Community Knowledge Centre - Toronto Community Foundation

About this organization

Mission

LOFT helps people who become marginalized and vulnerable, especially because of mental health and addiction challenges and histories of homelessness, to get back on their feet. We do this by first ensuring that each person is safely and appropriately housed, then by providing a program of supports and services tailored to the needs of each individual client.

LOFT is proactive in identifying emerging and unmet needs and responding with innovative programs, so we have often been the first, and sometimes remain the only organization serving the basic needs of individuals with especially complex challenges – like people with HIV/AIDS who also have mental health and addiction issues and histories of homelessness, street youth involved in prostitution and vulnerable seniors with nowhere to call home. We have also grown to be one the largest and most diverse organizations of our type in Ontario.

Our clients are men and women, youth, adults and seniors and include some of the most hard-to-serve homeless. Our services are open, welcoming, respectful and non-judgmental, and founded upon the firm belief that every person has the ability to grow and change and that every person deserves the opportunity to do so.

History of Organization

In 1953, two youth programs previously run by the Anglican Church merged to form an independent, non-denominational registered charity called Anglican Houses.

Today, as LOFT Community Services, we offer housing and support services to more than 4,000 vulnerable and marginalized youth, adults and seniors, with particular focus on those with mental health and addiction issues who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Of these 4,000, about 1,800 are safely and appropriately housed and receiving support on their journeys of recovery. The remaining 2,200 are still on the street and receiving outreach services until they, too, can “come home”.

We offer a range of specially focussed programs, from high-support residences for youth unable to live with their families, through shared homes and individual apartments for previously homeless adults with mental health and addiction issues, to support for mental health concerns and the activities of daily life for older adults and seniors who need a safe home. We do whatever is needed to respond to the issues at hand.

Every year, hundreds of new clients join our programs, others “graduate”, moving on to full independence, and yet others, whose mental health issues prevent them from living independently, will remain part of the our family for the rest of their lives. LOFT is committed to supporting each person to reach their full, individual potential.

Accolades and Accomplishments

We are:

• Ontario’s first and largest provider of mental health supportive housing to marginalized and at-risk seniors.
• The only provider of seniors supportive housing in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood.
• The key partner in a highly innovative program helping vulnerable seniors make the transition from psychiatric and geriatric chronic and acute care hospital beds back into the community.
• One of North America’s few programs serving men and women with HIV/AIDS in combination with mental health and addiction issues and histories of homelessness.
• The originator and lead partner in a new and very effective program helping long-term homeless people with mental health and addiction issues and HIV disease to leave the street.
• Toronto’s only street outreach to youth involved in prostitution.
• Toronto’s only post-treatment residential program for young women recovering from addiction.

Programs

>Seniors’ Welcome Home Program
>HIV/AIDS Homeless Intervention Project

Programs for Youth:

• Beverley Lodge and Etobicoke Group Residence - high-support residences for youth 14 – 18.
• Ingles House – high-support residence for young women 16 – 24 recovering from serious addiction.
• Youth Co-op Houses - 7 small shared homes for youth aged 16 to 24.
• Street Outreach Services (SOS) – street outreach to youth involved in prostitution.

Programs for Adults:

• Wilkinson Housing and Support Services – supportive housing for men and women with mental health issues.
• McEwan Housing & Support Services - for men and women with HIV/AIDS in combination  with mental health and addiction issues and histories of homelessness.
• Mental Health & Justice Initiative - for men and women with mental health and addiction issue and histories of homelessness who are in conflict with the criminal justice system.
• St. George House – for men and women whose mental health issues prevent them from living independently.
• Crosslinks Housing and Support Services – the largest provider of adult mental health supportive housing in York Region and operator of the Region’s only street outreach van.

Programs for Seniors:

• John Gibson House – for older men and women with serious mental health challenges.
• St. Anne’s Place – housing and support for mental health, addictions and activities of daily living for at-risk older adults and seniors.
• Dunn Avenue and College View Supportive Housing Services - mental health, addiction and daily living support for seniors living in public housing in the downtown area.
• Crosslinks Seniors Housing and Support Services - supporting seniors living in public housing in the Jane and Finch area.

Seniors’ Welcome Home Program

Aging at home – it’s what we all want! And research continues to show that staying out of institutions keeps us happier and healthier. But what happens if you don’t have a home, especially if you have to be hospitalized?

This program assists seniors who were either homeless before hospitalization or lost their housing while in hospital. Some are even ineligible for nursing homes because of their mental health or addiction challenges, and those waiting lists are already too long as it is.

Not able to live on their own, with no resources and no one to help them, they are “trapped”, occupying psychiatric, chronic and acute care beds that are desperately needed for other purposes.

By providing furnished, transitional housing and a very high level of comprehensive support, we make it possible for people to regain their self-confidence, independence and, most importantly, their dignity. And when they are ready, we help them find a permanent apartment of their own and provide the support they need to live there safely.

The goal of our programming is to foster a sense of well-being so that formerly homeless seniors not only have a place to live, they have a home in a “community” that welcomes and supports them.

