Housing For Whom? Campaign
RPCM plays an integral part of the leadership and development of TUHU (Toronto Underhoused and Homeless Union). Below is our press release regarding our Housing For Whom? campaign, which raised the awareness of the stark contrast between the voices of people experiencing homelessness, and the luxury developments being build that are no where near affordable for the people who really need housing in our city. It was a successful campaign, some clips and news coverage links are below.
For more information, read below, and check out the new TUHU website! www.TUHUnion.ca
Press coverage of the campaign:
The Union’s welcome by Al, our MC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Oo9qyMBtc&t=3s
Health Providers Against Poverty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdrkqaTe7cE
YSW Tenant’s Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw9JXJJoSFw
Climate Justice Toronto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QurNdjmXZvs
Toronto Underhoused and Homeless Union calls for ACTION with the Housing for Whom? Campaign
National Housing Day – Wednesday, November 22 at 11am
Allan Gardens Park – northeast corner
(TORONTO) Tomorrow on National Housing Day, words of the homeless population will be seen on various new development signs in the city.
These posters will contain the words of people experiencing homelessness and precarious housing in Toronto. The posters come from real people, expressing their response to the questions “What Does Home Mean to You” and “What is one thing that you think is poorly understood about Homelessness.” The stark contrast of the words of people experiencing homelessness against the luxury condo development sign is a poignant reminder that housing is indeed being built, but not for us. In Toronto, new housing builds are almost exclusively for the rich.
TUHU brings together people who are or who have been homeless, people experiencing precarious housing, and their advocates, who are dedicated to uplifting the voices of those most affected by Toronto’s housing crisis.
The TUHU press conference on Wednesday, November 22 will be approximately 25 minutes in length total, and will include the following groups:
‘Listen To Us!’ – a poignant, collective reading by TUHU members
Social Housing and Justice Network (SHJN)
York South-Weston (YSW) Tenant Union
Voices from the Shelter Hotels
Climate Justice Toronto (CJTO)
Health Providers Against Poverty (HPAP)
TUHU demands for the Housing For Whom? Campaign press conference are as follows:
1. We demand the City give people experiencing homelessness and precarious housing a seat at the table when decisions are made that affect us. As a union open to and led by people experiencing homelessness and precarious housing across Toronto, we demand the City work with us – and similar organizations – when planning all major housing developments and transformations to the shelter system. This relationship would be like that of an employer and employee’s union, with the understanding that we will organize to disrupt city activities if we are not listened to. We further demand the City hold fully accessible meetings in local encampments, shelters, service hubs, and low income/social housing during consultations about shelter and housing proposals.
2. We demand an immediate moratorium on TCHC housing evictions, encampment clearings, and service restrictions from hotel programs and congregate shelters. The City has declared homelessness a state of emergency yet continues to evict TCHC renters onto the streets. People living in encampments exist under the constant threat of eviction, while staff at congregant shelters and hotel programs can evict residents through “service restrictions” that are often arbitrary with no path for appeals. In a city where our shelters are at capacity and affordable, accessible, dignified housing is virtually non-existent, these evictions only exacerbate the housing crisis and compound the harm to homeless and underhoused people.
3. We demand the City create and administer rent subsidies for presently unhoused people. The City claims it can’t afford rent subsidies, but subsidizing someone in an apartment is 1/8th to 1/16th the cost of keeping them in a shelter bed. Subsidizing rents could save millions of dollars and hundreds of lives. We demand the City do what is morally and financially responsible and immediately offer subsidies to those of us living and dying on Toronto’s streets.
4. We demand the City amend its affordable housing definition to specify all units must be fully accessible for people with disabilities and built to standards of Universal Design. Disabled people are overrepresented in the homeless population. Many wait years for someone else to die for an affordable, accessible unit to open up, yet only a tiny percentage of affordable units are required to be even semi-accessible. We demand the City invest to make current affordable housing fully accessible and guarantee new developments meet this standard. The City must consult disabled communities to ensure affordable units meet their needs, and publish the number of affordable, fully wheelchair accessible units available.
5. We demand the City enforce its own bylaw and RentSafeTO standards that affordable units are safe, clean, and pest free. Presently, ‘affordable’ is often code for neglected, unsafe, and infested. We demand that the city increase RentSafeTO inspections and inspectors in affordable units. To mitigate conflicts of interest, City inspectors inspecting City properties like TCHC must be accompanied by representatives from tenant unions or organizations like ours who can document and follow through on concerns and organize to disrupt if standards are not upheld.
In addition to these demands, we endorse the Shelter Housing and Justice Network’s newly released Winter Plan. This plan articulates measures for the City to adopt that will save lives in the cold months ahead along with sensible ways to address the housing crisis in the short and long term. We demand the City listens heeds their advice, urgently.