Healthy Housing for the Homeless

Toronto is getting new supportive housing that will have doctors on site, mental health resources, as well as food programs. As CBC’s Ali Chiassion reports, it’s aimed at helping Toronto's unhoused population get back on their feet.

Addressing homelessness is a Hydra-like challenge for municipalties across Canada. Even five years ago we probably had a perception of the prevalence of the unhoused in our society that in no way fits the reality of this moment.  There are so many contributing factors to people ending up "living rough" including addiction and mental health issues. But the high cost of housing and the availability of jobs paying a living wage are part of the picture.

This puts pressure on many services including healthcare. Those who live on the streets can have complex health issues and die younger. So, doesn't it make sense to provide shelter that is more than a temporary fix? 

Here are a couple of paragraphs from a recent CBC article about a positive initiative in Toronto, a city where up to 10,000 individuals are sleeping on the streets and in parks and woods each night: 

A new housing project for those who live on the streets and frequently end up in the emergency room is set to welcome its first residents in Toronto this month, supported by one of the largest hospital networks in Canada.

The University Health Network (UHN) has partnered with Fred Victor, a non-profit housing organization, to provide 51 permanent homes with health and social supports to homeless people who use its hospitals the most. The hope is that the project will ease pressures on hospitals while also providing stable care for vulnerable individuals.

"What we're trying to build is this continuum of care out from the hospital, where people can be discharged to a safe and stable setting that is their home," Dr. Andrew Boozary, the executive director of the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at UHN, said in an interview. "The treatment for the homelessness crisis is housing and, beyond housing, there needs to be these health and social supports in place."

Dunn House has begun to receive residents since this article was published at the beginning of October. When I was growing up Fred Victor was Fred Victor Mission, supported by the United Church. So many outreach projects have their origins in faith communities although today the religious background has been downplayed or scrubbed from the "About Us" link on websites. Fred Victor does offer this background: 

Our humble origins can be traced back to Mary Sheffield, a dedicated teacher and a member of the Metropolitan Methodist Church (later renamed Metropolitan United Church in 1925), who founded a Sunday School in 1886 for “rough and neglected boys.” This small Sunday school grew into a bustling mission which took a radical approach by serving people that were largely ostracized from society at this time. Hart Massey, a businessman and philanthropist, later funded the construction of the flagship Fred Victor location on Queen and Jarvis in 1894, named in tribute to his late son. 

                                                                                    Mary Sheffield 

Today many congregations, including the one we attend, host food banks, meal programs, and warming centres, and these are compassionate responses to a huge need.  Housing is a very different challenge. Recently Crossroads United Church in Kingston was set to have a supervised small village of tiny houses established on a portion of their property and funding seemed to be in place. This funding was withdrawn after a violent incident in a homeless encampment the downtown of the city. How does halting this project address the crisis of homelessness? 

I think this University Health Network/ Fred Victor partnership makes so much sense and I hope that it expands and inspires others. We know that in Finland the Housing First policy has reduced homelessness. It can be done. 

When I rummage around in the cluttered attic of my brain I figure I first heard about Fred Victor Mission through the Live/Love initiative of our United Church Mission and Service Fund in the 1970s. Congregations were invited to choose projects for sponsorship before the M&S Fund moved to a national, integrated fund. We are still called to live love as the disciples of Jesus. As is so often the case, I come back to the small scale version of Timothy Schmalz's Homeless Jesus sculpture kindly given to me by the artist.