Indrani Nagenthiram made her Scarborough bungalow into a retirement home and now she does not know where to turn for money.
On a Friday afternoon, she said she can't afford to pay the staff - some cleaning the kitchen after a lunch of rice cakes, mint chutney and a vegetable stew called sambar - a "market rate."
The oldest of her 10 long-stay tenants is a woman of 96, living just off the basement laundry room. A city inspector told Nagenthiram she must start building a fire exit from the basement this month, but her fundraising effort fell short.
"I need a Yee Hong for the South Asian community," she said. "We don't have one for us."
The Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care - Nagenthiram's model and her dream for the Tamil seniors she's sacrificed to serve - is a stunning success.
Its nursing homes in Mississauga, Scarborough and Markham are famous for good care and have a death rate less than two-fifths the provincial average.
But the average wait for a Yee Hong bed - five years - dwarfs the Ontario average of 106 days.
"The wait is very painful. Family members call me on a weekly basis, asking, 'What can I do?'" said Yee Hong Foundation CEO Florence Wong.
Many of the 2,400 waiting seniors, most Chinese seeking care fitting their culture, are encouraged to try Yee Hong's adult day and congregate dining programs.
Socializing, sharing meals and hearing about current events in the Mississauga Yee Hong's day program is enjoyable for Shui King Yeung, 80. It is better care than her busy family can provide, as well as "a head start" adjusting to what they hope is her future home, her son Dominic Chow said there one Saturday.
"Her fear of a new environment is kind of washed away."
Almost 45 per cent of Ontario seniors are immigrants - the highest percentage in Canada - and the province says this combination of diversity and aging presents special challenges.
For Greater Toronto Tamils, the need for nursing or retirement homes that serve Tamil seniors familiar food and speak their language is becoming desperate, community advocates say.
Sri Lankan Tamils accounted for 20 per cent of immigrants to Toronto between 1991 and 1996 and were "the largest group of under-serviced caregivers" for seniors in east Toronto, according Providence Healthcare, which for years ran an educational project aimed at Tamil community members.
The project led a Scarborough nursing home to dedicate a floor for Tamil seniors, and Markham's Yee Hong has a South Asian wing.
But all too often, Tamil seniors are in long-term care homes with no one to talk to and meals - macaroni and cheese, for instance - that seem alien, said Parvathy Kanthasamy, founder of Vasantham Wellness Centre, a Tamil seniors group.
Kanthasamy said when she visited a local nursing home recently, a resident begged her to bring him rice.
"For Tamil people, lunch is rice. They need to eat rice or they won't feel they have eaten anything," she said last month.
Discriminatory bylaws force seniors from immigrant communities "to live in rooming houses and basements," said Scarborough social worker Renuka Sivarajah, who wanted to start a group home or community house for Tamil seniors but found too many obstacles in her way.
"Most of us cannot even dream of going to a retirement home because of the cost," she added in a letter. "I know of many seniors who have rejected the placement (they received for a long-term care home) because they had to share it with a stranger who does not speak the language."
Nagenthiram said her mother had terrible arthritis but her home care agency didn't have a personal support worker who spoke Tamil. Nagenthiram took courses and started a home-care service, then opened Villa Karuna, her retirement home, which has housed 42 resident seniors over seven years.
The Villa - its website says it offers a "pure Sri Lankan menu cooked in the premises for all three meals" - also accepts guests for "respite care", stays lasting a few hours, days or weeks.
Newly arrived, Paranirupasingam Saravanamuttu, 85, sat reading one afternoon between the home's kitchen and its back deck. A bed was ready there but Nagenthiram said Saravanamuttu could have a room after a resident moved out.
His son arranged for Saravanamuttu to spend "maybe more than one month" at Villa Karuna while his family moved from Ajax to Scarborough. "I am a vegetarian. They give a vegetarian diet," he said.
Nagenthiram turned the business non-profit in 2009 to comply with a city bylaw but Villa Karuna doesn't yet have a charitable number.
Proud she has not received government funds so far, Nagenthiram still hopes to get financial support from wherever she can to keep the home open and expand.
Clients advanced her money to build an emergency exit from the main floor, she said, but now she needs another for the basement.
"I did everything because I want my people to live happily," she said, "but with their pension money I can't run this."
Outside of her bungalow, Nagenthiram argues, long-term care for seniors is "all mainstream. There is a language barrier, there is a tradition barrier."
The province has tried making cultural minorities feel more welcome.
In 2008, its Ontario Seniors' Secretariat released Diversity in Action, "a practical guide to increase cultural sensitivity in seniors' residential settings."
Saying it's not realistic to prepare each person's meals as they want, the guide suggests providing some foods that reflect a resident's culture and religious beliefs. "This is particularly true for cognitively impaired residents, who tend to eat culturally familiar food with other residents from their culture but may eat nothing in the main dining room," it says.
Diversity in Action describes common cultural foods of many nations and offers tips on etiquette and cultural taboos. "Do not touch another person's head," it says in the section on Sri Lanka.
The guide also encourages managers to gather resource materials and form partnerships with community members who know the language and culture of residents.
That's what Yee Hong does for non-Chinese residents. In its Mississauga location, there are Arabs, Poles, Greeks and Koreans and Filipinos, said Wong.
Yee Hong's staff try to understand different cultural needs by talking to family members and recruiting members of cultural groups as volunteers. When they cannot speak a resident's language, residents use communication cards to state, "I have a headache" or "I want a glass of water," Wong said.