Integrating CAMH and the neighbourhood

CAMH Annual Report

The redevelopment is great news for clients,”says Joan Piscopo, Chair of CAMH’s Client and Family Reference Group, which was established to ensure that clients’ and family

Joan Piscopo, Chair of CAMH's Client and Family Reference Group.

members’ perspectives inform CAMH initiatives. “Many clients and families struggle tremendously with the stigma that mental health and addictions often sadly bring, causing unnecessary shame or embarrassment to receive treatment. This redevelopment will help to integrate treatment services into the community and create an environment that is both pleasing and healthy for all.”

Tackling stigma

Part of our strategy to tackle stigma includes choosing Queen Street as our hub, given the site’s 150-year history as a mental health facility. Tackling stigma is crucial for clients’ recovery. People who struggle with mental illness and substance use report that stigma can be almost as bad as the problem itself. It prevents many who need treatment from seeking help.

CAMH’s plan will transform the Queen Street site from a traditional psychiatric institution that is cut off from the neighbourhood to a centre for care, prevention, education and research that is connected with the surrounding community. The plan extends local streets into the site to create a series of urban blocks with parks, open spaces and buildings, just like any other part of the city. There will be a mix of CAMH and non-CAMH uses, such as education and research facilities, offices, cafes, stores, consumer businesses and housing. This will create a lively and dynamic neighbourhood out of an isolated institution.

Revitalizing the community

l-r: Councillor Joe Pantalone, Toronto Deputy Mayor; Dev Chopra, CAMH Executive Vice-President, Corporate Services; Paul Garfinkel.

Many neighbours and city experts are equally enthusiastic about the role the redevelopment will play in revitalizing the Queen Street West community. David Crombie, CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute and former Toronto mayor, says, “CAMH’s redevelopment will link formerly isolated lands with the surrounding vibrant Queen West community, turning it into a functioning, energetic and wonderful part of the city. . . . I believe it will be a powerful and effective solution to the challenge of addressing institutionalized stigma in the urban environment.”

CAMH’s plan for its new “urban village” has won municipal, provincial and national awards. In 2005, CAMH and Urban Strategies, the design firm that developed the site master plan, received the City of Toronto Architecture and Urban Design Awards’ Honourable Mention. This followed earlier planning excellence awards from the Ontario Professional Planners Institute and the Canadian Institute of Planners.

Toronto Councillor Joe Pantalone, who represents the area at city hall, says the plan is a great example of city building. “CAMH has worked closely with the mental health care community, neighbours, businesses and city officials to ensure the redevelopment will be good for the community. The plan will preserve the neighbourhood fabric in the new streets, buildings and green spaces, and will help to strengthen the retail sector along Queen Street West.”

Preserving the historic wall

The wall surrounding the Queen Street property is an important part of the site’s heritage. Patients of the so-called “lunatic asylum” helped to build the wall in 1860 and 1888–1889. Today, what is left serves as a reminder of the site’s history and as a memorial to psychiatric patients who lived and worked at the old facility.

CAMH has had a heritage architectural firm conduct an assessment of the wall and historic sheds and provide a strategy for how to repair, stabilize and conserve them with minimal intervention.

CAMH is committed to client employment and is looking at a training and employment project where clients would participate in the repair and maintenance of the wall. Clients, unlike the patients of years ago, would receive fair wages and respect for their labour. We have been consulting with personnel at the Psychiatric Survivor Archives, who also have a strong commitment to preserving the historical significance of the wall.

“This would be historically and socially just, both for the patients long ago and clients today. Finally people would be paid for work on the wall and their contribution would be recognized,” says Geoffrey Reaume of the Psychiatric Survivor Archives, who proposed the idea. “It would help raise awareness of the many skills and talents of psychiatric patients and survivors, and the discrimination they still face in the workplace or trying to get a job.”

• Print
  Share |