Agency-Led Flexibility and Insecurity in Toronto’s Home Care

Abstract

This chapter assesses the Toronto home care program. Home care was distinct from both the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) and the Direct Funding Program (DF) in that agencies were the direct employers. But these agencies did little to challenge the insecurity of individualized employment relationships and only contingently responded to the clients who requested flexibility. Clients' willingness to complain was shaped by their age, ability, and class. Agencies indulged clients' requests to switch a worker if clients couched them in relational terms and if the agency was able to produce a new worker when the client needed one; yet the latter was contingent on workers' availability, which was limited by casual employment contracts. Agencies did not assist clients or workers in navigating tensions at the intimate level. Instead, they chose to overlook a precarious economy of favors.