About us > Annual Reports > Community Impact Report 2005-2006
Breaking New Ground - 138 Pears Avenue Project
The 138 Pears Avenue housing project is a unique, collaborative response to the issue of homelessness in our city. Once a hotel, the 96-unit building was converted by St. Clare's Multifaith Housing Society in 2004 to a mixed-income residence for homeless and hard-to-house individuals. Pears is a blueprint for supportive housing solutions, providing tenants with both a home and programming to develop skills and a sense of community that enables residents to stay off the street permanently.
The Pears Avenue Housing Project is the product of multiple partnerships between several local social service providers along with municipal and federal governments. FSA Toronto has applied our community-building expertise to this project by staffing Pears with a Tenant Support Coordinator who is responsible for organizing tenant services, setting up programming for common areas, and liaising between tenants, collaborating agencies, and property management.
By bringing our core strengths in community building and our values of inclusiveness to bear in this initiative, we have made a positive impact on a marginalized community. Encouraged by the Pears Avenue project, FSA Toronto has begun similar work at 25 Leonard Avenue and is collaborating with other community service agencies to replicate this housing model elsewhere.
Tenant Outcomes
Upon entry to Pears, 90 tenants completed a survey about their well-being, available social supports and life skills when they first moved into the residence. Sixty-seven tenants completed a second survey one year later. Pears partners selected the following outcomes to assess:
- Tenants' well-being is improved.
- Tenants' available social support is increased.
- Tenants' life skills are increased.
Demographics
Demographic information revealed that ages ranged from 18 to 84 years old; 93% identified English as the language they speak; 52% reported that they were not born in Canada and that 49% had completed or attended some college or university schooling. Average income was $13,270.
Well-being
The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, shortened version (CES-D; Radloff, 1997) was used to evaluate tenants' depressive symptomatology. The scale consists of 12 items designed to evaluate depressive symptomatology in the community. Items included in the scale emphasize symptoms of depression including appetite loss, sleep disturbance, lack of focused attention, loneliness, and depressive mood.
Tenants were asked to rate how often they experienced these feelings in the past week on a 4-point scale from (0) 'rarely or none of the time' to (3) 'most or all of the time'. Higher scores reflect greater depressive symptomatology. The evaluation employed previously established cut-off scores for categorizing varying degrees of depressive symptomatology: no depression (0-9), mild depression (10-12), moderate depression (13-18), and severe depression (19-36) (Radloff, 1977).
The survey revealed that depressive symptoms among residents decreased significantly--both in severity of symptoms and proportion of people experiencing them. A one-sample t -test comparing the two samples demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in depressive symptoms of approximately two points, from 13 to 11( t (63) = -2.06, p < .05). Specifically, at Time 1, ninety tenants reported an average score of moderate depression ( M = 13.7, SD = 5.9) whereas at Time 2, sixty-four tenants completed the same measure of well-being, with a significantly lower score in the range of mild depression ( M = 11.5, SD = 8.6).
Categorical analyses also revealed a significant reduction in the proportion of tenants who were experiencing depression in the two samples. Specifically, in the Time 1 sample, 73% of tenants reported experiencing depression (either mild, moderate, or severe) whereas only 56% of tenants in the Time 2 sample reported experiencing depression (mild, moderate, or severe) was significantly.
CESD |
Time 1 ( n = 90) |
Time 2 ( n = 64) |
|---|---|---|
No Depression |
26.7% (24) |
41.8% (28) |
Depression (mild, moderate, or severe) |
73.3% (66) |
56.2% (36)** |
Average Score (Standard Deviation) |
13.7 (5.9) |
11.5 (8.6)* |
Life Skills
In the area of life skills, with 60% unemployment in the residence, helping tenants gain employment is one of the goals of Pears. While more than two-thirds of tenants are actively searching for jobs, only a portion have written a resume or gone for training in these skills. Our efforts to connect residents with community employment resources are not working as well as hoped, and tenants may need more intensive one-on-one support or an alternate intervention.
Due to the lack of an adequate standardized measure to examine the skills necessary to gain employment, we had to create one independently. We identified the steps to gaining a job and being successful at a job and these became the nine items of this assessment. For example, the first item asked whether tenants had written a resume since becoming a Pears resident. Tenants indicated 'yes' if they had taken a particular step, 'no' if they had not, or 'no, but I will within the next month' if they had a plan to pursue that step within the next month. It was hypothesized that those tenants who were retired and/or those tenants who had a full-time job before moving into Pears Avenue and still held that same job with that same job status at the present time would not pursue the steps outlined. Thus those particular tenants would artificially inflate the 'no' responses thus provide inaccurate results. Therefore, a fourth option of 'not applicable' was given to those particular tenants only.
Life Skills Needed |
Time 1 |
Time 2 |
Life Skills Obtained |
Write a resume |
21.3% (20) |
43.1% (25) |
Written a resume |
Apply for a job |
17.4% (16) |
48.3% (28)** |
Sent an application package |
Interview for a job |
22.6% (21) |
51.7% (30) |
Been offered an interview |
Social Supports
Thirty-one tenants (46%) cited that socialization was the top benefit they gained at Pears while 25 (37%) identified privacy or having their own place. Tenant's social support scores were also correlated with their depression/well-being scores. Specifically, higher scores on the social support measure (the Social Provisions Scale (Russell & Cutrona, 1984) were negatively correlated with depression scores. This suggests that tenants in the Time 2 Sample with more available social support had lower levels of depressive symptoms.
Partner agencies also planned to review case files and rate tenant changes from their perspectives, however participation in this online survey was poor. For future evaluations, advance training will be provided to project partners.
To assess the level of social support experienced by tenants, two measures were utilized. The first, Social Provisions Scale (Russell & Cutrona, 1984) assessed social support of tenants current relationships. The scale consists of 24 items including the statement "there are people I can depend on to help me if I really need it". Tenants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement using a four-point Likert scale from 'strongly disagree' (1) to strongly disagree (4). Total scores ranged from 24 to 96 with higher scores indicating greater degree of support thus 12 items worded negatively must be reverse scored. Total scores on the Social Provisions Scale are reported according to six sub-scores: (a) guidance, (b) reassurance of worth, (c) social integration, (d) attachment, (e) nurturance, and (f) reliable alliance. Scores in each sub-scale range from four to 16.
The second scale used to assess social support was the Sense of Community Index (SCI; MacMillan & Chavis, 1986). This scale consists of 12 true/false items. The more items endorsed by respondents, the greater degree of community each feels therefore it is necessary to reverse score four items. SCI scores are reported according to four sub-scales: (a) membership, (b) influence, (c) fulfillment of needs, and (d) emotional connection.
