In the wake of a wave of nursing-home closures in Toronto, Mayor Olivia Chow says the province needs to step up to help the city step in to operate more long-term-care beds.
It’s a job Chow says Toronto has the capacity and willingness to do but can’t because it simply doesn’t have the money.
In an interview with the Star on the state of long-term care in the city, Chow said the city has plans to build two more nursing homes, which would add to the 10 facilities it already owns and operates, and would even be interested in acquiring the right of first refusal to take over private facilities if they close.
“We have the experience and the desire, the commitment to do a lot more. We want to do more. We have sites ready to do more. We just need some financial support to be able to do so,” said Chow.
She noted that municipal nursing homes offer more stability in the long run because their operating licences do not expire and city homes do not have to contribute to dividends for shareholders — unlike for-profit facilities.
The mayor’s comments come shortly after the news that yet another long-term-care home in Toronto is closing its doors — the fifth in less than three years. Last week, the Star reported that White Eagle Long-Term Care Residence in Parkdale will shut down at the end of September, resulting in a loss of 56 beds. Its closure follows the previously announced shutdowns of Vermont Square (130 beds); Cedarvale Terrace (218 beds); Garden Court Nursing Home (45 beds); and North Park Nursing Home (75 beds).
Together, the closures represent the loss of 524 beds in the city at a time when demand is surging.
Chow noted that there are 6,500 people waiting for a bed in the city’s 10 long-term-care homes alone. The province-wide wait-list is more than 44,000.
The mayor said the city could add an additional 978 beds if it was able to construct its two, planned nursing homes.
Faced with mandatory — and costly — retrofits to bring older long-term-care homes up to the province’s modern design standards, some operators are instead opting to close and sell the properties to developers to reap big financial rewards from Toronto’s real estate market, seniors’ advocates warn.
The city currently owns and operates 10 long-term-care homes comprising more than 2,600 beds at an average cost of $396 per day per bed, approximately 80 per cent of which is funded by the province, with the remainder a net contribution by the city.
Chow said the city faces a $9-million price tag this year alone to bring several of its homes back into good repair, which could grow as high as $38 million because of a backlog of repair work.
Having just raised property taxes to help the city deal with a $1.8-billion budget deficit, the mayor said she is not willing to ask Toronto taxpayers to shoulder even more money for long-term care, which is primarily a provincial responsibility.
But with the help from the province, Chow said, the city would be willing to assume operation of nursing homes that otherwise would be closing — a situation that is both a win for residents who are not displaced, and for the province, which wouldn’t see beds disappear during its efforts to build 31,000 new beds and redevelop another 28,000 by 2028.
“We will absolutely take care of some of the existing ones that (the province) is losing, but without a new funding formula, we can’t do it.”
Chow said she had a meeting booked with Stan Cho, the province’s former minister of long-term care, but it did not take place after he was shuffled to a new portfolio earlier this month.
Daniel Strauss, a spokesperson for Cho’s replacement, Natalia Kusendova-Bashta, says the new minister “is pleased to meet with Mayor Chow to discuss our shared commitment of building Ontario’s long-term-care capacity.”
“By working together, our governments have already reached a $9-billion new deal for Toronto that, as Mayor Chow has said, is unlocking the city’s potential to enhance municipal services,” Strauss said.
(That $9-billion deal includes the province taking financial charge of the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, as well as money for housing infrastructure, new subway cars and the TTC’s operating budget.)
Chow is not unfamiliar with the hardships families can face when their loved ones need long-term care. Her father, Wai Sun Chow, became a nursing-home resident several years ago after he developed dementia. The mayor notes that, ironically, her father was a resident for two years at Vermont Square, which was closed and sold to a developer in 2022 for $11 million.
Chow says that if she had not moved him out of Vermont Square before its closure, “he would have been asked to leave.”
“I would have been completely devastated and so would my dad. So I would imagine those seniors and their families would feel devastated and sort of desperate and then not knowing what to do and lost,” said Chow.
She ended up moving her father to Kensington Gardens, a non-profit long-term-care facility close to her home. Wai Sun Chow died in 2018 at the age of 94.
“I just wish the city of Toronto could step in and do so much more, but we can’t financially. For me, it’s very frustrating.”
Which begs the question: if the trend of long-term-care-home closures in Toronto continues, where are all these seniors going to go?
“I don’t know. I can’t really answer that question. It’s a bit scary imagining what would happen because I’ve seen what dementia will do and it’s not safe for them to live by themselves,” Chow said, adding that more investment in home-care services would allow seniors to remain in their homes longer, allowing them to age with dignity.
“It’s financially prudent to have seniors age well instead of having them land in hospitals, land in long-term-care homes.”
