Our project for Margaret’s Housing and Community Support Services has recently been completed. Since its inception in 1984, Margaret’s has been the leading organization in Toronto providing women suffering from mental illness with safe, dignified, and affordable housing options and other support services open to all. Margaret’s housing initiatives help women to find stable and supportive housing, keeping them off the street and better able to manage their mental health challenges.

Nellie’s Women’s Shelter has opened their doors in their new home, providing shelter for women and children escaping violence.

Since 1973, MCC Toronto has been helping shape Canadian values of inclusion, diversity, and equality. A place of worship and a place of action, MCC Toronto is a vibrant and progressive church rooted in the Christian tradition and the LGBTQ2+ community that is open and welcoming to everyone, and a Human Rights Centre that is fiercely committed to social justice. We completed an interior renovation providing a new kitchen and meeting space for MCC Toronto during 2021, and are currently working on a second phase of the project.

As part of the support for residents and members of the community, on October 23rd, Inspirations Studio has opened as part of our 389 Church Street supportive housing redevelopment managed by YWCA Toronto. The studio is a ceramic-based program for women who have been impacted by poverty, trauma, homelessness, mental and physical health and/or addiction issues. The Studio's core mission is to facilitate improvements in members' lives through the making and selling of pottery. Through creative, therapeutic and skill building work, women gain a sense of self-confidence, dignity and stability, a connection with community, earn supplemental income and engage in a new way with the world as makers. The Studio also offers workshops and collaborative opportunities for other agencies. (Photo courtesy of Inspirations Studio). UPDATE: The CBC has published an article on Inspirations Studio.

Our 389 Church Street project has recently been completed and is now being occupied. This 120 unit affordable and supportive apartment building provides a safe, inclusive, supportive community for Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, gender diverse people, and youth and senior women who have experienced or who are at risk of experiencing homelessness.

Redeveloped by Toronto Community Housing, it is leased to and managed by YWCA Toronto.

The City of Toronto has officially released their new Shelter Design and Technical Guidelines this past week. The 277 page document that we authored for them was substantially complete a year ago. Over the last year we updated it to include initial guidance on measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a living document intended to offer best practices in the design of shelters for people in Toronto experiencing homelessness, (which has been accelerated by the pandemic), we will updating the document on at least an annual basis moving forward.

Journey Home Hospice, a new care facility for people who are homeless and facing the end of their life, first opened its doors in April 2018 with Phase 1 of their hospice. We’ve just completed Phase 2 of the hospice, which provides inclusive high-quality care to some of the city's most vulnerable people. Journey Home Hospice is a partnership involving three health organizations: Saint Elizabeth Foundation, Inner City Health Associates and Hospice Toronto.

On July 15, 2020, The Globe and Mail featured our new supportive housing project, currently under construction, for Margaret’s Housing and Community Support Services, in an article by Vanessa Quon, entitled Mouldering Cabbagetown heritage homes find a higher purpose.

On March 6th, Raising the Roof held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the second affordable housing project that we have completed with them under their new Reside program which aims to prevent homelessness by creating new housing options for people at risk of or currently experiencing homelessness. Working with BuildingUp, Reside creates training and employment opportunities for individuals facing barriers to employment in the trades while renovating each home. BuildingUp worked with Endeavour school to train BuildingUp participants in environmentally sound renovation practices to create ecologically sustainable renovations.

The Cedar Mains project took the decrepit 1857-1858 Shiloh Wesleyan Methodist church building on the site, vacant for 13 years, and repurposes it for new housing for use by their new tenant, Caledon Area Families for Inclusion (CAFFI), which seeks to serve the affordable housing needs for adults with developmental disabilities.

On November 6th, TVO aired an episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, where The Agenda learned about Emily's House, a Toronto hospice for children and families facing life-threatening illnesses and named for a young patient with a rare and terminal neurodegenerative disease who recently passed away. At Emily's House, children get the care they need with all the comforts of home for themselves and their loved ones. An in-studio panel interview on Emily’s House and paediatric palliative care was featured, including Rauni Salminen, CEO/Founder of Emily’s House. Steve Paikin said that it was one of the most “meaningful” segments that they have broadcast.

Click here to view the full, 35-minute TVO video.

On October 24th the Minister of Housing for Ontario used our current Margaret’s House site for their announcement of funding for the project. The tender for the project recently closed on budget, and construction will be commencing shortly on this new 35 unit supportive housing project that includes the restoration of four heritage homes.

On Friday June 21st, YouthLink celebrated the opening of their new shelter for youth experiencing homelessness. The shelter, for people 16 years to 24 years old, contains 10 emergency and 41 long-term beds, including rooms for couples. It is Toronto’s only youth shelter with a dog kennel with space for at least six dogs, and with the opportunity for dogs to share the same room as their owner.

YouthLink opened their emergency shelter for youth this past week as the first part of a two stage opening that will see their transitional youth shelter open next month. The location is within a former warehouse that we converted to YouthLink’s offices 15 years ago, including the creation of a courtyard oasis in the centre of the building, which is surrounded by a low-rise, car-dominated suburban setting.