New Transitional Housing for Youth

Situated in Ward 4, Mississauga, Peel Youth Village is an exciting mix of housing and community centre. Its 48-room housing component is one of Peel’s transitional initiatives, providing housing for homeless youth and young adults aged 16-35 years. Designed to be open and interconnected, thirty-two of the rooms will be organized into four-bedroom apartment pods with a shared kitchen and lounge, and will be intended for a mid-term to long-term stay. Sixteen of the rooms will have either one or two beds and will be intended for short term stay.

The residential areas are designed to maximize social supports and community building interaction. Peel Region took the unique approach of combining both residential and supportive program components in this housing facility to better help young people who are motivated to get their lives back together.

Situated in the centre of a four-building non-profit housing community, the programs available through Peel Youth Village will assist both the building’s residents and young people in the surrounding neighbourhood. They are designed to help youth to advance themselves and their community through a range of skills development opportunities and community economic development initiatives.

Residents will receive social supports from community social service agencies and regional and municipal service bodies. Core support staff will operate in the building 24 hours per day on a year-round basis. A variety of programs, ranging from health education to employment counselling, and job training to recreation, will be offered. The fully-supervised facility will include a computer training room, an industrially-equipped kitchen for training our future chefs, and a half-court gymnasium ─ an element that promises to be very popular especially during the winter months.

Innovative partnerships were at work to build Peel Youth Village. The builder, Martinway Contracting, took the initiative to garner donations from its suppliers whose generosity contributed to improved quality and extended life of the building and reduced operating costs for Peel on an ongoing basis.

Peel Youth Village got its start in April 2002, when the Peel Living Board of Directors authorized the dedication of surplus land on the Weaver’s Hill property for the project. Owned by the Region of Peel, the cost of the project is $7.625 million, funded through the Region of Peel’s social housing reserve fund, with $2 million in federal National Homelessness Initiatives’ Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative (SCPI) funds, and $408,000 from the Federal Community Affordable Rental Housing Program.

Construction has been on schedule from the onset. Peel Youth Village will be run by Ontario Works in Peel and it is expected that operational staff from the community service providers will begin to offer programs (health, recreational, etc.) to the community in June 2005, with residents arriving in September.