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We call for the City of Toronto, the Housing and Development Planning Committee and the External Advisory Council to revise the HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan to include people living below poverty line. The current solution proposed by the City of Toronto is leaving out the most vulnerable communities and is instead geared towards helping low-income residents and people renting homes. The ten year plan to build 40,000 new affordable rental homes is not accessible to the homeless population. Affordable homes are rented just below market rates, which are still too high for a person that does not have a steady income. There is no mention of further funding for the collapsing shelter system in the city's plan, and does not include building emergency shelters for people at risk of freezing to death in the winter.

There is no mention of permanent housing solutions for those living in poverty and as the numbers of homeless people have risen since the pandemic, the HousingTO Plan has not been revised to address the housing crisis.

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There are over 7000 homeless people in the City of Toronto and the number is rising. The shelter system is broken and lacks sufficient funding to provide a dignified life. We see a complete lack of accessible housing to the tackle this problem. The HousingTO Action Plan put forward by City Council claims it will build 40,000 affordable homes by 2030. Only 1000 of these will be truly accessible to the homeless as modular homes. We find this solution to be inadequate when the housing is still commodified. Additionally, a target of 2030 is inadequate when 132 people died in the shelter system in 2021 alone, according to the City.

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One tactic we will use to spread our campaign is a social media campaign. We have made an infographic that outlines the problems we see with the HousingTO plan and our proposed solution in a succinct and shareable way. It will also have the emails and phone numbers of a few of the members of City Council that we hope to reach with our message. We will share it on facebook, instagram and twitter where it will hopefully be shared by people and community groups who agree with the cause. This is a very cheap and effective method to spread the campaign.
Another online tactic we will use is to create a petition. Hopefully from our infographic we will have a fair amount of city residents agree with us and realize that the out of control housing market is being perpetuated by City policies. With a petition we will be able to show City Council that a significant amount of people care about this issue and the ways they are mishandling it. This will put pressure on them to make changes to their HousingTO plan because they will realize if they don't they will risk losing the support of their constituents.
Our face-to-face tactic will be to participate in committee meetings with our target committees and to include ourselves in the Housing Now and Inclusionary Zoning consultations with the City. We will bring supporters, especially people most affected by the policy, to speak directly to the councillors who are involved in the City's plans for building new affordable housing so we can voice where we feel their plans are inadequate in regards to housing the homeless. We will be able to say that we feel their timeline is too distant and that their plans for affordable housing neglects to aid the deeply poor in finding accessible housing. With this tactic we can be certain they hear what we have to say.

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Success in our campaign would be reached if the City Council and specifically the Planning and Housing Committee revised their HousingTO plan to include much better provisions for the homeless population. This would mean providing 10,000 ACCESSIBLE and low barrier housing units, which would be 25% of the 40,000 new affordable units that the City plans on building. These homes would specifically be directed to those with no income, or credit history, and would take a Housing First approach.
Once the homeless population is housed in a dignified way, the remainder of the  new housing created should be offered at rates below market prices to create affordable housing for those who are working but still remain below the poverty line. Success would also come from informing the residents of the City about this ongoing issue of homelessness and giving them an understanding of how this problem is created and worsened by government policy.

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The ongoing battle to change City policies and plans to include the homeless population may take years, but we are hoping that our campaign would help to propel this movement forward through education and advocacy. We would like to see the City of Toronto build 10,000 new accessible homes specifically for the homeless population between 2-5 years. The Campaign would run on social media until the municipal government made a clear plan and directive for housing those living under the poverty line permanently.

