Housing Quarterly 

March 2023

This quarter, we’re sharing some background and updates on our current initiatives as well as our upcoming 2023-2027 Strategic Plan. We hope you will continue to reach out with any questions, concerns or feedback so we can work together to keep our community supported and housed. 

PARC’s housing history in Parkdale 

For the past 70 years, Parkdale was a landing pad for newcomers and other waves of people who were seeking low-cost housing, and during this time there were numerous developments that provided private market affordable housing.  PARC opened its doors at 1499 Queen Street West in 1980 in response to the growing number of people who were de-institutionalized and needed a place to come together for connection and support.  

In the 1990’s homelessness became a visible issue for Toronto, and in 1991, the Ministry of Health assisted PARC with the purchase of 1499 Queen St. West.  In 2000, we began providing places to live by converting the third floor of the main centre into 10 supportive housing units for people with mental health and addictions histories to settle and begin a journey of recovery.  

Over the years of the homelessness and housing crisis, PARC made decisions to acquire buildings that came on the market to keep housing affordable, in the community, and a home for someone.  This often means we acquire buildings in need of significant repair and upgrading to code – but the risk of losing them to private development or waiting for new development is far greater.   

Today PARC has 109 units of supportive housing, 6 units of affordable market housing and manages 36 units of affordable housing for the PNLT.  Yet, in comparison to the need, there is much work to do.  Housing has become such a scarce commodity that every housing provider is experiencing added pressure to do more…often with less. 

The timing of our last four acquisitions was just before or during the early part of the pandemic which meant that our usual ability to plan and execute was severely hampered.   We are now picking up the development planning including significant maintenance and repairs including redesign that addresses accessibility, energy efficiency, security, tenant amenities, building and land use. 

We have also been able to grow our Housing, Clinical Care and Housing supports team.  They work together to provide greater support and response to the needs of PARC tenants. Each building has a direct line to security services who respond to any direct security issues from tenants within the building/property.  

Programs and Services 

On the program side, PARC Supportive Housing is part of a city-wide network of supportive housing agencies that provide support to tenants with mental health and substance use histories.  We also receive referrals from the City of Toronto Coordinated Access system.  We still run our Drop-in including community meal program seven days a week, and various programs and services to support anyone who comes to our doors.  We still have limited capacity due to COVID-19 but hope to return to pre-pandemic service levels this year.   

PARC’s Strategic Plan 2023-2027 

On March 17th, we turned 43 and are as committed to our mission now as when we started.  Our 2023-2027 Strategic Plan will be launching in April. It will list our key strategic priorities and outcomes for the next five years as well as the vision, mission and values that guide our work.  If you like to receive a copy by mail or e-mail, let us know by sending your details to: stratplan@parc.on.ca 

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.