The Former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Project

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Moorehouse

It was a patient lounge, built by the funds raised by the Association of Volunteers of Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital. It certainly deserves special recognition because it was a very unique program in Canada, if not in the world. It cost the association $40,000 (in today's figures it would be approximately twice that amount, if not more). The money was raised through fundraising; a lot of funding was donated from individuals, local community and businesses. The building was named after Herbert Clayton Moorehouse, a former superintendent, who administrated the hospital between 1959 and 1967 before he finally retired. It was essentially independent from the hospital, but Lakeshore provided water, heat, and electricity. The Moorehouse was officially open on April 20, 1968 by Dr. Moorhouse. Until the closure of the institution in 1979, the Moorehouse was operated by the volunteers twice daily from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm and from 7:30 pm until 9:30, every day of the week. Minimum of two volunteers were required for the Moorehouse to be open.

Inside, the volunteers offered tea, coffee, cold drinks, and cookies for the patients, who could also choose from a variety of activities: play cards, listen to radio, watch television, engage in a conversation, or read a book from the Moorehouse's collection. The building was also equipped with a piano, a set of comfortable chairs, and even a dishwasher (it is recorded that there were as many as thirty visiting patients, if not more). Patients were also allowed to receive their visitors there, in reportedly comfortable and non-institutional surroundings.

It appears that the program was quite successful, but the volunteers occasionally complained of shortage of people willing to help (many were afraid of the patients and had a fixed, stereotypical idea about them). A letter to the local Advertiser, entitled "Moorehouse", dated July 13, 1972, and signed by "just a volunteer", pleads to "Please help it keep going, it's too nice a project to let it go to waste for lack of help."

Sadly, Moorehouse went out of business along with the hospital in 1979. It fell into a state of disrepair and it was finally demolished circa 1990 when Humber College started the renovation of the grounds.