Transcript - Eviction Moratorium Passes 7-3 - Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee

Eviction Moratorium Passes 7-3 - Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee - March 23, 2026

slightly delayed but hopefully we can um get kicked off within the next four to five minutes. I'm going to make a couple of phone calls um but if members are also able I see someone else has joined in the room as well. Awesome. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair. We do have quorum. Just give us a moment to uh start the stream and the recording. Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I will uh ready whenever you want. Okay, we have quorum ready to begin when you are. Thank you, madame clerk. I appreciate your as I am chairing remotely. Um, good morning everyone, members of CBR and staff in the room, colleagues from clerk's office. My name is Deputy Mayor Amber Moley and I am the chair of the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee. The clerk has confirmed that we have quorum. So, I will call meeting nine of the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee to order. Welcome again, everybody. Happy Monday. I hope folks are feeling rested off of um the March break week last week. Today's meeting is being held with members, staff, and the public connecting by video conference and in person at city hall in community room 1. I will ask everyone for their patience uh with any delays and technical issues. Members of the public can watch the meeting via liveream on YouTube at youtube.comto city council live. This is our first meeting in the newly upgraded community room 1. For those of you who are in person, you'll notice the improved layout with greater accessibility for mobility devices, a separation of the public gallery, a new audiovisisual equipment including microphones, monitors, and screens. Um, significant acoustic improvements were also made to the room. So, I would ask that everyone keep side conversations to a minimum. Members of the public should enter through the doors located at the back of the room for direct access to the public. Uh, for members around the table, when you're speaking, make sure that you hit your um the red button in front of you needs to be green uh for it to be um connected and and online for us to hear you. I would like to uh remind all staff and invited participants who are joining the meeting remotely to keep your mics muted and your video turned off unless you are a member of the committee or unless you need to directly address the committee. This will make it easier for me as chair and for those watching on YouTube to see the members as we debate and vote on the agenda items. Members, please keep your cameras on. Uh if members wish to ask questions of staff or to speak, please raise your hand or just unmute and um shout out to get my attention so I can add you to a speakers list. Um those in the room, I'll be leaning on our clerk Tina um to support with a speakers for questions and speaking um for those in person as well. Um, two. So, when voting on an item or a motion, I'll ask members to raise your hand to indicate your vote. If there's a recorded vote, I will ask you to state if you are in favor or opposed. Members, I want to remind you that although we are participating remotely and in person, we must still submit our motions in writing to our clerk staff team who are available at cabarcronto.ca to help with motions. So with that uh we will start our meeting in a good way with our land acknowledgement. And although we are meeting at different locations, the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee acknowledges the land we are meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Missagas of the Credit, the Anesnabek, the Chipoa, the Hudnon, and the Wendat peoples. Is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Matei peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by treaty 13 with the missag of the credit. Uh, forgive me. Apologies. Working on one screen here. We honor the treaties and responsibilities that endure on the lands that we call home. And we name that these lands were taken and held through processes and colonization that continue to shape daily life. The city of Toronto acknowledges all treaty peoples including those who came here as settlers as migrants either in this generation or in generations past and those of us who came here involuntarily particularly those brought to these lands as a result of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery. We pay tribute to those ancestors of African origin and descent. I will move on now to confirmation of minutes. Um I'm looking for a motion to confirm the minutes of the CARB um meeting of November 25th, 2025. Um can I get anybody who's able to put forward the motion to confirm the minutes? I see George online. Thank you, George. Seconded by Caris. All in favor? Thank you so much. Um that is approved. So for today's agenda members, we have four items. Um we will um I'd like to suggest that we consider items CR 9.3 and CR 9.4. Uh to start our agenda as they have both staff presentations and speakers. Um as of right now, we've got two registered speakers for each item. Um so we will reorder the agenda to have um CR 9.3 advancing community development through evidence-based planning. Um to kick off to kick off today. Um John Smith, manager community development, and Safia Chowry, manager of social policy from social development are in the room uh with us to in the room today uh with our committee to give a presentation. Uh, I'd like to invite you to settle in to the podium if you are not already um to the speakers area and uh to go ahead and kick off. I will turn it over to you. Just a gentle reminder, I'm sure you are both aware now. We're going to want to hit that red button till it's green so we can all uh see and hear you online as well. Thank