. Staff get back in the van and catch up with her a block or so away, where she tearfully declines a ride home, sharing snippets of a disagreement that drove her outside.

“How ‘bout we get you some gloves?” asks Mark Stewart, a director with the Salvation Army.

The woman continues to cry and declines his further offers for help. Moments later, Stewart gives her a toque, scarf, and gloves and leaves as she has asked him to. Still concerned about her decision to stay out in the cold, he makes a plan to return, and eventually makes a call to report that she’s out there.

When overnight temperatures drop below -10 C, the Salvation Army’s outreach van patrols areas in Winnipeg’s core from 11 p.m. until 4 a.m., “Just to make sure that if we see anybody that’s struggling in the cold, we just want to make sure that either they can get in and warm up, we can give them a ride home, a coffee, or just some warm clothing,” said Stewart.

“In this area in particular there is not a lot open at this time of night, so if you are in this area and you’re struggling, there’s a far distance to get to somewhere warm and safe,” he said.

Not far from where Stewart spoke with the upset woman sits Siloam Mission, an organization that houses a homeless shelter with 110 beds.

"It's a life threatening situation when we get these kind of temperatures," said Luke Thiessen, Siloam Mission’s communications manager. "So we're doing our best to make sure that people have a warm safe place to go."

Thiessen said the current extreme cold conditions, dropping to around -30 C at night without factoring in wind chill, create a critical challenge for people who are homeless.

Thiessen says Siloam works with other shelters to ensure people are able to escape the cold.

"We just want to make sure everyone is safe and secure," he said.

Stewart said the Salvation Army’s shelter takes people in 24 hours a day, but they also make sure those they connect while patrolling are aware of resources available elsewhere.

He also says while the van is able to assist those who are homeless, staff connect with many others on the street.

“They’re people that are getting off the bus at two in the morning and they just want to get home to their families. They’re women, men, as well as LGBTQ2S, who are working the streets,” he said, adding that those in the sex trade are out whether it’s plus or minus forty, and the goal is to let them know they have other options.

“We just want to make sure they’re supported in the community,” he said.

With files from CTV’s Jon Hendricks/Michael Arsenault