Sanctuary isn’t your typical homeless drop-in or out-of-the-cold shelter.  It’s a vibrant community of people, some of whom lack housing or employment, or who struggle with addictions.  While medical care is readily available in Toronto, those who live on the streets suffer disproportionately and often resist official health care available in hospitals or clinics.

Ontario’s Ministry of Health provides funding for two RNs to offer part-time frontline services at Sanctuary.  This Stronger Together grant is supplementing their support with a Nurse Practitioner.  With our private funding, all three staff are able to spend more time with clients and call them by name, not a number.

Measurable Outcomes:

1. Increase the number of patient visits in our health clinic by 67%, from about 900 in 2014 to 1500 in 2015.
2. Have members of our nursing team accompany our friends to medical appointments and visit them in the hospital on a regular basis. While we have not counted this in the past, we anticipate being able to participate in 4-8 such encounters per month for a total of 50-100 such visits in 2015.
3. Improve the level of care that we provide in our drop-in setting by a) providing health care at one more drop-in time each week and b) consistently having a nurse present in the drop-in space so that they can triage patients, seeing our friends more quickly and prioritizing them more intelligently than we are currently able.