New facility to house asylum seekers in Toronto with mental health services on site

A new facility designed to house and support refugees and asylum seekers in Toronto is set to open next month with a focus on addressing mental health issues.

The Canadian Mental Health Association said Carlton House will accommodate up to 25 adults for six months to a year and provide them with help to find jobs and permanent housing.

The CEO of the association's Toronto branch, Michael Anhorn, said the two-floor, 11-bedroom facility will open in early May for clients who are already in the city's homeless shelter system.

It is a small step. The association said the City of Toronto is housing more than 10,000 people in shelters and hotels, and 47 per cent of them are asylum seekers.

Anhorn said association staff saw a need for a new kind of housing facility after they volunteered to provide mental health support to refugees and asylum seekers housed in churches in north Toronto.

"What we know [about] refugees to Canada is they're leaving their country usually because of some traumatic events, almost always because of traumatic events," he said.

"So they do have mental health challenges and concerns."

Carlton House will help connect the newcomers to primary care and social supports, Anhorn said, and a mental health specialist will provide services on site, helping newcomers to "plan what goals they want to reach."

Staff offered a tour of the building in the east part of Toronto's downtown on Thursday morning.

The bathrooms and kitchen were fully renovated, with kitchen cabinets full of canned food and plastic containers of rice and other staples.

Bedrooms were furnished with one to three single beds, along with wall-mounted lockable cabinets and side tables. On each bed, covered with blue sheets, was a set of towels and a bag of personal cleaning supplies.

"We've tried to keep this space as un-institutional as possible, as homelike as possible, so that people do feel that this is their home, while they're here," Anhorn said.

Anhorn said staff will help clients find housing and employment and will help them build positive peer support networks.

"We'll have clinicians on site, who can provide clinical mental health supports. We'll also have support for people's social needs."

Michelle Rehder, the association's clinical chief officer, described the house as a "transitional supportive housing space."

She added: "We're really hoping to have a community feel here in the house."

'People can recover, heal, have a safe place'

Maria Boada, the association's director of intensive community support services, said the project aims to provide a welcoming space that can help people get on their feet.

"When we came across this home, we really thought, we want to create a space where people can come and really take a deep breath in, and really provide some support that wraps around the individual, looks at what are the needs," Boada said.

"When we intervene early, people are able to move on with their lives, rebuild their lives," she added.

For those who need it, referral for psychiatric care will be available, she said.

"People can recover, heal, have a safe place," she said, where they feel a sense of belonging. This allows them to start thinking about their broader goals, she said.

The City of Toronto is the main source of funding for the new facility but Anhorn said Carlton House is looking to partner with other organizations that help newcomers.

"We'll be reaching out to all the other services providers in the area, to build partnerships so that our clients here can gain access to primary care, to food banks for food security purposes, to social recreational opportunities," he said.

"Anything and everything they need, we'll be building partnerships."