The number of people waiting for supportive housing in Toronto has long outpaced supply, with thousands of individuals and families unable to access the help they need. The Growth Plan advances new, more collaborative ways for the sector to work together to build capacity for expansion and development and help achieve the City of Toronto’s target of growing Toronto’s supportive housing supply by a minimum of 18,000 homes by 2030.
The Growth Plan is a comprehensive strategy, with year-by-year actions to grow the supply of housing with supports, improve access to supportive housing, and enhance care for supportive housing clients. This initiative is the result of a sector-wide, collaborative effort, developed through a multi-pronged approach to build evidence-informed consensus. Research components included an Asset Inventory, quantifying, for the first time, what assets currently exist in the supportive housing sector, including physical stock, land, and rent supplements, and how these could be leveraged towards new supply to minimize the need for additional investment.
Wellesley Institute led the work on the Needs Assessment and the Funding Analysis. The Needs Assessment aimed to develop a more detailed understanding of need, including both the range and typology of housing and supports required, to ensure the Growth Plan’s solutions match real needs. The Funding Analysis analyzes the range of existing government funding applicable to supportive housing to help advise government on how funding can be applied in more strategic ways, and where new funding can be targeted to fill the gap.