ER doctors honour old hospital's legacy with $100K affordable housing gift

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Looking to honour the legacy of emergency medicine in London, as well as the patients they serve, emergency room doctors are donating $100,000 to a supportive housing initiative in the city.

Indwell received the funding from the 75-member group London Emergency Medicine Associates, made up of ER doctors, for the housing agency to build deeply affordable homes on the site of the former South Street hospital.

For Bill McCauley, an emergency room physician who organized the donation, it was a chance to honour the legacy of emergency work at South Street, while caring for residents for many of whom they provide care.

“There are lot of doctors in London who worked there, did their training there and whenever you think of where you learned your trade, that is a positive feeling,” McCauley said.

“That was the home base for training for emergency medicine. It was always busy, acute care. Emergency medicine as a specialty in Canada came about in part because of the efforts of the docs who worked there.”

Six housing authorities have come together under the banner of Vision SoHo Alliance to build about 600 units on the site of the former South Street hospital in the South and Hill streets area, once home to that busy emergency department. About 400 of those units will be affordable. Indwell is one of those partners and will build 130 deeply affordable units, where rent will be about $550 a month.

“It was a dirty, old, grimy hospital that was as efficient as they come. It ran like a clock. If you were sick or injured, that was the place to be,” said McCauley, of the South Street emergency department.

When he approached the doctors’ group, “they were overwhelmingly supportive. One of the things we are keen on is we hope this motivates other physicians to do something similar. Not just Indwell, but for the public they serve,” he said.

Indwell operates supportive housing, meaning its residences have a social worker, nursing staff, addiction worker and a food security staffer on site to work with residents, who pay rent geared to income, said Sylvia Harris, development manager at Indwell and chairperson of Vision SoHo Alliance.

“This is great. We know that emergency doctors and nurses are on the front lines dealing with people struggling with mental health and homelessness. They (Indwell residents) use ER to get help,” she said.

Indwell is researching the impact of its work and early results suggest hospital visits and police calls have been reduced for Indwell residents, Harris said.

“We are starting to track data on emergency department usage. We know they use those services more, we are seeing demand for those services significantly decline within years of living in stable, affordable housing,” she said.

“Police and emergency use cost us more as taxpayers. It is a great investment.”

Indwell has one residence in London, Woodfield Gate on Dundas Street downtown with 67 residents. It is building its second, Embassy Commons, that will be home to 72 people.

“The work Indwell does supports the community of patients we look after. We look after people who are homeless, a lot of patients like that. That was appealing to us,” McCauley said.

“Physicians, in general, tend to be generous on an individual basis. We support a lot of causes from the arts to hospital systems, but it is unusual to make a group donation.”

LHSC’s South Street hospital closed in January 2013 and the main building was demolished in 2015. Indwell will build units in two buildings: the former health services building, where doctors were taught, and the former Children’s War Memorial hospital building.

Vision SoHo Alliance encompasses a nearly two hectare parcel of land bound by Colborne, Waterloo, South and Hill streets. The alliance was put together by the London Community Foundation and, along with Indwell, includes Zerin Development Corp., Homes United, Chelsea Green Home Society, London Affordable Housing Foundation and the Italian Seniors Project.

As for the South Street site, in addition to the SoHo Vision Alliance, a private builder, Medallion, is building two residential towers of 19 and 23 storeys, with more than 600 units.