At the Shelter, Support and Housing Administration Division of the City of Toronto, our 2007 priorities (PDF) are:

• To help people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to get into and maintain permanent housing, jobs and service supports.
• To safeguard that our existing social housing continues to be well financed, well managed, and thriving as mixed-income communities.
• To make sure that the City is ready to shelter individuals and families when emergencies are declared and also anytime the need arises.
• To gain permanent, sustainable funding for social housing, transitional and supportive housing, shelters, housing supports and services needed by people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Meet Phil Brown, our General Manager

	Phil Brown and artist Jing at the Adelaide Resource Centre for Women art show

Every day we make a difference in the lives of Toronto's most vulnerable citizens. Together with our community partners, we're helping people to find and keep housing. We're also helping them to find jobs and become independent. At Shelter, Support and Housing Administration we've moved beyond managing homelessness and taken firm steps towards ending it. Whatever the reason people became homeless-a mental illness, addiction, or job loss-it is our job at Shelter, Support and Housing to help Torontonians find a suitable home and to provide the support they may need to keep it. Our philosophy is that a home is where it all starts. The first step is to get into stable housing. With a home, people can work on the life skills, the health issues, and the job skills that restore their dignity and satisfaction of being a contributor to their community.

It takes working together to achieve this--working with our clients, the private sector, community agencies, and other orders of government. Each has a role to play, from providing input into service delivery to funding affordable housing and support services to people without homes.

Torontonians want to know more about homelessness in their city. Many want to help in concrete ways. Providing this information is the reason we have undertaken a renovation of our website. Our aim is to help dispel some of the myths and lay the groundwork so that we can all work together to meet City Council's goal of ending street homelessness. Please let us know what you think about the site and how we can improve it.

Phil Brown
General Manager,
Shelter, Support and Housing Administration