Sad news on the homeless advocacy front: Homeless Nation Vancouver will be shutting down at the end of the month.

In a notice posted on the organization's website on Friday, coordinator Janelle Kelly said, "After a successful pilot program, HomelessNation.org sought to continue the project and secure core funding. Despite much effort, we were unable to secure sustainable core funding. Last summer saw the closure of both the Montreal and Victoria chapters of Homeless Nation. The end of March will be the official shut down date of Homeless Nation Vancouver."

Started in Montreal in 2003 by documentary fillmmaker Daniel Cross, the United Nations award-winning project grew to St. John's, Toronto and Victoria and Vancouver. Homeless Nation outreach workers helped give homeless people access to cameras and computers so they could communicate their stories directly to other Canadians, and the world.

"We place donated computers into shelters and drop-in centres - providing opportunities to create audio, visual or written testimonials from those whose voices are kept silent by their circumstances," it says on the organization's website. "We provide computer and Internet training. We meet Canada's homeless individuals where they are, and collaborate to add as many voices to the chorus as we can."

In Vancouver, Homeless Nation did an amazing job giving the city's homeless a platform as the city went through one of its biggest transformations: preparing to host the Olympics. Homeless people were able to speak directly about what it's like to live in a city that continued to become increasingly unaffordable and could give their opinion on what needed to be done to fix the problem.

One of the organization's most powerful projects was a series about suicide prevention—sparked by the loss of one of its young members. Homeless people spoke emotionally on camera about what it was like to lose so many of their friends at such a young age and encouraged others to fight through their pain.

While the outreach work may be ending at the end of this month, the good news is that Kelly says the website will remain active. Hopefully it will continue to provide the ground-breaking and important footage that it has done over the years.