Toronto group home operator fears being unable to comply with city rules without more funding
An operator of unlicensed group homes that cater to vulnerable residents in Toronto says she can’t comply with new city rules regulating rooming houses without additional funding.
The city defines a rooming house as a building where four or more rooms are rented out to separate people. That’s what Simone Sewell does at three homes in the Malvern and Morningside neighbourhoods of Scarborough, where she provides care for around 30 people with mental and physical health challenges.
The homes, which have operated without provincial or municipal approval for years, now have a pathway to becoming legal under a new regime that came into effect in Toronto on March 31.
Sewell says she wants to get a licence, but she said the requirements are too burdensome for her to meet on a shoestring budget.
“We all want to comply but we’re just going to need the funding, you know, to be able to,” Sewell said.
“The mandate is just so high. Like, we’re automatically in violation because we cannot afford extra staffing.”
The tension highlights one of the challenges the city will face over the next year as it seeks to bring an unknown number of homes that have been operating in the shadows — some like Sewell’s, which offer services that may fall under the province’s jurisdiction — into compliance.
The city said while it’s in charge of making sure rooming houses are operating above board, any health-care services provided at group homes are regulated by the province. CBC Toronto has reached out to the Ministry of Health and Health Minister Sylvia Jones’s office for comment.
“There’s a different set of rules for them and it’s governed under provincial legislation,” said Carleton Grant, executive director of municipal licensing and standards at the city.
“Our objective is to ensure that the tenants living in these homes are living there safely.”
Personal care licenses have extra requirements
For years, city staff reports have said unlicensed rooming houses can lead to unsafe living conditions for tenants and community safety concerns.
That’s why in December 2022, city council adopted a plan to make the multi-unit dwellings legal in every part of the city, where previously they’d only been permitted in the old city of Toronto, East York and York.
Operators can now apply for two types of licenses: one for homes where residents live independently, and another for those where meals and other services are provided for the personal care and health of the residents.
After decades in the shadows of an expensive city, Toronto’s rooming houses are getting new regulations aimed at making them safer and less prone to abuse.
All operators are required to have building permits and zoning approval, a property maintenance plan and a process for tenants to request service. Personal care rooming house operators will have to meet additional requirements, including developing a tenant needs assessment, personal care plan and nutritional meal plans for each resident.
Violations of the bylaw could result in fines of up to $100,000.
Currently, most residents pay Sewell rent with their disability cheques or monthly pension payment, and Sewell hires support workers or recruits volunteers to help with daily tasks.
Sewell said meeting the requirements of the personal care license would require her to hire outside companies or more staff. But that’s something she says she can’t afford.
“Without adequate financial assistance … the viability of these essential facilities is at risk,” Sewell wrote in a letter she sent to Scarborough councillors, MPPs and Premier Doug Ford.
With each resident paying $36.66 per day, she said each home operates on a monthly budget of approximately $11,000 to cover staffing, meals, housekeeping, furnishing, toiletries and medicine administration.
Sewell said she fears the rules will force her and other landlords to keep their houses out of the regime or, in a worst-case scenario, to be shut down.
“If I am going to be closed or not able to operate … these people most likely are going to end up on the street,” she said.
Resident, doctor say homes fill gap in health system
Kris Gokool said he’s lived a “very comfortable” life at one of Sewell’s homes for the past four years. He said he wouldn’t have anywhere else to go if he had to move.
“A lot of homes do not feed you, they just want money and you have to find your own food,” Gokool said.
“Here, they feed you and it’s comfortable.”
CBC Toronto spoke to healthcare professionals, including a family doctor and a pharmacist, who work with Sewell’s residents. They praised her work for filling a gap in the healthcare system by providing people with mental health challenges an affordable place to live with around-the-clock support.
“A lot of them either have a psychiatric disorder or they have dementia or, you know, just poor cognition where they need help with medication administration,” said Dr. Pranay Chander, a Brampton-based family doctor who treats several patients who live at Sewell’s homes.
“The support worker that’s over there helps them administer their medications and really helps them with their activities of daily living. They probably would not be able to do that on their own.”
City to work with operators, but won’t fund operations
Grant said city staff will work with operators over the next 12 months to bring them into compliance in a “supportive” way without “heavy-handed enforcement.”
There are no specific requirement that operators hire professional staff, Grant said, but operators need to show that they’ve done the “necessary research and engage the necessary people” when developing the required plans.
“These are not meant to be over-restrictive, cost-prohibitive,” Grant said. “These are meant to be important supports for the tenants.”
Grant said the city’s housing secretariat has a fund which will help with renovations, but there is no operational funding available.
Coun. Gord Perks, who chairs the city’s housing committee, said it’s the province’s responsibility to step in by increasing disability payments or directly funding personal support workers in homes like Sewell’s.
“We’re being really generous in having a slow implementation, giving people time, giving them help to navigate the rules and helping them with any retrofits they have to do,” Perks said.
“What we can’t do is take over the province’s responsibility to provide healthcare to Toronto.”
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