St. Michael's Hospital Homelessness Services
$1,250,000
ON
Temporary/Emergency
Urban
N/A
DESCRIPTION
St. Michael’s Hospital cares for more patients experiencing homelessness than any other hospital in Ontario; over 4,000 annually across different clinical settings. While these patients come to our hospital to address their medical needs, we must be meet their complex social needs to truly help them. St. Michael’s Homelessness Services operates a suite of dedicated programs helping people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness. For people admitted to hospital, we assist with follow up medical care and assistance with housing or shelter. For people in our primary care program, we help them maintain stable housing or regain housing when they lose it. We assist with administrative processes needed to maintain housing (tax filings, ODSP applications, etc.), making people’s homes safe to live in once discharged from hospital by managing hoarding or purchasing appropriate furniture, or paying people’s rental arrears or damage deposits to ensure they can remain tenants. St. Michael’s knows that housing is health, and the best way to keep people out of the hospital is to keep them housed.
DETAILS
Affordability Framework
St. Michael’s Homelessness Services assists people in Rent-Geared-to-Income units in Toronto Community Housing, Toronto Seniors Community Housing, and various supportive housing sites. We also support people to find housing with rent supplements in market rate units.
Target Completion Date
N/A
Populations Served
Homelessness
Total Project Cost
$1,250,000
Total Units
120
Affordable Units
N/A
Project Funding
Funding Required
$150,000 in donations over three years for emergency rent assistance and adding physical supports for people with medical conditions.
Funds Raised
St. Michael’s has $1.15 million in funding secured for its Homelessness Services staffing costs and about $150,000 for basic needs (clothing, toiletries, food) which is sometimes stretched to cover tenant supports.
Use of funds
We request $50,000 annually to drastically expand the housing supports we are able to offer to our patients. These would be earmarked for one-time rent assistance or damage deposit repayments, hoarding supports and cleaning so that patients can safely return home after being in hospital, and purchasing necessary furniture or other light-touch renovations for people with new medical conditions so their homes remain safe and livable. We estimate we could help 40 people per year with this amount; this would improve our ability to help people who are at risk of becoming homeless.
Human Impact Story
“Maryam is a senior, living alone in RGI housing. Her family physician referred her to Homelessness Services last winter because she had shut herself off from the world. She had stopped cooking entirely—just living on chips and cigarettes to deal with her nerves—and she was exhausted. I remember visiting her for the first time and just feeling how heavy the silence was.
Eventually, she showed me a letter from her housing provider about rent arrears. She was terrified of being evicted but couldn’t bring herself to even pick up the phone. It was clear she was at a breaking point.
We used our housing supports to address her rent arrears and paid it off, which was a massive weight off her shoulders. She’s more mobile, has started attending a local seniors' group, and feels like herself again.”
MAP