Funding and Program Partners

Funders:

• The Toronto Central LHIN and the Central LHIN

Partners: 

• Central Community Care Access Centre
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
• Downsview Services to Seniors
• Humber River Regional Hospital
• St. Elizabeth Healthcare
• Toronto Community Housing Corporation

Program Impact

• This program helps over 50 seniors a year to leave hospital and return to life in the community.
• Support services enable them to live safely in their own homes, where research shows that they will remain happier and healthier than in hospital.
• Hospital beds are freed for other uses, without adding to the long waiting lists for nursing homes.
• Both the transitional housing and permanent supportive housing are a fraction of the cost of institutional care.
• A community of mutual support can do more than the most skilled therapists to help an individual regain their self-confidence as a valued member of a welcoming group.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

"Toronto’s has the highest proportion of seniors in the GTA and nearly double the rate of low income seniors in Ontario. Sadly, more seniors are living alone, cut off from family and community.”

“In 2006, 30% of Ontario’s low-income seniors (and 68% of low-income seniors in the GTA) were living in Toronto. Low-income rates for Toronto seniors were nearly double the Ontario rate.”

“The clear link between low income and poor health outcomes underscores inequality in the City of Toronto.”

(Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009)

Participant Vignette

"I suffer from bipolar, depression and dementia. I was brought to the hospital because of my frequent falls, and this is due to my heavy drinking.  I started drinking about 10 years ago. I would lock myself up in the garage, fill my fridge with beers, and all I would do is drink all day. I basically lived in the garage for years. I have a daughter; me and her, we do not get along. My marriage broke down, everything about me changed, and this was all to my drinking habits....[I was in the hospital for a long time. I didn’t have any place else to go.]

I was so happy when they told me I could go to Crosslinks Seniors because I didn’t want to be in the hospital any more, I want to go and live in my own place. …. Now, I am in my new place, and I really love it. I can make my own coffee (I love coffee, I drink about 10 cups a day).

I am still working on my drinking .... problem; I am very happy with Crosslinks. I find the services here are very helpful and I am thankful for my caseworker, who is helping me out a great deal. I believe that [this is] a great idea to help people transition into positive way of living."

~Charles

HIV/AIDS Homeless Intervention Project

Among the long-term homeless are a group of men and women living with the “triple threat” of mental illness, addiction and HIV/AIDS. On the road to recovery, their challenges are huge. If they lose control of any one issue, the other two go off the rails as well, so they exist in a cycle of mental or physical health crises leading to hospitalization, where they stabilize and their health improves until discharge, when they end up back on the street until the next crisis. Their period of stability never lasts long enough for them to get into housing.

This program is breaking the cycle by providing intensive case management from hospital to housing – usually a period of 3 to 4 weeks spent in the shelter system – and continuing once in housing until they are stable enough to be successful. It involves 5-6 hours a week per person initially, tapering to 2-3 hours a week, compared to the usual 1 hour every 1-2 weeks.

Frequent, consistent contact helps clients feel like they matter, that someone cares what happens to them, and that positive change is possible. We support this process by coordinating a network including the twelve other AIDS-serving organizations with which our clients interact. 

Funding and Program Partners

Initial pilot project funding was provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada.  Although PHAC considered the pilot highly successful, their funding has ended and funding is currently provided entirely by LOFT donors.

A network of AIDS-serving organizations provide regular communication, referrals, advice and support:

• 2 Spirited People of the 1^st Nations
• Casey House
• Fife House
• Fred Victor Centre
• Prisoner’s HIV/AIDS Support Action Network (PASAN)
• Seaton House Shelter Infirmary Program
• Sherbourne Health Centre, Infirmary Program
• St. Michael’s Hospital HIV/AIDS Psychiatry
• St. Michael’s Hospital Positive Care Clinic
• The 519 Church Street Community Centre Trans Program
• The HIV/AIDS Network
• Toronto People with AIDS Foundation

Program Impact

This program literally saves the lives of highly marginalized men and women, otherwise living in extraordinarily difficult and dangerous circumstances.

In the first eight months of full operation, the project accepted forty-four clients, 29 of whom are now in permanent housing and 12 are receiving intensive case management support while they await housing.

It provides vastly improved quality of life for individuals whom society generally considers “write-offs”. Many of the earliest clients have now been housed for the longest continuous period in their adult lives.

It directly benefits the tax payer through reduced need for hospitalizations and emergency response, and reduced burden on the criminal justice and shelter systems.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Getting off the street into housing improves the quality of life of the homeless and proves to be less costly for the City.”

(Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009)

Participant Vignette

"It started when I was around four.  My father wasn’t too bad with the others but he seemed to take it out on me.

We didn’t see my mother much  She toured with a country and western singer. I remember she came home one time at Christmas. 

The last time I saw my father I was around four and a half.  I got my younger brother and sister out.  The house was burning.  I never laid eyes on my father after that night.  

I was in 32 foster homes and 15 group homes.  One place I had to do physical labour all day every day, stacking up pieces of wood.  That’s where I got my physical strength. 

My emotional strength – I don’t know.

I took a lot of beatings.  I tried to kill myself at 16 – and again at 17.  I’ve had a lot of physical and emotional damage.

I think I have post-traumatic stress.

I was an addict for a long time – I am an addict, but I’m a clean addict.

I’ve done jail time…a few times.  I’ve been places….I’ve done things.  Sometimes I’ve felt rage.  

I have an apartment now and I love it!  The people at [LOFT] are very good at finding the right people to connect with and get services.  Basically, they refused to give up on me. 

It’s just been a couple of months, but I’ve come a long way already."

~Timothy