you. testing the microphone. Um, good morning. Um, thank you for the opportunity uh to present uh to the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Action Committee. My name is John Smith, manager of community development and social development. Good morning. My name is Safia Chri and I'm the manager of the social policy unit at social development. In this presentation, we will be walking through uh three main areas. Uh reviewing the strong neighborhood strategy as well as providing an update on the current status of activities to the strong neighborhood strategy. um providing an overview of social and community development plans uh as well as um providing an update on Toronto's new uh tool for assessing neighborhoods and its current development. The Toronto Strong Neighborhood Strategy is a place-based equity strategy. It is uh focused on uh neighborhood partnerships, neighborhood investments. Uh it was approved by city council in 2005 and updated uh in 2014. Mission of the strategy is to advance uh activation in people, resources and uh neighborhood friendly policies and the vision is for equitable uh opportunities for all Torononians no matter where they live in the city. Uh this slide provides an overview of strong neighborhoods uh and and highlights a number of areas since 2005 leading up to our current uh time in 2005. Uh the uh identification of priority neighborhoods was first began to be used by city staff. uh and that uh came along with an implementation process that saw city staff coming together in neighborhood action teams that evolved to neighborhood action partnerships that included uh community leaders and nonprofit organizations uh as well as other community partners. Uh some of the activities uh at that time included service fairs and youth employment events. There's a real emphasis on youth engagement and uh and and employment and training opportunities as well as a uh uh leveraging resources for capital investments from city uh uh resources existing city resources that came in the uh form of the partnership opportunities legacy fund. In 2014, city approved the uh 31 neighborhood improvement areas as well as eight emerging neighborhoods, former priority uh neighborhoods. Uh as well as the uh engagement, one of the main engagement approaches or the use of neighborhood planning tables. Uh there are about 15 to 20 tables uh established or recognized uh across the city. Um, neighborhood grants began as an initiative that evolved to our current local leadership grants and we began a uh yearly summit in 2019 uh Toronto Strong Neighborhood Summit that brought together uh resident community leaders uh city uh staff and other community partners and nonprofit partners from across the city on an annual basis as well as establishing a resident advisory uh in 2015 along with uh capacity building workshops and initiative certifications including food handling, first aid, CPR um beyond uh for 2020 and uh and beyond and the uh the process uh actually was impacted by COVID. But uh as as we update now, Strong Neighborhoods is in operation, including uh citywide scope, uh community newsletters, a resident advisory that also has an ambassador role, local leadership grants, again, the summit capacity building workshops and certifications, and as well aligning with reconciliation and equity policies that have been advanced since the uh beginning of uh the uh since the strategy was updated in 2014. This slide uh is really to uh uh emphasize the the use of the city social planning neighborhoods in the way that the city captures data across neighborhoods. Uh originally in the 1990s, this mapping was uh uh established with 140 social planning neighborhoods and uh updated in 2022 to identify now 158 neighborhoods. Part of the update was uh the change in uh the size uh population of these neighborhoods and the need to have a more balanced uh uh approach across the board size of uh these areas. Priority neighborhoods uh is a common term that was used up until 2014 and uh began in 2005. uh uh these neighborhoods were actually some amalgams of social planning neighborhoods. So in total there was about 22 priority areas that came to be known as priority neighborhoods as well. neighborhood improvement areas and emerging neighborhoods as council had passed the uh uh 2014 uh strong neighborhood strategy uh 31 of which are seen on the map here and the and as well as the eight emerging uh uh neighborhoods. Now uh currently uh the city prioritizes investments uh well and beyond of NAS placebased is one of uh a number of ways that the city uh determines uh where to invest in communities. uh a number of the ways and this isn't a full list but there are a number of ways that include uh estimates of low-income residents at census track secondary plans and looking at development opportunities as well as investments that need to be made uh um to support those changes um customized defined uh areas by policies. So the downtown east plan is a uh based on that type of approach and there are many other plans that are based that are specifically customized to uh specific area analysis of assets mapping in relation to population needs as well as other uh divisions and their specific methodologies. I'll include some examples uh like the parks and wreck determines uh through their mapping where uh they establish centers uh that are free as well as the expansion of uh uh uh child care centers is based on children's services uh data um as well in terms of prioritizing investments beyond NIA's beyond the placebased approach a number of strategies ies have come about since 2014, including the poverty reduction strategy, action plan to confront anti-black racism, Toronto reconciliation action plan, uh the newcomer strategy, uh the community coordination plan, safety, youth development plans, and others have come about. Um and and these uh strategies and plans add an additional