Toronto supportive housing facility offers women path out of homelessness

[00:00:00]After spending two years in Toronto's shelter system, Maghre Gumosab says being able to call Hope House her home has given her something she hasn't felt since she first moved to Canada from Uganda. Peace of mind.

[00:00:14]>> Living here, the experience is that this is a home.

[00:00:18]>> It's been one year since St. Felix Center officially opened Hope House, an initiative offering not just a roof, but wraparound supports designed to help women and children rebuild their lives.

[00:00:29]I'm very very peaceful because in the shorter ways like there was no peace a little bit. I'm sorry to say that but there was no peace cuz before it was chaotic a little bit but here you come you do your thing. Um you're free. I'm studying. I have a space to study like I'm in a college. In that year, we've seen uh amazing transformations, right?

[00:00:56]Uh women are moving in here from shelters, some from encampments, and having the opportunity to have a stable place to just be and you know that you're safe.

[00:01:08]>> The space offers 31 fully furnished suites alongside access to meals, health care support, counseling resources, and professional development services. Brian Harris says from the demolition of the old building to moving the first tenant into the new building was about two years total and it was supported by all three levels of government.

[00:01:28]>> For those who are not in the development space, 2 years might not seem like it's that fast, but if you've seen construction around the city, uh 2 years is really pretty fast. I think it was a really good example of when there is the political will and when there are resources made available, uh, we can really build supportive and affordable housing really quickly.

[00:01:49]>> Hope House originally operated as an emergency shelter, another huge need in the city as people are often turned away from these spaces due to capacity. So, while we were building this program here, we did also work with the city to relocate those beds. So, the we didn't lose beds out of the shelter system. I think everybody uh in Toronto knows that there's a housing crisis. And so, we made the decision to do our small part in redeveloping this space into uh permanent, affordable, supportive housing for women and women's children.

[00:02:23]Homelessness is a very significant crisis in Toronto and across the country. We need shelter beds. Uh but we need to uh have places for people to go uh to leave the shelter and it's housing uh that people need. So, it's not a trade-off. It's both. The city says it does still need short-term shelters, but it also plans to create more sites like Hope House for longerterm housing options. It says it's working towards a target to approve 18,000 new supportive homes by 2030. We have about hit about 2,000 since 2020. So, we have a long way to go.

[00:03:04]We're getting there. We're not getting there fast enough, but we know how to get there. We've got 1300 that have been completed and another uh roughly um 600 in the pipeline that are currently under construction. And uh we're working very closely with the provincial and federal governments to get those numbers bigger and bigger. Along with stability, Margaret says she's also found community within the walls of Hope House. Now her goal is to get a job giving back to people who have faced the same challenges that she has. I decided to go for social work because I found out that I have a passion of helping people. I'm I'm mentally stable to be honest and I'm really happy. So it really encouraged me to do something.

[00:03:51]>> Talia Richi, CBC News Toronto.