Breaking Ground: Peer Support for Congregate Living Settings

This community based research project began as a simple enquiry into the nature of peer delivered housing support, in the hopes of designing an ideal model for a supportive housing project which is currently under construction in Parkdale, Toronto. Edmond Place is the Parkdale Activity‐Recreation Centre’s prodigious enterprise which will provide 29 furnished units in a beautifully renovated historic building – the same neglected edifice that at one time housed more than 50 psychiatric survivors before it closed due to fire. Edmond Place will be funded and monitored by Habitat Services as the newest addition to its boarding home portfolio. The Edmond Place project galvanized community support; initially blocked by neighbours, the project now includes members of the drop in, the wider social services network, and local residents in its planning and design committees. It is only fitting that future supports for Edmond Place tenants be as invested in the community, and that the mechanism to devise said supports be transparent, collaborative, and accountable to the people who stand to benefit most – future tenants, staff, neighbours and like‐minded community mental health organizations, who can all learn from PARC’s momentous undertaking.

Publication Date: 
2010