A Toronto hospital network opened a new type of housing this week to support people experiencing homelessness in the Parkdale neighbourhood.
Dubbed the first-of-its-kind in Canada, Dunn House is a social medicine housing initiative, giving residents access to needed supportive services and permanent housing.
The project was developed by the city, in partnership with the provincial and federal government, the University Health Network’s (UHN) Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine, and the United Way of Greater Toronto to provide safe, permanent, accessible and affordable homes to those experiencing homelessness.
“What a beautiful morning to open Dunn House – Canada’s first-ever social medicine supportive housing initiative,” Mayor Olivia Chow posted to X on Thursday.
Built on what was previously a parking lot, the new four-storey building will soon be home to 51 of UHN’s most “medically and socially complex patients,” who are unhoused and frequently visit the hospital’s Emergency Department. The people who will be moving into these new homes are cross-referenced with the City of Toronto’s list of all individuals experiencing homelessness and prioritized based on individual needs, circumstances, and the length of time they have had no fixed address.
According to the UHN, the top 100 patients experiencing homelessness accounted for over 4,309 Emergency Room (ER) visits in a single year.
“The homelessness crisis is a health crisis, highlighting the pressing need for stable housing and integrated health care services,” reads a release from UHN.
Dr. Andrew Boozary, executive director of Social Medicine at UHN, explained that homelessness only compounds the health issues many patients visiting the ER are experiencing.
“These individuals have been resorting to the emergency department [and are] being readmitted to hospitals time and time again because their health conditions are just worsening,” Boozary told Now Toronto on Friday.
“They’re getting sicker and sicker. You know, people are not able to take their medications when they don’t know where they’re going to sleep this night or the next. This is a really compounding cycle when people are unhoused or more likely to develop mental health conditions and physical health conditions.”
According to UHN, chronically unhoused people live half as long, experience accelerated aging, have many more comorbidities, and develop serious health conditions much younger than their housed counterparts.
FIRST OF IT’S KIND SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS
Boozary explained that the people behind Dunn House hope to help residents navigate the challenges they face in accessing housing and maintaining their well-being.
“What we’re trying to do is interrupt that vicious cycle for people with housing and those social supports,” Boozary said.
“I think those are the real elements, that there is human dignity and people being able to attain their own health and well-being as they choose.”
Each of the 51 units at Dunn House are 275-square-foot and pet-friendly studio apartments, fitted with a private kitchenette, living room area, bedroom and bathroom. This includes 15 accessible units for tenants who use mobility aids like walkers or wheelchairs. The homes will be operated under a “rent geared to income” model, where the cost of rent will be based on the income of the resident.
Social services organization Fred Victor will be responsible for the management and operation of the units, as well as the communal areas, community garden and the on-site commercial kitchen.
Additionally, the organization will provide residents with services such as housing stabilization supports, social and community integration services, meals, mental health and harm reduction supports, and Personal Support Work services to help residents living with physical disabilities.
A NEW APPROACH TO SUPPORTING UNHOUSED TORONTONIANS
Boozary explained that many elements make Dunn House different from the other supports we see available to people experiencing homelessness in Toronto, such as shelters.
“This is housing. Shelters, to me, are not housing,” Boozary told Now Toronto, explaining that through consultations and interviews with people experiencing homelessness, they have learned about the importance of people having their own permanent, dedicated space.
“The other part is around the supports that are there. There are embedded health-care supports in this social medicine housing initiative,” he explained, adding that people living there will have access to clinical spaces for primary care with nurse practitioners, as well as psychiatry and geriatric professionals, counsellors, and other addiction and mental health treatments.
The doctor explained that another reason it is important to have spaces like Dunn House is the length of time people experiencing chronic homelessness wait for social housing, saying people on average are waiting eight to 10 years, saying homelessness can be a terminal condition.
“The patients that I see who are unhoused, many of them may not live long enough to see their name called for access to social housing.”
Boozary says that the city needs more facilities like Dunn House, sooner.
“We are losing people every day to the homelessness crisis. People are dying without being able to access housing and 51 units, 51 homes for people who have been shut out of the system is an important step forward, especially for this to be a hospital and community partnership,” he said.
“But we need a lot more of this, twice as much, twice as fast, across the city and the country, with the sort of supports that are in place [at Dunn House]. If we don’t do this, there are only going to be more and more people that we lose.”
