Project lead: Research institution

• Local authorities
• Volunteers

How collaboration worked: For the Toronto HomeShare Project, collaboration, community engagement and co-creation of priorities and recommendations initially led to the focus on housing and homeshare. The stimulus to develop the Toronto HomeShare Pilot Project was the result of the Toronto Seniors Strategy Version 2.0, which was unanimously adopted by Council in May 2018. Recommendation 11 states, “The City of Toronto will seek funding from the Seniors Community Grant Program under the Ministry of Seniors Affairs to pilot a HomeShare program in Toronto to connect over-housed seniors with graduate students and others.” The process to develop the recommendations in Version 2.0 was the result of an extensive and inclusive engagement process that reached 3,000 seniors and caregivers through community consultation sessions and another 7,000 through a survey. The development of the Version 2.0 recommendations was also based on the work of the Toronto Seniors Strategy Accountability Table – this is the group responsible for its development, implementation and evaluation. City of Toronto staff worked closely with community stakeholders to co-create Version 2.0. These stakeholders include: • Seniors and caregivers • Equity, Advocacy and Diversity Organizations • Community Agencies serving seniors • Hospitals and Long-Term Care Homes • Federal, provincial and international partners • Academic and Research Institutes • Community funders • School Boards • Local Businesses Building on this momentum, this collaboration between governments at the municipal and provincial level, with academic partners, not-for-profit organizations and industry partners, led to the successful development and implementation of the Age-friendly practice of HomeShare in Toronto in 2018. The pilot program is funded by the Government of Ontario, Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility under a one-time, six month grant – the Seniors Community Grant Program. Collaboration led to the successful achievement of goals and is highlighted by the network of 20+ organizations that have partnered to make the project effective. Moving forward, the collaborative partnerships will foster new knowledge and knowledge exchange, and to build understanding together about how to reach Age-friendly goals, an aim consistent with the WHO’s important role in connecting to global experts and cataloging best practices across disciplines, sectors and industries.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Details on older people’s involvement: Older adults are important members of the Toronto Seniors Strategy, and the associated Accountability Table, from which the recommendation for HomeShare was advanced. In addition, older adults were active members of the advisory committee for this project, and the Toronto HomeShare Pilot Project is such that requires older adult participation as they make up half of the 24 participants in the HomeShare matches. Participatory design is at the heart of every stage of the project. Seniors are the

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Please share with us what you found in detail:
Yes– what is clear is that strengthening the housing resolve of communities, through innovative Age-friendly practices such as HomeShare may help support transitions across the life course, and allow individuals to effectively age-in-place. Given the success of the Toronto HomeShare Pilot Project as an Age-friendly practice and again positioning housing as a priority issue, the goal is to replicate the model that has been developed in Toronto and to expand the program nationally across Canada, and internationally not only as an in-person service model, but also one that is based on a web-based technology platform. The demographic milestones that cities in developed nations have achieved and with the dearth of alternative housing options that continue to exist in this area, the focus of proposed future projects will be on building on the current model as a platform for making communities and Canadian society more ‘Age-friendly’, to provide a portal for learning about and responding to life transitions with the two-fold goal of improving older adults’ housing situation, and addressing the recommendations and priority areas outlined as part of the WHO’s Age-friendly strategy.

Feedback:
The evaluation of this Age-friendly best practice, one of the first of its kind, through a needs assessment, preliminary semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and surveys, has yielded very positive feedback. Most participants expressed comfort in participating in the project because it was fully supported by the City of Toronto, and that risk and security issues were mitigated by the project being facilitated by a social worker. In reviewing participant responses, both older adults and students, expressed a sense of enjoying the homes they were living in more as the relationship between generations further developed, and having another person with whom to share day-to-day experiences was also seen as very important. In addition, older adults gained financial security through additional income, an opportunity for reciprocal social support, and reported greater sense of life purpose.

Reflections:
Although this project has received tremendous support and media attention, and has pioneered a methodology for successfully implementing HomeShare through an action plan in Toronto that takes into account the diverse perspectives of stakeholders (e.g. seniors and their families, community organizations, municipal government, etc.), upon reflection there are some areas to revisit with greater attention for future projects. First, there was a very short timeline for the project of four months from design, development to implementation that was tied to funding. Future versions of this program will require six months (at minimum) to start before implementation in order to tailor the program to local needs and resources, and to develop a base of older adults who are interested in sharing their home and students who are looking to engage in an intergenerational HomeShare agreement. In addition, an extended timeline would allow older adults who might be at risk of isolation and might be in the active or passive process of ‘dis-engaging’ from the community to be targeted. Furthermore, future iterations of the program might have an aim of engaging with the most vulnerable of older adults (especially those already isolated), and a way to ‘automate’ or ‘digitize’ the initial matching process – which would save time in the initial matching stage and would provide the older adult with some options from a larger pool of students who would be suitable to live in their home with them.

Challenges:
One challenged faced is ensuring the students have appropriate housing at the end of the agreement, and ensuring there is enough time built into the agreement if terminating the Homeshare agreement. We have modified our Matching Agreement to ensure that both parties agree to a 30-day notice of termination, stating a fee equivalent to one month’s rent if the required notice is not given. Another challenge we’ve faced in this program is around facilitating engagement opportunities for homeowners and students to ‘network’ on a regular basis. We have therefore created monthly group activities that are facilitated by Homeshare Program Staff. It has also been challenging to recruit socially isolated older adults, who are one of the vulnerable populations this program tries to reach, as we believe they would benefit most. However, the problem of social isolation inherently means they are tough to reach. We have worked to solve this problem by collaborating with practitioners who work at community agencies that often interact with vulnerable seniors so that they know our program is a potential resource for appropriate clients who may benefit from increased social engagement.