The most effective emergency room intervention Toronto has tried in years did not happen in an emergency room. It happened in a modular building on a former hospital parking lot in Parkdale, and the results are now paying for four more buildings.
The bottom line. Dunn House Toronto opened in 2024 with 51 permanent apartments for people who had been chronically homeless and were using University Health Network emergency departments at extraordinary rates. A year of data showed emergency visits down 52 percent and hospital stays down 79 percent, and in October, three levels of government and the hospital announced an expansion to roughly 300 homes.
Key takeaways
Among 48 Dunn House residents, emergency room visits dropped 52 percent in the year after they moved in, and length of hospital stay dropped 79 percent.
Those 48 patients accounted for $2.1 million in hospital costs in the 12 months before moving in. In the year after, the hospital saved $1.66 million.
The homes are permanent, so residents keep them when their health improves.
The first of three new sites adds about 80 supportive homes near Toronto Western Hospital, funded by more than $25 million federally, $20 million from the UHN Foundation and more than $19 million proposed by the City.
What is Dunn House, and why is the Dunn House expansion happening now?
Dunn House is Canada's first hospital-led supportive housing project, providing permanent homes to 51 people who had been cycling through UHN emergency departments, connecting them on site with doctors, nurses and social supports.
One year of outcome data is driving the Dunn House expansion. Preliminary numbers shared with The Canadian Press show 48 residents visiting emergency rooms 52 percent fewer times after moving in, with stays 79 percent shorter when they were admitted. The money moved the same way, from $2.1 million in hospital costs for those patients in the 12 months before to $1.66 million saved in the year after.
Why does social medicine housing work when temporary programs do not?
The permanence is the design. Residents keep their homes when their health improves, which removes the revolving door that undermines programs built around time-limited stays. Social medicine housing treats housing instability, food insecurity and lack of support as medical problems, so the building holds the care instead of referring people out to find it, on the same premise as the research on what isolation does to physical health.
Dr. Andrew Boozary, executive director of UHN's Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine, put the stakes bluntly to The Canadian Press, citing data showing chronically unhoused people live roughly half as long as the general public, and an average life expectancy of 42 for a chronically unhoused woman in Toronto. He called that a moral failure and said it is not sensationalist to treat this work as a matter of life and death.
How does this change emergency room wait times in Canada for everyone else?
If you have ever spent six hours in a Canadian waiting room, this story is about you too. A small number of patients with complex needs account for an outsized share of emergency visits and hospital days, so halving those visits hands capacity back to everyone else in the queue. Several pressures shape emergency room wait times in Canada, including the staffing crisis pushing physicians out of emergency departments and the shortage of family doctors sending people to the ER by default. No single program fixes the number on the board, and what makes this one worth watching from outside Ontario is that UHN is measuring it, in the same way hospitals now measure how long patients wait for a psychiatric bed and how long a referral to a specialist actually takes. The bottleneck is rarely where the lineup forms.
Who is paying for this hospital-led supportive housing?
The expansion of Dunn House Toronto is a three-government partnership alongside the hospital. The first of three new sites, near Toronto Western Hospital, will provide about 80 deeply affordable supportive homes, with more than $25 million from the federal government through Build Canada Homes, $20 million from the UHN Foundation, and more than $19 million in funding and incentives proposed by the City of Toronto, subject to council approval. CreateTO is still finding locations for the other two.
Mayor Olivia Chow said the model is working and is helping people stay out of the emergency room, and federal Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson said the investment targets the people with the greatest needs. Counting Spring House, the 54-unit seniors building expected to break ground late this year, the finished total lands near 300 homes.
Frequently asked questions
What is Dunn House in Toronto?
Dunn House Toronto is Canada's first hospital-led supportive housing project, opened in 2024 on University Health Network land in Parkdale. It provides 51 permanent apartments, plus on-site health and social support, to people who were chronically homeless and frequently using UHN emergency departments.
How much did emergency room visits actually drop?
Among 48 residents tracked for a year after moving in, emergency department visits fell 52 percent and length of hospital stay fell 79 percent. Those patients had accounted for $2.1 million in hospital costs in the preceding 12 months, and the hospital saved $1.66 million in the year that followed.
Should I go to the ER or a walk-in clinic?
Emergencies belong in the emergency department, and anything involving chest pain, difficulty breathing, stroke symptoms or serious injury means calling 911. For problems that are not urgent, a hospital-led supportive housing or your province's 811 nurse line will usually get you an answer faster.
Your next step
Pressure on emergency departments is a shared problem, and where you seek care matters. Medimap shows you real-time wait times at walk-in clinics near you, so the emergency room can stay in your back pocket for the days you truly need it. For more on how the Canadian system is changing, the Medimap Health Hub follows these stories as they develop.
This article is general information and is not medical advice, a diagnosis or a treatment plan. If you have an emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department. For anything else, speak with a doctor, nurse practitioner or pharmacist who knows your health history.
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