Social work in the setting of outpatient assisted living for people with chronic mental illness focuses on improving the everyday coping skills of clients. A common working alliance based on a professional relationship is often established through continuous communication and active relationship work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, personal contacts were partially replaced by digital communication formats due to infection control measures. Both the living environment and social space of the clients as well as the workplace of the social workers were partially moved into the digital space and thus, among other things, into their respective private spaces. This created tensions at different levels, which we illustrate exemplarily in the following contribution. In addition to reflections on our own socio-pedagogical practice, we also refer to the results of two questionnaire surveys. At two locations of outpatient assisted living, employees and clients were asked about the perceived changes due to the increased use of digital formats during the pandemic and their evaluation.