I stay home a lot because I am a senior.
I coach tennis and
I can't coach tennis now.
Everyday it's, that isolation just eats away at you a little more.
Especially for those that were isolated before the pandemic, right.
Some people who were following this were getting ready,
but I think the shoe dropped when the schools closed.
And then it went downhill from there.
Like, we need somebody to bring us pet food,
we need somebody to bring veggies.
We need someone to go get groceries.
Frankly, I just want to do whatever I can to help out.
We were doing research and there was a need we could address directly.
We have all the knowledge, we have the connections.
Let's just jump into it.
The Friendly Neighbour Hotline, it's really meant to help address
the issue of seniors that lack social support
in a TCHC building or low-income housing building.
So, you know, we were just thinking about these ideas
and we were trying to write it up, and we were applying for grants
to go into a testing phase later down the road.
But when the pandemic happened,
we a chance to actually have a tangible impact with some of our research.
We wanted to have a single number
that a senior could call,
and they would be connected with a volunteer that could be their feet on the ground.
In the first night we got 150 volunteers,
by the end of the weekend we had about 300.
Between last Monday and now, we've worked our way up to 600,
so we're still vetting all of them.
We have volunteers in all 25 wards,
with close to 200 in the field.
And just speaking with the references and hearing how
amazing all these volunteers are
and how willing they are to step up
in such a wild and uncertain time is amazing.
Well I remind myself that the health care workers
are putting themselves at much greater risk.
And seeing the condition that some of these people are in,
honestly, ideally I'd like to volunteer
for somewhere between 8 to 12 hours a day,
because that way I know I'm contributing something.
I saw them on Twitter, and I started having a conversation.
And from there I got involved.
I think my first conversation with them
was how to do this in a very safe way.
[Reznick] When I deliver the groceries,
there's a real attention to detail
over the cost of each item
and the examination of the receipt.
I live in TCHC and we have
a lot of problems with predators.
And what I didn't want was predators becoming volunteers.
Ya, I definitely have sensed doubt.
Because I thin they have to be so thoughtful,
about each item, and they're thinking so much into the future
and how much they have and how long this could go on for.
And it's been worse out in my community.
There's no toilet paper at all,
there's no rice, no beans, no pasta.
Everything we usually get is gone.
When the pandemic happened,
It just...
makes worse a lot of these inequalities and deficiencies.
The food bank in my building was a mess,
everybody was conjugating at the front of it.
And there wasn't much social distancing.
Sometime people just casually walk past me,
and I could feel the adrenaline in my heart going up.
I alluded to that in the conversation with a senior
and then the senior informed me that
some of these people don't have internet, or access to the internet.
And some don't have TVs.
So then that made me concerned
for people in low-income areas
and the lack of information that they won't receive.
I think Toronto, after we've hit a lull,
has to really think about food security.
The hotline is a great idea, a great template for future action.
At OpenLab, one thing we really believe in is
health care is public purse.
So we try, as best we can, to make
all the stuff we build and create public domain.
We've been contacted by groups out of the U.K.
Groups out West,
in B.C. and in other parts of Ontario.
And they can adapt it as they see fit.
Anything can happen in life now.
We need to be prepared and we're using
the same old models
which are not applicable anymore.