lens to how decisions are made and resources are are um are are focused in in across the city of Toronto. As we look at social and community development plans like to highlight some of the similarities and differences. Social development plans were identified uh as strategies to support specifically Toronto community housing communities and their tenants that were going through the transition of revitalization. Whereas community development plans is a more recent uh uh development uh where uh the approach is to uh maximize equity and reconciliation uh as a result of secondary plan updates. And so there are similarities in terms of approaches, but the the the timing and the emphasis are are quite different in terms of how we support these types of plans and the rollouts of these plans. I want to focus on just highlighting some areas in terms of region park from uh some of the investments that are made. This is not a full comprehensive list. um uh as well as a focus on uh some of the elements of the social development plan. So in 2007 revitalization uh um became uh in in the region park uh the first time the city had approached a revitalization process of this type specifically focused on a TCH community as well. A social development plan was approved. Um and that plan uh uh went through a number of uh uh uh iterations including in 2019 a refresh process uh occurred. Uh in 2007 though the the init the the initial thought at that time was to develop a plan and then to look at what opportunities and investments uh would be uh uh um leveraged as a result of that plan. In 2019 into the 2020 budget year, council approved uh resources to ensure that there was a an attempt to redress some of the uh gaps in the community and leverage other existing resources and work with community. That led to a $50,000 operation budget being approved. One uh full-time permanent community development worker and a uh uh temporary grant as a social development plan grant uh to support local investments in addition to the investments that came through revitalization through the developer and through other uh means in 2025. Uh most recently a community benefits agreement uh valued at 26.8 million uh was endorsed by Toronto Community Housing, Tridell and local community. Within that agreement, it includes 3.4 million for community initiatives. In the implementation of the social development plan, again the focus is on TCH tenants, although it has expanded to support other uh residents in the community. It's a collaboration between uh TCH, the city organizations uh in in in the area. The geographic scope is specific to Region Park um as a as a full complete neighborhood. And uh of course the plan is triggered by revitalization and and supports uh revitalization. Key principles established in this plan were social inclusion and social cohesion. And the implementation came through a number of different uh uh uh um iterations including a uh community table, social development uh uh plan stakeholders table as well as uh currently youth tables and uh engagement of residentled groups and continues in terms of the partnership with TCH and the developer and other partners that uh uh are are leveraged for their investments as Well, and in terms of policy design, the plan leverages the existing policies and programs uh through the city in Jane Finch timeline uh which is very recent. City council approved uh the Jane Finch community development plan as long along with the Jane Finch initiative in 2024. Uh in terms of the community development plan, uh resources were leveraged from existing uh staffing and uh with a a $50,000 operation uh uh budget to support engagement activities in Jane and Finch. We also leverage partnerships with United Way uh to uh have an additional million dollars invested over a number of years in community initiatives. In terms of the elements of uh the uh community development plan, again, it embeds uh uh equity and reconciliation objectives within a policy framework. Um and and the community development plan uh is is looking to shift the way that uh secondary plans are developed especially in areas that are identified uh as uh needing uh historic investments to address uh historic marginalization. the collaboration. Uh this plan was initiated by the city of Toronto uh by a number of divisions including city planning, economic development and social development but involves agencies uh uh city agencies, nonprofit sector uh community groups and uh is looking to leverage partnerships with the priv private sector uh uh developers. The geographic scope is a the the actual size of the area is two neighborhoods wide. So it's the Glenfield Jane Heights as well as the Black Creek neighborhoods. I'd say estimate around 70,000 uh people across that those two neighborhoods. And uh there is a specific focus in the area that the secondary plan uh the secondary plan catchment. Um the plan was also initiated by an investment in uh transportation. And so there's a major uh capital investment in transportation by the province that uh spurred on the the opportunity for a secondary plan because of the uh potential investments that would happen in development in the area. But there was a need to actually support uh residents uh and have a plan that was identified by residents. Um the key principles are reconciliation, confronting anti-black racism and community partnerships and resonate through the actions that have been identified. The implementation is over a 25-year period with five to 10 year uh phases in which reports will uh come uh to uh committee uh update reports and the structure includes uh city partners table, funders table, uh a monitoring and evaluation mechanism, resident leadership uh circle and and and community assemblies. Um the the policy design uh is is to actually leverage existing and emerging uh policies but also to create new policies not only within