At this food bank, you can get produce, test your blood sugar and get a specialist referral [Video]

Every two weeks, tenants of a Toronto Community Housing high-rise benefit from an on-site food bank. It’s run by an embedded healthcare team, to build trust and get people the help they desperately need.

Every second Tuesday, residents at the Toronto Community Housing apartment complex on Adanac Drive in Scarborough queue down the brightly lit hall outside the building’s rec room, armed with reusable grocery bags. 

On the other side of the big double doors, fold-out tables are piled high with groceries — fresh produce, milk, bread, canned goods and even ready-to-eat meals.

But the food bank isn’t all that’s on offer here — the apartments’ four-person health team is there, too, doling out groceries alongside primary health care. And their work has routinely kept residents out of the emergency room.

“There’s a lot of people that are just not linked to anything. So this is our way of linking …