The Boards of Directors of WoodGreen Community Services and AIS are pleased to announce the completion of our voluntary integration of operations into a single corporation (WoodGreen Community Services), effective April 1 2020.
AIS and WoodGreen believe the timing is opportune to leverage our joint expertise to better serve clients who need intensive mental health and supportive housing supports, particularly now during this absolutely unprecedented time of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic.
In fact, AIS and WoodGreen aligned in many areas including our mission and values, the vulnerable client groups we both work to serve, our shared expertise and experience providing supportive housing, a tremendous group of expert Board, staff and management and sound financial state. AIS has been an important provider of supportive housing in Toronto with 4 buildings in residential communities. For people with mental health challenges who are homeless, finding housing is challenging. The AIS focus on housing with supports is strongly aligned with WoodGreen’s housing services mandate. The integration of the two organizations has now enhanced collective programming capacity in areas such as the promotion of healthy foods to tenants, and community development.
WoodGreen is one of the largest non-municipal providers of affordable housing in Toronto, and is committed to further growing housing operations in the immediate and long term. Additionally, WoodGreen currently owns, manages & provides service at 12 other affordable housing sites, and also provides services at several TCHC housing locations. Since 2008, WoodGreen has contributed more than 200 units of affordable housing to Toronto’s stock. WoodGreen is uniquely positioned to offer a full basket of services including child care, seniors’ services with a focus psychogeriatric mental health support, newcomer support, employment and many other mental health services to support all of our residents.
WoodGreen’s integrated housing model delivers a seamless client experience, supports aging-in-place and builds inclusive communities. For these reasons, WoodGreen and AIS are a natural fit to come together in partnership to better serve our mutual client groups while achieving operational efficiencies, and we are pleased to have completed our voluntary integration. WoodGreen would like to acknowledge the tremendous work done by AIS and we are thrilled to be able to combine our complementary expertise to serve our clients, who need us now more than ever.