Advocates say the next step toward housing transparency is public access to landlord registries
Lauren Bennett
Mingzhe Zhang via Pexels Sarah Dawson, a renter living in Toronto’s east end, was told that her rent was going to go up again for the second time in three years, and she wanted to know why. “Every year, the rent goes up, but the problems in the building never seem to get fixed. I […] More »
In 2021, the Kensington Market Community Land Trust (KMCLT) did an astonishing thing. After a protracted renoviction battle over the Toronto neighbourhood’s iconic Mona Lisa building, the KMCLT bought it from the would-be evictors. The rumoured plan to turn it into a cannabis hotel was foiled and the tenants of the 12 residential and five […] More »
How Toronto's Rwandan community is creating its own housing
Likam Kyanzaire
In the summer of 2023, 200 African asylum seekers were left homeless in Toronto. With nowhere to go, they had no choice but to sleep on the streets after escaping poverty, political violence and climate disaster back home. While municipal, provincial and federal governments twiddled their thumbs, Black and African organizations in the city rallied […] More »
They're home to Canada's most vulnerable. They want change, but many decision makers are fighting it
Megan Marrelli
On a rainy Thursday in April, I arrive at a yellow brick, split-level house in London, Ont. People are doing word searches at a large dining table. Some help themselves to a container of freshly baked peanut butter cookies, and CBC News is playing on a television in the living room. This house, tucked away in […] More »
The Salvation Army is proposing an 892-square-metre “mega-shelter” in Ottawa’s Vanier neighbourhood that would provide temporary shelter beds for up to 350 people. The shelter would be the biggest in North America, featuring a special health care unit, a space for addictions recovery, permanent housing referrals, a dining facility, counselling, employment skills training, and more. […] More »
Nadine Bachan—like many young Canadians—spent months trying to find an apartment she could afford in Vancouver's market
Nadine Bachan
Four strangers are congregating by my doorway. I cautiously step outside and the most well-dressed of them extends his hand and makes introductions. He’s the real-estate agent and the others are his team. I say hello then retreat back inside, listening to the muffled voices outside my window. I live in the garden suite—an elegant synonym for […] More »
The night bus to Toronto’s North York General Hospital was nearly empty at two o’clock in the morning in September 2014, and Dan McLaughlin was nervous. He was on his way to receive an MRI so that doctors could diagnose a painful back injury, the result of years of hard labour, previous drug abuse, […] More »
For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »
For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »
For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »
A call for co-operative housing reform After spending the first 23 years of my life living in co-operative housing, I worry “co-operative” has become nothing more than a platitude used to paint a picture of true democracy. Even at the most local of levels, a functioning democracy needs supervision. Over a quarter of a million […] More »