Seniors hubs

You need the sleuthing skills of Sherlock Holmes and the patience of Job to track down senior services in Toronto. You may find one agency for healthcare, another for housing support, another for assisted transportation. One neighbourhood may provide most services in one or two agencies, while another may not offer anything at all. With no centralized planning, no formal network, service delivery to seniors seems fragmented, quirky, and arbitrary. Senior centres try to integrate services, but they differ widely in their scope and depth of programming. For example, of the 35 senior centres listed in Senior Toronto, only 12 offer home maintenance support, and only 15 offer telephone reassurance or friendly home visits. You have to be lucky enough to live in the catchment area of a senior centre with a broad range of services.

When Toronto started opening community hubs, it looked promising. The idea of a community hub is great: a one-stop shop for a variety of services. Over the past five years or so, Toronto has created seven community hubs: local infrastructure that brings targeted health services and social programs, and essential mixed-use community space, all under one roof, tailored to the local community. So how well do the community hubs serve seniors? According to the City of Toronto's website, of the seven community hubs, the only ones that mention services for seniors are Bathurst-Finch (seniors and youth programming, no details), and Victoria Park (nutrition program, stretching class, emergency home maintenance). Surely Toronto can do better than that.

The South Vancouver community has come up with an innovative alternative: a seniors hub. It's not a physical place, but a collaborative community, run by seniors, partnering with various organizations to form an integrated network that addresses issues and needs for older adults living in their community. The goal is to support the independence and active participation of older adults in community life. The hub organizes health and wellness activities, holds information sessions on issues affecting seniors, identifies assets and gaps in services, and produces a newsletter. Through the hub, community service partners hold interagency meetings for collaborative planning. This innovative, grassroots, collaborative approach is well worth replicating in other communities. Here in Toronto, it could address our issues of fragmentation and scattershot planning. Best of all, it would harness the knowledge, experience and leadership skills of seniors - a woefully underused resource.

To encourage other communities to follow this approach, the South Vancouver Seniors Hub has developed a comprehensive toolkit called Guide to Developing Community Hubs with Seniors. It's worth a read and a ponder. Check it out at the South Vancouver Seniors Hub website.