Someone is hurt, a life is in danger, there is a fire, or a crime is happening. Police, fire and ambulance.
Call or text any hour if you are thinking of ending your life or cannot keep yourself safe. Free. A trained person answers.
Your city's help line. In Toronto it is open any hour and can find you an emergency shelter bed tonight and connect you to city services like Ontario Works (welfare). Peel, Halton and Durham have 311 too. York Region and Hamilton don't, so call 211 there.
Food, housing, welfare, legal help, mental health and more, anywhere in Ontario. Free, any hour, in many languages.
You don't need to know what service you need. Say what is going on in your own words and Clara helps you find the next step: shelter, meals, a clinic, ID, money or treatment. Free, any hour. No judgment, no forms, no line to wait in.
Clara is a computer. She answers fast and she is free, but she cannot come to you.
If you are in danger right now, call 911.
If you are thinking of ending your life, or you cannot keep yourself safe, call or text 988. It is open every hour and a real person answers.
If Clara thinks you may be in danger, she alerts our small team. We cannot promise someone is free at every hour, so for anything urgent use 988 or 911.
For help with drugs or drink in Ontario, call 1-866-531-2600. That line is open every hour too, and a real person answers.
A real Toronto number. Any phone that can send a text works: prepaid, pay-as-you-go, a flip phone, a phone with no data left, a borrowed phone. No app, no Wi-Fi. Your carrier's normal message rates apply.
Telegram is a free app for phone or computer. Install it, search @ClaraEmberBot or tap the button, press Start. Runs on Wi-Fi alone, so it costs nothing even with no phone plan, and adds tap buttons instead of typed words.
Same Clara either way. She remembers your conversation on both, and you can say STOP at any moment.
Tell her what's going on in your own words. Everything below works by text and on Telegram, where the two differ, both are shown.
Food banks, free meals, shelters and clinics around you, live.
NEARBY text telegram
HERE M5V 2T6 or HERE Queen and Bathurst text: a postal code off any piece of mail, or the corner you're standing on, centres every map exactly where you are.
📍 Share my location telegram: one tap does the same thing.
No address to give? Send a photo of the nearest street corner or storefront text telegram (beta): she works out roughly where you are, tells you it's a guess, and never keeps the photo.
Say what and when, in plain words: remind me about my ODSP appointment Thursday at 10. You get a calendar file you can keep, and when it's time she checks in.
SNOOZE · DONE · REMINDERS text telegram
Staying ahead of depression, getting your ID back, getting healthier, getting housed. She builds a small step-by-step plan with you, remembers it between conversations, and checks in on how it is going.
PLAN text telegram: shows where you are and what is next.
Your name, what you told her last week, what you are working on. You never have to explain yourself from the beginning again, including months later, on either channel.
Overwhelmed this minute? She will breathe with you, on screen, no sign-up: emberhouseproject.org/breathe.
BREATHE text telegram
If she thinks you may be in danger, she alerts the Ember House team right away. We are a small team and can't promise someone is free at every hour, so she only tells you a person is coming once one actually is. For help any hour, call or text 988, or 911 in an emergency.
STOP: she confirms, goes quiet, and deletes your location. Everything you built together stays, so START picks up exactly where you left off, even months later.
DELETE: erases the conversation, your plan and everything she has learned. It works even after you have stopped.
HELP: she lists everything she can do, any time. text telegram
Clara is an automated AI companion, not a doctor, and her messages aren't medical advice. If she thinks you may be in danger she alerts the Ember House team, who can read your conversation and may reach out. We are a small team and cannot guarantee someone is available at every hour, so for anything urgent call or text 988; she only tells you someone is coming once a person has actually taken it on (more in our Privacy Policy). In an emergency call 911. For crisis support call or text 988, any time. See our Privacy Policy and Terms.
A place to stay tonight, transitional programs, wait-list applications, safe options for families.
Free meals happening today, food banks that are actually open, community kitchens near you.
Crisis support, walk-in clinics, addiction treatment, counselling: accessible and respectful.
Lost everything? Health card, birth certificate, SIN, photo ID: rebuilt step by step, free clinics included.
Ontario Works, ODSP, EI, emergency assistance: the benefits you're entitled to and how to actually get them.
Family reunification, support groups, a way back into community. Sometimes the plan starts with not being alone.
Text and Telegram both still assume you have a phone. A device program is in development for the people who do not: no plan, no data, no address, no account with anyone. It reaches where nothing else does. Full reveal soon.
Donations marked CLARA go straight to keeping her answering: AI and SMS credits, development, and the device program. Want the reveal the moment it happens? Leave your email and we'll tell you first.
