Hope House gives Toronto women a path out of homelessness, but city lags on targets

Magret Gumoshabe spent two years bouncing between Toronto's shelters before Hope House gave her something she hadn't felt since moving from Uganda: peace of mind. "Living here, the experience is that this is finally a home," she said.

Hope House, a rent-geared-to-income residence on Augusta Avenue in downtown Toronto, officially opened one year ago. Run by St. Felix Centre, it offers 31 fully furnished suites alongside meals, health-care support, counselling, and professional development services. The residence is dedicated to women and children experiencing housing instability and domestic violence.

Executive director Brian Harris says many residents arrived from shelters and encampments, some fleeing abuse. Seven children live in the building. "In that year, we've seen amazing transformations," Harris said. For some women, having a safe place to give birth and raise a child has been life-changing.

Harris notes the project took about two years from demolition to first move-in, backed by all three levels of government. "When there is the political will and when there are resources made available, we can really build supportive and affordable housing really quickly," he said.

The original Hope House operated as an emergency shelter. When St. Felix Centre rebuilt the site, it relocated those shelter beds to a facility at Bathurst and Adelaide so no beds were lost from the system. Sarah Blackstock, director of tenant access and support with Toronto's Housing Secretariat, says the city needs both emergency beds and long-term housing. "Homelessness is a very significant crisis in Toronto and across the country," she said. "We need shelter beds, but we also need to have places for people to go to leave the shelter."

Toronto is working toward approving 18,000 new supportive homes by 2030. As of now, the city has completed about 1,300 supportive housing units within the last six years and hit about 2,000 since 2020. "We're not getting there fast enough, but we know how to get there," Blackstock said.