Seaton House

Seaton House is the largest homeless shelter in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 339 George Street near Dundas Street East, several blocks from Yonge Street. The facility provides temporary lodging, food, clothing, medical care, for single men and also attempts to provide tools for enabling them to establish their independence. The shelter houses up to 700 men though, in the past, it has exceeded capacity and housed as many as 900 men.

The original Seaton House was built in 1931, during the Great Depression, to provide a place to sleep and meals for transient men seeking work. The facility moved to its current premises in 1959.

There is room for 484 men in the main facility. 54 men are housed in the adjacent O'Neill House, a program for new refugees. During hot or cold weather alerts this facility is expanded to provide additional emergency shelter. An additional 110 men are housed in the Seaton House Annex through the Annex/Infirmary Harm Reduction Program. Until the 1990s, the shelter operated on a highly regimented basis imposing a series of rules and regulations including a ban on alcohol and requiring men to get out of bed by 5:15 am. A review of the shelter in the early 1990s was prompted by complaints of staff brutality and authoritarian regulations at the facility. Rules into the 1990s included a requirement to register for a bed by 1:30 pm. The hostel itself did not open until 4 pm and returning clients were expected to provide proof that they applied for at least three jobs during the day, the doors were locked at midnight and clients were expected to be in bed an hour earlier. Lights would go on at 5 am; breakfast was served at 5:30 am and 6:30 am and clients had to leave the premises by 7:30 am. Clients were expected to spend their days looking for work.

Seaton House provides bathing facilities, delousing, a barber, laundry and lockers as well as counselling and life skills training. Typically, a client will sleep in a large room with several bunk beds and shared bathroom. Three meals a day are provided. Clothing and shoes are available, if needed, as well as medical care from doctors and nurses.

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