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The objective of our campaign is to pressure the City to revise their HousingTO plan to build affordable housing. Their plan involves building 40,000 affordable units in the city by 2030. However, only 1000 modular units for homeless populations will be built. In our view, this solution addresses a need for housing from the working poor but does little to alleviate homelessness. The timeline is also too distant considering people are dying in shelters on a near daily basis. The hope to "increase access to affordable rents" but this does nothing for people who can't afford any rent at all. We are asking for a plan that revises the HousingTO proposal to built 40,000 affordable homes that requires 10,000 of the units to be deeply affordable and low barrier to access. This means that minimal documentation should be required and there should be a range of support services such as overdose prevention and accessibility services. The City's plan to build 1000 modular homes in out-of-the-way areas falls very short of providing for the over 7000 homeless people in Toronto who require access to transit and other services. With the city growing at a rapid rate, some of this profit should trickle down to our most vulnerable populations. Through social media campaigns and consultation with City Council members directly we hope to impact development to move in a more equitable direction.

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We can find allies among the homeless population as well as anyone living in the city who is troubled by the drastic rise in housing prices.  A 2021 ACORN Report found that the Housing and Planning Committee, made up of 10 members of City Council, took a combined $4 million in "donations" from developers. The commodification of housing and this partnership between the City and developers creates a system where many people are living precariously and risk falling into homelessness at any point. When this information is spread to the public through our campaign we feel they will recognize how unfair this is and how this system impacts their lives and will join us in opposition to the City and developers.

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(2015). BlogTO: All of Toronto city council is alleged to have accepted donations from developers. Acorn. https://acorncanada.org/blogto-all-toronto-city-council-alleged-have-accepted-donations-developers

Modular Home Initiative. City Of Toronto. https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/housing-shelter/affordable-housing-developments/modular-housing-initiative/

Housing Now. City of Toronto. https://createto.ca/housingnow/

(2019). HousingTO Action Plan. City of Toronto. https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/94f0-housing-to-2020-2030-action-plan-housing-secretariat.pdf

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If you want to get a condo tower built in Toronto, you'll have to go through the local councillor and the community that stands behind them.

So it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that a new report is alleging a significant share of campaign contributions donated to candidates in the lead-up to the 2018 municipal election came from people with personal or professional ties to the development industry.

ADVISORY: ACORN Report Shows 34% Of City Council Donors Have Development Ties pic.twitter.com/iCHVSMDGfS

- Toronto ACORN (@TorontoACORN) October 12, 2021

And how significant is this share? How about more than one-third, the report alleging that 34 per cent of the total contribution amount from the last election came from donors with ties to the development industry.

But councillors are putting the veracity and methodology of the report into question, specifically the method of determining what constitutes a connection to the development industry.

Produced by ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) Canada, an organization fighting social and economic injustice, the report states that all 24 members of city council elected in 2018 accepted money from the development industry.

ACORN claims to have pulled the Financial Disclosure Statements of all city councillors elected and still on council from the last 2018 municipal election, then searching for public information on donors' names.

The report does not clarify what ACORN classifies as "tied to the development industry" in any way.

Of the $4,065,009 total funds raised by the mayor and councillors during their campaigns, ACORN alleges a staggering $1,374,725 came from the very deep pockets of people with links to the industry.

Aside from some eye-opening allegations about how much sway the development industry could hold on municipal politics as a whole, the report also gets specific and names plenty of names, including Mayor John Tory and a dozen councillors.

Members of the Mayor's Executive Committee are alleged to have had some of the highest rates of campaign contributions from donors with supposed ties to the development industry.

Tory himself is accused of receiving 38 per cent of his donations from people in the building business.

Councillor James Pasternak is reported to have taken 59 per cent of his contributions from people with ties to development. He oversees the York Centre ward, where a massive wave of private development has been growing around Downsview Park.

Pasternak also chairs Toronto's Infrastructure and Environment Committee and North York Community Council.

All nine members of the Mayor's Executive Committee are alleged to have accepted the following percentages of their campaign donations from people linked to the development industry, with specific rates reported at:

Councillor Ainslie, 21 per cent of the amount contributed

Councillor Bailão, 42 per cent

Councillor Crawford, 43 per cent

Councillor McKelvie, 28 per cent

Councillor Minnan-Wong, 32 per cent

Councillor Pasternak, 59 per cent

Councillor Thompson, 40 per cent

Mayor Tory, 38 per cent

It could be seen as problematic that one of these names is also chair of the city's Planning and Housing Committee, Councillor Bailão having reported to have received 42 per cent of campaign donations from the building industry.

