Wellesley Institute

Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

Home Publications Building on Collaboration: Learnings from Toronto’s Supportive Housing System

Alissa Klingbaum

Building on Collaboration: Learnings from Toronto’s Supportive Housing System

Mental health supportive housing relies on municipal-health sector collaboration. It straddles the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) mandate of coordinating integrated local health systems and the municipal responsibility for local housing and homelessness initiatives.

In recent years, municipalities and LHINs have initiated collaborative work to address the overlap of their roles in supportive housing. However, the ongoing transformation of Ontario’s health system presents obstacles for sustaining this collaboration. Sector reorganization can cause uncertainty about responsibilities and disruptions to collaborative projects.

This project explores case studies of municipal-health collaboration in supportive housing in Toronto and captures the strengths and challenges experienced by collaborators. Learnings from these case studies can inform supportive housing collaboration under new coordination structures.

Building on Collaboration

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Revised by the Ceremonial Committee at the University of Toronto Office of Indigenous Initiatives in April 2021.