THE NEW Canadian Helen Keller Centre will have 56 accessible and affordable units for Canadians who are deafblind. Courtesy photos.
The site of a former Royal Canadian Legion hall in New Toronto is being put to good use to help others in the community.
The Canadian Helen Keller Centre (CHKC) will be getting a new building at 150 Eighth Street, a site that kept the community together for decades as the Legion’s Branch 3.
The building, when built, will contain 56 fully accessible and affordable units for Canadians who are deafblind, CHKC officials said.
The Canadian Helen Keller Centre (CHKC) will located at 150 Eighth Street, a site that kept the community together for decades as the Legion’s Branch 3.
“Together, we are ensuring that Canadians who are deafblind live life as independently as possible,” the Centre posted on its Facebook page. “It’s a good day!”
Mayor John Tory and Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, with other politicians on July 8 pledged funding for seven new affordable and supportive housing developments, as part of Phase Two of the federal Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI).
“I am committed to getting more housing built,” Tory said. “These seven projects demonstrate how our governments and community partners are working together to get more housing built as soon as possible.”
He said the projects will create 260 affordable and supportive homes in Toronto and “grow the capacity and expertise of Toronto’s non-profit housing development sector.”
The other projects include Wigwamen Incorporated, 525 Markham Rd., Akwa Honsta Non-Profit Aboriginal Homes, 136 Kingston Rd., St. Clare’s Multifaith Housing Society, 1120 Ossington Ave., WoodGreen Community Housing, 60 Bowden St. and 1080 Queen St. E., St. Felix Centre, 25 Augusta Ave., and the CHKC.
The Centre’s mission is ‘to empower the deafblind community through consumer driven services and opportunities that maximize independence.’
The City has set an ambitious target of approving 18,000 new supportive homes over 10 years in the HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan. The funds will support people experiencing or at risk of homelessness to achieve housing stability and begin improving their health and well-being.
New Toronto veterans, legionnaires and members of the public have gathered annually for more than 30 years at a large cenotaph in front of former Branch 3 to remember Canadians fallen in war on the Sunday before Remembrance Day, and on November 11.
The huge granite cenotaph has since been moved to the grounds of Humber College at Kipling Ave. and Lake Shore Blvd. W.