Other members of the City's Planning and Housing Committee on this list include:

Councillor Bradford, 41 per cent

Councillor Nunziata, 38 per cent

Councillor Wong-Tam, 21 per cent

Councillor Perks, 6 per cent

Councillor Fletcher, 18 per cent

blogTO reached out to all of the names listed in the report after its release on Thursday.

As of Friday morning, only a few have responded to our request for comment, but they are united in their message that the report doesn't paint an honest picture of campaign donations.

Sharon Ma, an administrative coordinator for Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, refutes the claims made in the report, stating that "Councillor Wong-Tam did not accept any funds from developers, she returned every single cheque that was from a developer."

Councillor Brad Bradford tells blogTO, "This report is qualitative and there's no clear explanation for how an alleged connection to development or real estate is being defined."

"In a healthy democracy, we won't always agree on how exactly how that is done but we have to agree on a set of shared facts and evidence."

"Municipal campaign finance information is exceptionally transparent and I encourage anyone who's interested to take a personal look at all of the campaign finance information that's posted online. I'd also ask them to look at my record and my actions to make up their own mind on who I represent."

It was Councillor Paula Fletcher who took a good chunk out of her evening to discuss the report with blogTO, speaking directly to the report's allegations.

"I can confirm I had 196 donations, that's a lot. It's hard to raise money when you're not getting big amounts. Real developers, it's probably seven or eight donations." Fletcher clarified that none of these donations from developers came during approval stages, meaning they had no real influence on development activity in her ward.

The report alleges 18 donations came from the development industry, and Fletcher has questions about how ACORN is determining ties to the biz.

While listing some of her individual donors that she believed were being classified by ACORN as "tied to the development industry," Fletcher paused to remark, "The head of a neighbourhood association, a realtor, or an architect is not a developer. That's a constituent."

"A real estate agent who's on the Friends of Greenwood Park committee, who makes a donation to me: tell me what the advantage is?"

As to the report's concerns of Fletcher's position on the Planning and Housing Committee, she says that she only has one donor in the industry located outside of her ward, a personal friend of hers.

"I think the line is very blurry. It should deal with straight-up developers, not related industries like roofers."

But what is ACORN looking to achieve by exposing these names and numbers?

The organization has been a prominent voice in shaping the city's forming of an inclusionary zoning policy that mandates a portion of new developments with more than 100 units set aside space for affordable housing.

ACORN is not only displeased with the time it's taken to get inclusionary zoning brought to council, but accuses the policy of being too weak to help curb the housing crisis.

Even with its methodology in question, the report's wording certainly applies pressure to politicians, whose constituents might not be too happy about that new tower under construction across the street.

Article by Jack Landau for BlogTO

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BlogTO: All of Toronto city council is alleged to have accepted donations from developers

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Posted October 15, 2021 If you want to get a condo tower built in Toronto, you'll have to go through the local councillor and the community that stands behind them.

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The target of our campaign is mainly focused on the municipal level because the City is the main governing body over the implementation of housing development, as well as the shelter system and fighting poverty. We will focus on key members of City Council, such as Mayor John Tory because he is the public face of City Council and is a member of the Planning and Housing Committee who are in charge of new development and inclusionary zoning. We will also target Ana Bailao, a member of the Housing and Planning Committee and the co-chair of External Advisory Committee, which is an advisory board of community organizations and real estate and property lobbyists. This is an important target because they give disproportionate sway in City Council to groups seeking to profit off the rising cost of housing and so must be countered by popular action. Giuliana Carbone, Deputy City Manager for the City's Community and Social Services, is another target because she plays an important role in areas related to community housing that are vital to having our campaign implemented.