Examining the Past and Present of Hamilton’s Residential Care Facilities as a Local Implementation of Ontario’s Domiciliary Hostel Program: Results from a Scoping Review and Environmental Scan

In the 1970s, Ontario introduced the Domiciliary Hostel Program to provide subsidised accommodation for low-income individuals needing minimal supports. We provide a historical and contemporary analysis of Hamilton’s Residential Care Facility (RCF) Subsidy Program, which is a local adaptation of the provincial program. We conducted a scoping review of academic and grey literature examining domiciliary hostels and an environmental scan of existing RCFs in Hamilton, Ontario, between October 2022 and April 2023. We conclude that RCFs are not structured to meet increasingly complex resident needs, and that improvements to the program require multisectoral collaboration on service delivery models, funding, and policymaking.