Founded in 1894, Fred Victor Centre’s (Fred Victor) mission is to improve the health, income, and housing stability of poor and homeless people in Toronto. It works towards its vision for Toronto to be a healthy and thriving city where every person has a home and access to opportunity. Fred Victor is one of Toronto's lead agencies addressing homelessness in the ZeroTO initiative to end homelessness in Toronto by 2025.

Fred Victor is a multi-service charity with 20 different sites across Toronto providing programs to over 2,000 clients daily. These programs cover four main categories: Housing, Health, Income, and Ending Homelessness. During F2020, Fred Victor amalgamated with the Toronto Christian Resource Centre (CRC), which shares a similar mission of offering housing and support services for people living in Regent Park and downtown Toronto.

Fred Victor’s Housing and Ending Homelessness programs include 2 emergency homeless shelters that are open 24/7, providing emergency respite care. Its Bethlehem United shelter supported over 500 people in F2021 and is the only Toronto shelter that allows pets. Fred Victor’s Women’s Drop-In program also had 41,480 visits in F2021 with 1,114 referrals made to find adequate housing.

Fred Victor’s health programs place it at the front lines of Toronto's opioid crisis. During the pandemic, fatal opioid overdoses increased by 75% in Ontario. In 2018, Fred Victor opened a safe-injection site which saw 36,574 supervised consumption visits in F2021. It also engaged 7,559 participants in health promotion groups, including suicide intervention in F2021. It also provided on-site mental health and support services to 1,154 people and diverted 1,020 clients out of the criminal justice system to support services in the community.

Fred Victor's Income programs include Employment & Training, Friends Catering, Keep Cool, and a Women’s Bakery. In F2021, 24 women at the Women’s Bakery graduated with the goal that they would be able to increase their income. The Keep Cool Team provided on-the-job Peer outreach Work training for 71 people. In F2021, clients accessed Fred Victor’s employment and training services 2,820 times.

Fred Victor acquired the 40 Oaks Housing Community in F2020 through its amalgamation with the CRC; 40 Oaks provides affordable housing for 100 tenants.

Fred Victor received donations of $4.5m in F2021. Fred Victor received $34.1m in government funding, representing 80% of total revenues. Administrative costs are 6% of revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 2% of donations. This means overhead costs are 8%. For every dollar donated, 92 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Note that overhead ratios are likely understated due to a lack of transparency in cost breakdowns for common expenses like salaries, rent, and benefits. Additionally, Ci could not use the figures reported in Fred Victor’s T3010 filing with the CRA since expenses do not reconcile with the charity’s audited financial statements and F2021 CRA data for Fred Victor was not available at the time of this update.

­­Fred Victor has gross funding reserves of $16.0m. Its interest-bearing debts are $14.3m (held in mortgages). Excluding the long-term portions of mortgages, Fred Victor could operate using reserve funds for roughly five months.

Ci has sent this charity update to Fred Victor for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 5, 2021, by Shira Wine.