Dr. Chi-Ling Joanna Sinn, Research Scientist at St. Joseph’s Health System Centre for Integrated Care and Ashlynn Hill, Manager of Indwell’s RCF Program have been awarded a $124,990 Catalyst Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for her project “Advocating for Policy Change: Strengthening Human Rights in Residential Care Facilities in Hamilton, Ontario ”. The project will examine the structural health inequities embedded within Hamilton’s residential care facility (RCF) system.
The project builds on Dr. Sinn’s ongoing research in Hamilton and Toronto, including the Juravinski Integrated Residential Care Project and the MIRA | Dixon Hall Knowledge Synthesis Grant (Rooming House Project). Across cities, both projects uncovered shared challenges across RCFs and rooming houses—increasing and intersecting health and social needs among residents and staff, and stigma associated with living and working in the settings, emerging a need to bring awareness and attention to the systems that perpetuate these issues.
Introduced in the 1960s, residential care facilities (also known as domiciliary hostels) offered affordable housing with supports for individuals with serious mental health and intellectual disabilities following the closure of psychiatric hospitals. However, many facilities have faced criticism for replicating institutional environments rather than promoting rehabilitation and nurturing autonomy. Dr. Sinn’s research will investigate how outdated laws, policies, and funding structures impact both residents and staff in these facilities, and work with stakeholders to develop practice and policy recommendations that promote better population health outcomes.
This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of co-investigators from the Faculty of Health Sciences (Dr. Andrew Costa) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (Drs. Constance Dupuis (Postdoctoral fellow), Rachel Weldrick, James Dunn, and Anthea Innes with broad expertise across health systems, health policy, social science, and community-based research. The Greater Hamilton Health Network (GHHN), a regional alliance of health, housing, and social service partners, is also a key collaborator, offering guidance through its RCF Steering Committee.
Applying a health policy framework, Dr. Sinn and her team will examine how municipal and provincial laws, regulations, and funding mechanisms support and or violate human rights, including the right to adequate housing. The findings of this project will be shared with local stakeholders who will be engaged through in-person and virtual workshops to develop practice and policy recommendations that will be submitted to the City of Hamilton in the context of their ongoing efforts to modernize the RCF system.
By focusing on the structural levers of change, this work aims to support equitable, human-rights informed policies that improve care, reduce stigma, and enhance outcomes for residents and staff living and working in residential care facilities and similar settings in Ontario and beyond.