uh the uh city but also look at leveraging opportunities for uh policy investments uh across all levels of government. We're going to turn to our evidence-based planning and uh a tool for community development. Thank you. So John spoke extensively about the various placebased plans that are underway and uh there is a num a number of initiatives uh around planning at a city level and that's uh what our next section is about. So as we know there there are a number of broader place-based initiatives underway that use an evidence-based model. So we have as John identified earlier there is the plans from 20 2005 around priority neighborhoods. We went in 2014 introduced the urban heart at Toronto model that introduced us to neighborhood improvement areas. And now we have embarked on a new process on evidence place planning in Toronto. And so this builds upon those previous initiatives from 2005 to 2014 to now in 2026. And this new refresh process takes those learnings from all of those previous experiences and learnings from other different models to ensure that we are uh taking an evidence-driven community community well-being approach to generate understandings of opportunities, assets, and needs within and across Toronto neighborhoods and communities. And some of the things that we've learned from previous models is to include both quantitative and qualitative data to to understand and inform priority setting for planning, policy and investments to advance both equity and reconciliation. Uh we also are introducing we also have we also understand and will have the the the role of social identity markers. So that includes age, race, gender and as many identity level markers we can. And we also have learned from our previous process to have uh an understanding of neighborhoods at a more granular granular level at at the census track level to ensure that we are identifying pockets of need, pockets of opportunity within the complexity of neighborhoods. Uh these tools will using both quantitative and qualitative data. Uh we will use both of them to guide the city in our place-based planning initiatives. And so it will be a whole scale approach uh that all of the city will uh utilize similar to our previous models of or current models I should say of the NAS the neighborhood improvement areas as well as previously to that the priority neighborhoods. The the goal is for it to be useful for not only city staff but for communities and neighborhoods and anybody who does placebased planning in this in this city. So in our in our timeline, this work began in 2003 with a number of partners, but our main partner is the United Way of Greater Toronto. And uh the first phase in 20 2023 was to develop our conceptual model. And this was extensive pre-work to understand what are we actually building, what do we want to build, what are the learnings that we've had in the past, uh and what are some of the opportunities that we have uh moving forward. It looked at both local and global uh models of placebased planning to incorporate what makes sense for the city of Toronto. Uh and in phase 2 A which was in 2024 looked at the quantitative indicators and models. So again learning from our previous our previous examples of this, we wanted to we wanted to look at what are specifically quantitative quantitative data that we can use that is replicable that is allows us to look at the census track level that is broad broad-based and gives us the best holistic picture of what it means to do placebased planning in Toronto and uh that was honed in on and focused on in 2024 and then we uh in 2025 last year started identifying the qualitative model areas which looks at things like asset planning, asset asset mapping, understanding community narrative stories. Uh, and that together in 2026, phase three, which is the phase we're in right now, we'll be testing both the quantitative and qualitative models together, looking to do a full tool development for then further testing for eventual roll out in 2027, next year. And that will be uh that will that will be a widescale implementation and will be inclusive of um a lot of testing. All of these all of these phases and indeed the development of our process was done in extensive collaboration with uh a number of advisory groups. So we have advisory groups comprised of subject matter experts in both qualitative and quantitative data. We have a number of community groups and resident group residents who participate and advise us throughout the process. And there is also a group of city staff uh so that we are inclusive of the various different models that city staff employ. And we want to ensure that this tool is is functional and useful for all of those different for all of those different partners. And so um we will be having a a public website on the city's on the city's page that will be live shortly and that will give more information on where we'll be going and information on on the work that we've done so far. Uh and throughout this whole process, especially as we're moving into 2027 around um testing, sorry, full implementation and testing of the tool, there will be a lot of opportunities and it really be very important for us to have continued communication and engagement on whether or not the work that we're doing is functional and allows us to fulfill the purposes that we intend, which is to do equity based placebased planning in the city. So to that end, we have in fact three questions, a few questions for feedback from from this advisory committee. Um, and so because this model, this model that we're working on is intended to uh learn from and build upon the previous place-based equity planning, we wanted to know, are there specific learnings in in your work, in your in your space, in your communities that we should be mindful of as we undertake this work? So, uh, specifically, if it's the neighborhood improvement area