Elizabeth Hill will never forget the minor incident that might have cost her her life, if it wasn’t for the help of a newcomer student she was housing. She had just returned home from walking her dog, when she suddenly felt very weak and collapsed on the floor.“So I looked up at the ceiling and I remember thinking, I’m in my 70s and you don’t know what a heart attack looks like or a stroke or something,” said Hill, now 75, of the incident about five years ago. She had been renting out her west-end home on and off since her husband died about 20 years ago, to help pay her bills. A young man from Brazil, one over several young people she’s housed over the years, was renting a room in while he studied English. Fearing the worst, she mustered enough energy to call for him, and mimicked instructions to go to the phone and dial 911. An ambulance came and it turned out she’d had an allergic reaction to a wasp sting.“He had only two weeks of English in Toronto but that young man saved my life,” she said. Since then she say she tries to continuously share part of her house with young people in need of a place to stay.Hill was one of about 30 people who attended an information session this week for HomeShare, a new pilot project that looks to match seniors who, like Hill, live alone and have room to spare in their house or apartment with young students who are cash-strapped and in need affordable housing.Starting in September, the project will pair at least 20 students from the University of Toronto, Ryerson and York with willing senior homeowners or renters in the city. The program aims is to bridge an intergenerational gap while addressing housing affordability for young people.Members of the National Initiative for the Care of the Elderly, a Toronto non-profit organization that won a provincial grant to carry out the pilot project, hosted the information session at City Hall to offer details on how the pilot will wo ...
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