This article discusses how the practice of street work fits into the social environment of young people. It speaks of the importance of nuancing the concept of social breakdown, which is often used to describe the situation of young people accessing the services of social workers operating in this field. An important contribution of this paper is to show how street work becomes more important to the young through its insertion in its immediate social surroundings. This insertion involves the different dimensions of social life: gender, kinship (family), sociality, etc. The article is drawn from research conducted on a district of the city of Montreal from June 2012 to January 2013.