model or other placebased planning models, what are things that we should be mindful of um, as we moving forward? The second question that we were that would be useful and helpful for us is to understand how can we best ensure the city's future equity informed placebased planning tool which as I've mentioned includes both qualitative and quantitative data. How can we ensure that it is accessible and easy for black communities to engage with and use? Uh and then the third question is how can we best ensure that this future tool is meaningful and relevant for black communities? the most important aspect of the work we're doing is that it's useful, that it's functional, that it helps us meet the the purposes of the work we're doing. And so it's really important that we that we build this tool with all of those consider considerations in mind. And it would be very helpful for us to hear from you as well. Thank you, Safia and John. Thank you so very much for that presentation. Uh really appreciate you taking us through this important work that you're leading and I know it's definitely of interest to our committee. uh as we've had some motions uh around this important work um previously. So I'm sure we'll have some questions for you of members, but we do have two speakers on this item. So I'm just going to go to the public deputants first. Uh we'll hear from our speakers and then we'll take it into committee for questions of staff um of members uh and then we'll move into speaking from there. So the first speaker that I have registered on this item is Dr. Apprentice Dancier. Apologies if I butchered your last name. Um, is Dr. Apprentice in the room or online? The speaker is not present. Not present. Okay. Um, we'll jump to the next one. We'll see if um they are able to rejoin us. Uh, this is an interesting one because the next speaker I have listed is a member of the committee. Um, clerk, I'll just up to you for clarification. Is that in order or does the member should the member speak during their five minutes? Um, the speaker is uh uh Tamana Yasmin. Um, I have Okay. Uh, on the list I have before me, I have Wed. Oh, never mind. There we go. Tana Yasmi. Thank you, co-chair for Regent Park neighborhood association. That's perfect. um is the next speaker in Oh, I see you online. Perfect. Thank you for joining our cap bracket committee. Um Miss you have five minutes to address the committee. I'll just look to the clerks to start the timer and you can get started soon as you're ready. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um good morning chair and members of the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee. My name is Tamana Yasmin and I am here today in supporting of the submission from Regent Park Neighborhood Associ Association regarding item 2 2026 CR9.3. We are at a critical moment. Recent data and community experience point to growing eviction pressure within Toronto community housing alongside ongoing concern around transparency and accountability. This is happening within a system where a disproportionate number of tenants are black and yet sorry. Yeah. And yet we still do not have a consistent race disagre disagregated eviction data. This is not a minor gap. It is a structural barrier that limits our ability to meaningfully address anti-black racism in housing. Eviction is not just a housing issue. It is a racial justice issue. It contributes to homelessness, family instability, and long-term community disruption. And importantly, evictions outcomes are shaped by policy decision, which means they can also be prevented. From my work um in region park, I have seen the importance of a different approach through the social development plan. Residents are supported for supported before challenges escalate connection to legal and social support and and strengthened and early intervention helps reduce the risk of eviction. This reflects what community- based prevention can look like, but it requires sustained investment. We are calling for three key actions. First, pause on eviction on social housing while a transparent and independent review is undertaken. Second, the implementation of consistent race disagregated data collection and public reporting to strengthen accountability. Third, sustained investment in social development plans across Toronto so that every neighborhood has the capacity to prevent eviction before it occurs. If we are serious about confronting anti-black racism, we must address how housing systems are producing inequitable outcomes. We have community knowledge. We have evidence evidenceinformed approaches. Now we need coordinated actions. Thank you for your time and your leadership. Thanks. Thank you so much for your submission to us today. Um I note you spoke more specifically to the next item which is the addressing evictions through disagregated racebased data and you are also registered to speak on that. Um I just want to confirm if you are um hoping to address the committee again on the next item or if that is your submission for us today. Sorry, that would be my submission for today. Sorry. I I I because it's my first time, so I was a bit confused. I didn't know exactly uh when to proceed. You you did both to be safe. So, all good. I really appreciate that. You did a great job. Thank you for joining us and for adding your voice to this important conversation. Uh do we have any questions for the speaker? Madam Clerk, just help me if there's anybody online or sorry, in person hearing none. Oh, wed has a question for the deputent. Go ahead. We can start the chat. Thank you. Go ahead. Works perfectly. It is okay. Hello. Okay. Perfect. Tamana, thank you so much for your deputation. Um what I liked about what you had to say was make correlating uh investments through social development plan with eviction prevention programs or initiatives. Um when you talk about the impact of social development plans, maybe you could take some time to just highlight uh why continued investments through a social development plan and we're also going to be talking about community development plans today. Why is that so significantly important? Um, and uh, and I'll see if there's a followup. Go ahead. You can unmute yourself, Tima, if you want. That one's for you. Sorry. Thank you. Thank Thank you, Alid. I can see there's some trouble with the muting and unmuting. The clerk will Sorry, I'm just trying to Yeah. Uh I am sorry. Was there was that a question? I'm I'm a bit confused. