Item - 2024.HL17.3

The Board of Health:

1. Authorized the Medical Officer of Health to enter into agreements totaling $240,000 with Indigenous-led organizations in 2025 for the Toronto Urban Health Fund Indigenous funding stream.

The Toronto Urban Health Fund (TUHF) provides funding opportunities for not-for-profit community-based organizations in Toronto to address HIV prevention and substance use through one-year and three-year projects. The TUHF includes a dedicated Indigenous funding stream for Indigenous-led initiatives, launched in 2019. In May 2024, the Board of Health directed the Medical Officer of Health to evaluate and reset the TUHF Indigenous funding stream, in keeping with Toronto Public Health commitments to truth and reconciliation with Indigenous communities.

This report provides an update and makes recommendations for an interim process for the 2025 one-year cycle of the TUHF Indigenous funding stream. In doing so, unallocated 2024 and 2025 TUHF Indigenous funding stream funds will be able to reach the Indigenous community in the short-term, while Toronto Public Health continues its direction to evaluate and reset the funding stream. This interim approach considers feedback received from Indigenous service providers regarding barriers to applying for TUHF funds in the current parameters of the TUHF Indigenous funding stream. Toronto Public Health is in the early stages of initiating this work, which will be done in collaboration with Indigenous service providers, with the aim to launch before the end of 2024.