Beating the heat with Canada's first heat registry
When Toronto Public Health officials call a Heat Alert this summer, Canada's first heat registry swings into action in a west-end neighbourhood, and people who have registered their risk for heat-related conditions receive phone calls and visits meant to check on their well-being.

In addition to an extensive list of services included in Toronto's hot weather response plan (PDF), the City of Toronto is funding the West End Heat Registry and Heat Response Project under the direction of Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre (PARC). The assignment is to design and implement a heat registry as a pilot this summer. PARC provides services to psychiatric survivors and other at-risk people in the city's west end. The pilot project is creating a heat registry of local people who have volunteered information about their heat risk. Anyone who is registered is contacted during a heat alert, either by phone or in person by two people hired to check on them.

PARC hired seven members to do the follow up and each person has been trained by Toronto Public Health to recognize and respond to heat-related illnesses. They know what to do in an emergency. The registry started operating on Friday, June 6, a few days before Toronto's first heat alert of the season, and operators expect up to 200 people to put their names on the list.

"The biggest challenge in a heat response plan is reaching those most vulnerable and at risk," says Phil Brown, General Manager of Shelter, Support and Housing Administration, the City Division with responsibility for services for homeless and marginally housed people, as well as the social housing portfolio. "We have a detailed hot weather response plan at the City and now we are investing in a heat registry model that will provide hands-on assistance for very vulnerable people. If it works well, we could take it to other parts of the city in the future."

Brown adds that this assistance is not a replacement for checking in on your own neighbours and family who may be susceptible to heat-related illness.

Anyone wishing to put their names on the registry should contact PARC at 416-537-2262, ext. 239.

The pilot project is supported by the West End Urban Health Alliance and community agencies located in the west end who serve people at risk of heat-related illness. Agencies hold registration events, encourage vulnerable people to sign up and are designing their own heat response plans, protocols and registries.

For their part, those on the registry often find the visits very welcoming. On a recent heat alert day, an elderly man who has no phone and who gets around with a walker, was waiting outside his building for the team as they came to check on him. He was glad to see them and had spruced up his apartment for them. Don't get many visitors "not in uniform," he said.