DelSuites Builds Community With Rapid Rehousing Initiative Donation

DelSuites understands how important it is to have a comfortable, safe place to call home. Every day, we go above and beyond to make sure travellers from around the world can step through our doors and relax, knowing we’ve done the rest.

That’s why we’re deeply proud to have donated ten full and six partial sets of modern, stylish furniture—a gift worth $55,000—to the City of Toronto’s Rapid Rehousing Initiative: the city’s primary program for helping chronically homeless Torontonians find stable, permanent homes.

This contribution builds on our April 2020 donation of almost 25 apartments’ worth of furnishings to City of Toronto housing programs—a partnership that proved DelSuites hospitality can make a difference that lasts.

 

More than bare walls or a bandaid solution

The City of Toronto established its Rapid Rehousing Initiative in April 2020, as part of the response to COVID-19. This coordinated approach to public health and fighting poverty offers help to the people who need it most, by permanently housing people who have experienced chronic homelessness.

Recognizing how disproportionately COVID-19 would affect people without homes, the City of Toronto launched a collaborative effort between 20 city agencies, local non-profits like the Toronto Furniture Bank, and the City’s Follow-Up Supports program in March 2020.

By taking a complex, systemic view of what makes homelessness happen, the Rapid Rehousing Initiative helps Torontonians who have repeatedly been without a home not just find one in their own downtown neighbourhoods, but keep that home—and overcome the greater obstacles they’re facing. Furniture, housewares, and lease assistance are provided to give each participant a stable start—one where they can not just survive, but thrive.

Through the City’s Follow-Up Supports program, neighbourhood-based community agencies provide programs, resources, and social supports tailored to help each participant stabilize their future.

In 2020, the Rapid Rehousing Initiative helped 459 people—singles, couples, and families—move into permanent and fully furnished housing.

Phase two of the initiative started in January 2021, bringing 450 more units into the program. 160 Toronto families have already moved in, keys in hand, since June 1, 2021—and set themselves on the path to a better future.

Making a real impact in our community

Our April 2020 partnership with the City of Toronto showed us how much impact stylish, durable furniture can make when you’re starting fresh. Good dishes mean your favourite home cooking; a comfortable couch means time with friends and family; and modern, attractive ready-made décor means an instant boost to dignity.

Starting with a space that’s not just four walls, but a home doesn’t just let people save for education, family, or their future—it creates the place where we can be at peace, feel proud, and flourish.

Having seen the lasting effects of a comfortable space on our neighbours’ lives, we’ve targeted this newest donation to do the most good: help ten households move from living precariously into homes they can take pride in, with fundamentals that were made to last.

As Toronto’s groundbreaking housing program grows, DelSuites will be there to show we know a welcome is something you build every single day—and a welcome is for everyone.

Learn how you can help

Our cities become communities when we all pull together. Learn how you can help bring every Torontonian a safe and stable home at www.toronto.ca/donateTO.