“We are struggling to pay rent now more than ever.”“The new encampments will belong to you in Toronto, the new state of homelessness will belong to you,” she said. “We are the PSWs (personal support workers) taking care of the elderly, we are the cleaners disinfecting workplaces, we’re the grocery store workers at checkout, the meat packing and factory workers keeping those shelves stocked, the community workers running food banks, the Uber and the bus drivers getting us around.”“We are the frontline heroes this pandemic has been celebrating for months, but we have always struggled to pay the high cost of housing in this city,” she said. He said Vancouver created modular supportive housing which was ready for people to live in within a five month period. Toronto has some of the highest average rents in the country and a very low vacancy rate.“Premier, we’re begging you,” said Kristyn Wong-Tam, the city councillor for Toronto-Centre, who hosted the virtual news conference. He said he’s witnessed a waiting list for supportive housing balloon from 900 in 2009, to over 17,000.“Housing must be permanent, no more deals where we get affordable housing for ten years or 25 years,” Perks said.“Certainly for the thousands of Torontonians who are living on the streets, in the ravines, staying on shelters and sleeping synagogues and basements of churches, we can certainly declare an emergency for them” said Wong-Tam.“We need to have a sense of urgency here, we have respite centres, temporary structures with 100 people on cots,” Aston said. City planners are formally recommending sweeping changes to the rules around secondary suites, which could make it easier for Toronto homeowners to provide rental units like basement apartments — a move that's garnering praise from housing advocates and landlords alike."Any small steps that are taken to relieve that situation would be very welcome," he said. City Council will be asked to approve it, with any additions made, when it meets on Dec. 17.Mark Aston with the Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness said there are 8,000-9,000 people who are homeless every night in the city. Of the $23.4 billion plan, the city has committed to paying $8.5 billion into it, leaving the rest up to uncommitted funds from the provincial and federal governments.“We need to do better still, this is a one-time opportunity to get it right” said Perks. The 2020 NLIHC Advocates' Guide!
Those between 25 and 34 years old account for 23 per cent of the province's renters, according to a 2018 survey conducted on behalf of the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario.
To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution ... “I think a rubber stamping approach to these evictions is a fear tenants and housing advocates have,” said Majid
We recognize that everyone deserves safe, secure and affordable housing. “This is effectively legalizing fraud. Housing advocates urge Toronto to declare homelessness 'state of emergency' Ainsley Smith | Jan 22 2019, 3:14 pm .
“The shelters that collapse under the weight and the pressure will belong to you if you add to the problem as opposed to working with the colleagues that you have to fix that.”The government toughened the proposed law in committee last week to make it even easier for landlords to evict tenants hit by job loss or other pandemic-related troubles.Chiara Padovani, an executive member of the York South-Weston Tenant Union, got emotional describing how tenants in her area, which is located south of the 401 between old Toronto’s west-end neighbourhoods and Etobicoke, are “disproportionately feeling the weight of COVID-19.”“That anyone would even conceive of making it easier to evict people in these circumstances, it shocks the mind,” Perks said. Aston said the problem is the result of failed public policy and can only be improved through adequate supportive and affordable housing.“When I see individuals on a street corner, I think about the opportunity and how their lives would be so different if they were living in supportive housing,” Davis said.Perks is also calling for affordable housing commitments in the plan to be permanent.
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