What comes next when Seaton House closes?
So they’re going to tear Seaton House down. A number of years ago, I was a social worker and for a while an acting supervisor at Seaton House. Having seen problems with the place, too big and with too diverse a population, tearing it down is fine with me, but what comes next?
Seaton House has two main programs: a residence for disabled and for elderly men and a temporary shelter for singles who are presumably not disabled. A replacement plan needs to separate these categories.
There should be two residences, separating older men from the younger. One of the problems that has plagued the residence is some of the younger ones bullying and robbing older men.
As for replacing the shelter program, there should be shelters scattered throughout Toronto, each serving not more than 40 men.
With a centralized intake, men could be transferred to vacant beds across the city by taxi or minibus.
Seaton House now has a facility for active alcoholics, providing the men with controlled drinking of wine, rather than aftershave or Chinese cooking wine. Once Seaton House is closed, a similar program should be put in operation elsewhere. Seaton House also has a first aid unit. With the closure, such services need to be provided for the residences and shelters, whether with permanent onsite provision or by medical, nursing, and other staff visiting both on schedule and on demand.
The new residence for older men should be part of Toronto’s Homes for the Aged division. My experience was that co-operation between Seaton House and Homes for the Aged was bogged down in serious bureaucracy, in spite of the fact they are part of Toronto’s social services. Let me give you a couple examples.
At one point the elevator at Seaton House was out of service. That created a problem for one man who had a leg amputation at the hip. As meals were served in the basement, getting him to the meals or the meals to him was a problem. Seaton House lacked the staff resources to make that simple. I called the Homes for the Aged division to ask if they could house the man until the elevator was fixed. There response was the man’s need was clearly “urgent.” While that may sound good, it was quite the opposite. “Urgent” translates “not an emergency.”
On another occasion, a private group home dumped a man suffering with dementia at Seaton House. The home specializing with dementia at the time was in Newmarket. It took a good week to get him there, in spite of the fact that Seaton House was clearly not set up to serve this kind of condition. The Newmarket facility felt that they were doing Seaton House a favour by acting so quickly.
I could cite other situations, but the conclusion is that if the residence function is part of the Homes for the Aged responsibility, the Homes will treat the needs in the residence as their needs, not as problems arising in some foreign country.
One final point. Seaton House should not be closed until the new facilities are in place and ready to receive people. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ontario closed large numbers of psychiatric beds, promising that services would be provided in the community.
The promise was not kept, and the mentally ill ended up on the street, in shelters like Seaton House, and in jail.
Closing Seaton House should not result in a repeat performance.