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Can you repeat that one more time because I was I wasn't sure. Yeah. So my question to you is when you debuted you spoke about uh social development plan being important community-led tools or initiative that could support one of the things that we you just mentioned earlier which is the rise of evictions from social housing. Um so this is a way for community-led initiatives to support uh you know folks who are going through evictions could be uh explored. But I wanted you to speak broadly about the importance of uh resourcing the social development plan because one of the hot questions that I'm going to be asking John Smith and our good friends at the city is how much investments do we have in the 2026 budget uh directed towards social development plans or community development plans. Uh you know uh our budget is a reflection of our political priorities. So if you could maybe just articulate why social develop funding social development plans is important that'd be great Tamato. Well, um as I said, um it is uh because we have evidence uh informed approach um uh we just uh need to kind of coordinate actions and um sorry just give me one second. No stress to Mana. I think um your submission was very well done. Uh spoke for itself and I think the piece on coordination um is really really helpful. I am just mindful of time. We do have another staff presentation that's going to come forward on specifically uh evictions and so I hope you'll hang out and and continue to follow along on the live stream. Uh again, you are registered for that item as well. If you'd like to speak again, uh we will call on you. Um just we'll for the interest of members time and and moving forward so we can bring it into questions of staff. Um we will we will proceed. Um I do just want to do one more call out for Dr. Apprentice. dancier um if they have joined in person or online to address the committee. I'm seeing and hearing none. Um we will take it into committee for questions of staff. Um I will take a speaker list. Is there anybody online who have questions of staff on this item? I have me. I will wait till the end. I'm not seeing any of others online at this time. If if you do get inspired and like to jump in, please just um show me your hand. Um Madame Clerk, are there others in the room? I know Wid indicated he has got questions for John and Safia. Are there others in the room? Uh there is May and Aman. Amanry. Perfect. All right. So we'll go opposite order. So Amanry will go first, then we'll go to May will lead and then all will close us off. If anybody else has other questions that come up, please do let us know. Amanry, why don't you kick us off? Go ahead. You've got five minutes. Thank you so much uh John and Safia for the presentation. Uh during your presentation, I picked interest in the Toronto poverty reduction strategy third term action plan 2023 2026. it speaks about expansion of eviction protection. I just wanted to hear from you uh what um or an update or what you've done in this um strategy due to the rampant evictions that we have been seeing and what is still going on right now. Thank you to the chair. Can I just suggest that any questions around evictions is the next item. So right now we're on social development and community investments. So if you wish to reframe that question around community investments, we're happy to answer that question. Yeah. So uh part of the strategies you are talking about, one of them is that the Toronto poverty reduction strategy, right? And we are in 2026. This started in 2023. Could you please give us an update? Okay. Without highlighting about the eviction protection because it is part of that strategy. The chair, I can take that question because my colleagues here are special special specialists in the work that they do and I can provide broad update on the work that our community uh poverty reduction office has been leading and my colleague Brian Halpern who is acting um uh director is also here who can also add to the update. So the poverty reduction team has largely been leading work around um uh food insecurity and in particular we've been driving work with Toronto Public Health both to take a geographic understanding of where food insecurities is occurring in our city and to help build out food program as a key priority in delivery. We've expanded school food programs with our school partners um in all all schools and we're aiming uh to 77 schools and are aiming to hit all schools by next September of 2026. And maybe I'll turn over to my colleague Bri to share other updates of the work of the poverty reduction team. Great. Thanks for that, Mo. Um my name is Briany Halpin. I'm acting director of social policy research and analysis. Um, and as Mo was intimating, uh, we've done a tremendous amount on on food insecurity, including supporting the mayor's efforts for a universal school food program. Um, but in addition to that, we've also been working with our colleagues in economic development and culture to uh develop an inclusive economic development framework. Um, and that is coming to uh council in its next cycle. um and that has a focus specifically on workforce development and support of small businesses and entrepreneurs and using city levers uh to support more more community-based local economic