Premier Doug Ford is promising to ramp up COVID-19 testing for residents of long-term care, homeless shelters, group homes for people with disabilities, and for pregnant women and patients undergoing dialysis or chemotherapy.

But vulnerable seniors in assisted living are on their own.

There has been no mention of assisted housing, a small subset of homes funded by Local Health Integrated Networks, (LHINs), where seniors in apartments rely on personal support workers to help with daily needs such as bathing, dressing and eating.

Advocates want the government to give assisted-living homes the same COVID directives as those given to nursing homes.

Recent protections aimed at long-term care include expanded COVID-19 testing, surgical masks for all workers, and, starting next week, a 14-day rule requiring the mostly part-time workforce report to one home only, to stop the spread of the virus.

British Columbia recently imposed a similar one-site order, but unlike Ontario, it did not add an expiry date, saying the rule will continue “until further notice.”

Leaders in the assisted living sector, such as Patrick O’Neill, CEO of the Niagara Ina Grafton Gage Village in St. Catharines, said his residents are just as fragile as those living in long-term care but are being overlooked.

“The issue is the government has not recognized that these areas are as risky as (long-term care),” O’Neill said.

Last month, a man in his 80s, who lived in assisted living at Niagara Ina Grafton Gage Village, tested positive for COVID-19 and died in hospital.

There are 200 residents in assisted living at the seniors housing complex, with 40 living separately in long-term care. They share the dining room and public spaces at the home.

Even though there was no government directive telling him to do so, O’Neill told staff to work in one home only and locked down the entire complex.

“We changed all the exterior door locks, so no one could get in and out and funneled everyone into the main entrance for screening,” he said.

O’Neill said he sent more than a dozen staff home to isolate for two weeks, paying their wages “because it’s not their fault” and hired new workers as replacements.

He is paying summer students to screen visitors at the front door, for travel history and symptoms of COVID and is paying to have all the hard surfaces in the building cleaned four times a day.

O’Neill said he has spent $75,000 on protections for the assisted living building, with no promise of reimbursement from the government, although nursing and retirement homes will get extra money.

So far, no other residents have tested positive for the virus, he said.

Out of all the “congregate” living homes in Ontario, assisted living continues to fly under the radar, said Lisa Levin, CEO of Advantage Ontario, which represents not-for-profit, municipal and charitable seniors’ housing. Most are independently operated, some by charities or churches, making it hard to track the number of people they serve, she said.

“It’s because they are so eclectic that it is hard to put something in place or identify them,” Levin said.

It’s also difficult to know how these homes are faring during the pandemic. Other than the COVID-related death of the man from Ina Grafton Gage, there have been few reports of outbreaks in assisted living homes.

“That’s my concern. Why are we not hearing anything?” she said. “Is it because there is no COVID in those homes? Which is great. Or, is it because something is slowly brewing? I don’t know.”

Earlier this week, Advantage Ontario’s daily bulletin for its members included a copy of a letter sent to Premier Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott, asking for equal protections and funding for assisted living.

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Levin refused to comment on the letter. A copy obtained by the Star warned that the risk of COVID in group settings such as assisted living and supportive housing for people with disabilities is “extremely high.” The Ontario Community Support Association also signed the letter.

It cited the privately run Residence Herron in Dorval, Quebec, where at least 31 residents have died.

“These situations will continue here in Ontario if we continue to neglect these facilities,” the letter said. “We cannot allow this to continue.”

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