Housing Quarterly
Our ‘Housing Quarterly’ contains information about PARC and specifically, our housing strategy and portfolio. Understanding that the past few years have been challenging for everyone, our goal is to foster better communication with all of our neighbours and encourage dialogue/shared learning for any questions or concerns that arise.
August 2023
Housing remains a crisis, especially for affordable, supportive housing and we continue to receive increasing requests for PARC housing. There are over 23,000 people on the supportive housing wait list to access 7,000 units. Our shelters are beyond capacity, parks are not a permanent housing solution, nor is having Toronto Police Services respond to homelessness. Housing is a human right and people with disabilities deserve more – as we stated in this blog post around the recent mayoral election.
As one of over 30 organizations that provide deeply affordable, supportive housing across the city, we are committed to the work and advocacy to increase supporting housing units. The city has identified the need for at least 18,000 units over the next 10 years, yet funding is incredibly lacking by all levels of government. We need better collaboration and support in order to get people housed and have a home.
We hope you will continue to reach out with any questions or suggestions so we can work together to get our community homes and supports they need.
Parc Supportive Housing Updates
Our housing and property maintenance teams continue to work towards improving the homes and the tenant experience in PARC housing. We continue to face delays in getting some of the priority repairs completed, due to contractor shortages and availability of materials. But we are hopeful that these barriers (resulting out of the COVID-19 pandemic and/or funding) will be less of a challenge in the coming months.
We are currently undertaking a portfolio review of PARC housing to assess the full funding needed for immediate and long-term repairs, and a vision for improvements to the buildings, which had been in different stages of neglect before they were acquired.
Major capital improvements include fire safety and electrical, windows, masonry – very common with the acquisition of heritage buildings which were the only viable options available to keep housing stock deeply affordable and out of private ownership.
In July, the housing team met with PARC tenants to discuss the updates and improvements in the works for indoor and outdoor spaces. PARC’s Tenant Advisory Committee launches in October to further involve tenants in the planning and decision-making of housing supports and fostering community.
2023-2027 Strategic Plan Priority: Strengthen Supportive Housing
Providing affordable housing solutions for the most vulnerable in our city remains a part of our mission and, a key priority.
Our new five-year plan includes specific objectives and actions in development or will be developed over the next five years for PARC housing as we continue to deliver on our mission to provide a home with supports to the growing number of people coming to PARC.
Connecting in community
Through our monthly e-newsletter, we reached out to the Parkdale community for volunteer landscape/design support to advise on options for some of our outdoor spaces – and have connected with a local resident who will help us with some planning.
We also received a recent donation of refridgerators – a much needed ‘basic’ for units.
We are grateful to those who expressed interest in helping support improvements for our tenants!
Information and feedback
We engage with our community in many ways, if you would like to receive more information or send us email, we have the following options:
We update our website (parc.on.ca) on a regular basis and each ‘Quarterly’ will be available at:
https://parc.on.ca/parc-housing
You can subscribe to our monthly E-newsletter with news, events and updates from PARC at:
https://parc.on.ca/our-community/parc-e-news
Questions or comments, please email info@parc.on.ca – this inbox is monitored regularly.