Sara Wolfe

In December, we launched Canada’s first hospital-based eviction prevention program at UHN. This was built on partnership and the learnings with TNG Community Services and LOFT Community Services as a response to the evidence that evictions come with higher likelihoods for poor health and premature death. With incredible UHN Foundation support, the program provides one-time rent assistance to low-income patients at risk of losing their housing, as part of more holistic medical care. This week, Mayor Olivia Chow announced an unprecedented expansion of Toronto’s Rent Bank as part of the City’s 2026 budget. The budget provides a $2.6M increase, bringing the Rent Bank to $10.8M and helping approximately an additional 1,000 families stay housed. I am grateful for what this represents: social medicine solutions informing city-wide policy. Philanthropy helped us start; municipal investment helps scale what works—keeping people housed, preventing avoidable crises, and reducing strain on the health system. Huge thanks to the donors who provided the seed funding that made UHN’s Eviction Prevention Fund possible—Richard Rooney , The The Sprott Foundation , and the Kress Family—and to City partners for recognizing eviction prevention as essential infrastructure for health. Housing is health care.

This is the grave danger for people’s health now — the amount of energy needed to refute misinformation is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.