Leveraging Partnerships and Engaging Tenants in the Creation of Wellness Centres Within Toronto Community Housing Buildings in Ontario, Canada

Background: This presentation highlights a joint partnership between the West Toronto Ontario Health Team and Toronto Community Housing Corporation in creating an integrated care model. Through this partnership and ongoing tenant engagement , iHelp Health & Wellness Centres were established within two TCHC buildings in West Toronto – offering personalized care plans, multilingual support and social connectedness.

Approach: This project demonstrates the value of unique partnerships between social housing providers, social services and primary care. Our partnership process was facilitated through the structure of the West Toronto OHT where 38 health and social service providers actively work to integrate the health system to improve population health outcomes.

A tenant engagement strategy was created using anti-oppressive approach to ensure tenant voices drove the early vision. The initial focus began with establishing relationships and a familiar presence in an environment where there was historical mistrust, and by relying heavily on the expertise of Community Service Workers and tenant leaders in both buildings. Major tenant concerns were identified, categorized into themes and triangulated through feedback sessions. The needs identified through this strategy, coupled with population health indicators, were then used to complete an asset mapping exercise matching services to where the need was greatest.

Results: Findings from tenant engagements efforts were shared back with OHT partners to map identified needs to services. Through this engagement, needs that were not evident in population health indicators were uncovered and included in overall service design. Following a series of sudden losses related to substance use and violence, community members identified the need for grief and bereavement supports resulting in the placement of on-site support from a local West Toronto hospice. Further engagement identified the need for primary care access and attachment as attachment rates in the target communities were as many at 18% points lower than the regional average. This accelerated the West Toronto OHT’s investment in hiring a full-time Nurse Practitioner offering local and longitudinal primary care. As a result of thorough engagement and asset mapping, the iHelp Centres have seen rapid adoption from the time of launch with 24 personalized care plans in the first two months of operation (August – September 2024) and another 82 unique client visits in October 2024.

Implications: Feedback from service providing organizations underscored the value of tackling a shared challenge that matters. Before any service model was designed, every participating organization understood the mission to improve population health outcomes in high priority neighbourhoods in West Toronto. With that clarity of focus and the specific needs identified by tenants, the development and implementation of the iHelp Centre model was made simple.

As we are in our early years of relationship building, there is more work to be done in creating structural changes to engage tenants in future co-creation. More details are to come as we are currently engaging new tenant leaders to drive the direction of new centres in Spring 2025, and in defining outcome measures that reflect how they conceptualize success and wellness.