development. So you see real alignment with our social development plans as well. Uh we are also working with the Toronto Aboriginal Support Services Council, our task to establish a senior leadership relationship table uh to better support the needs of indigenous low-income indigenous communities in the city of Toronto. Um and I leave it there unless there's any follow-up questions, but those are our key priorities for 2026. Great. Thanks, Bioni. Um, Amanre, any follow-up questions from you for staff? Sorry, you just got to make sure your mic. Sorry, uh, Deputy Mayor Amber, I'm not able to put my raise my hand up, but I'd like to answer the question from the previous what asked. Um unfortunately our procedure doesn't allow us to vary in that way but when we come back to you you'll have five more minutes to address us on the evictions specific question uh item rather and uh you can embellish if you would like at that time we'll just we're into committee now so we're going to keep um questions of staff to committee members um but we look forward to hearing from you again in a few more moments. Sorry thank you I'm just learning. That's okay. That's what it's about. I learn by doing. So I'm glad that you're with us to learn in real time. Um so we will move to the next um questioner May in the room and I see Kathy to the speakers to the question list as well. Thank you. Um go ahead May. You've got five minutes. Hello everybody. Good morning. Thank you so much John and Sophia for joining us today. Um, I actually wanted to bring back a motion from our last meeting, um, with a bit of a tweak, uh, calling for SDB fundings for neighborhoods in Toronto. Um, this time calling for it to be added to the 2027 budget. I'm bringing this motion forward because the presentation we just received makes one thing very clear. Toronto already has the tools, the frameworks, and the evidence to support community development. What's missing? Sorry, before you carry on, I just want to stop you for one moment. Um, because we are still on questions of staff. So, when we get to speakers, you're going to be able to introduce your motion. Um, so if you want to allude to your motion a little and ask some questions of the team before you about the motion um before it's officially tabled, that works. Um, but I just want to remind you that we're in questions of staff at this point and then you'll table your motion during the speaking portion. Um, so hopefully that's helpful, but I'll turn it back over to you if you want to formulate some of your um items within the motion as a question of staff. Otherwise, we'll put you down to speak uh and put the motion forward. Make sense? Yep. Thank you so much for that clarification. Um, I do have a couple of questions. Uh my first question is what mechanisms will be in place to ensure that this tool that this city is developing will lead to more funding instead of just better data collection. Um because you know data collection and all of that is very good but we need to put our money where our mouth is. So how is this tool going to directly um be in used to be invested in these communities and neighborhoods that we are talking about? My next question is, we've seen examples like Region Park where investments are tied to um revitalizations. How is the city planning to provide ongoing stable social development funding or community development funding to neighborhoods that are not going through revitalization or um redevelopment but still face a lot of these um systemic inequities that we talk about. Um and my last question is from your perspective what are the biggest barriers whether financial, political or structural to expanding social development and community development funding to neighborhoods across the city. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the questions. So through the chair I can answer the first one on how will the tool that we are developing be used to inform uh the city's plans around investments and beyond. So the idea is for the tool that we're building using both both qualitative quantitative data to to be the go-to tool and resource for any city division or community partner or community organization to utilize when making those types of decisions. So when if there is a question around how can we prioritize X thing uh within you know within the city of Toronto the idea is that the tool will be the primary tool to inform how those determinations are made using using using an evidence-based basis. So it's going to use the quantitative indicators as well as the qualitative data that we have to to inform those decisions which include decisions around investments. Um thank you for your question and through the chair for question number two. I think it's very important that in terms of uh uh implementation or identifying areas for investments that uh we have as much data as possible not only in terms of numbers you seen the quantitative data but also uh um the local narratives local research and along with that data local engagement and partnerships. Uh every neighborhood in the city is very different in terms of its history, in terms of the levels of participation. And so there has to be an investment in uh the partnerships with uh organizations, with community groups, with local businesses in these areas to ensure everybody is part of uh the solutions. and whether a whether it's a community development plan or another type of plan is actually has uh as much community involvement in the design and development as well as the implementation. The city will always uh be needed to play a role, but we also need to have a full sort of like partnered approach with not only city services but also uh other partners including United Way and other foundations that have been fantastic partners in communities as well as assess the existing local resources and funding that comes from other levels of government as well as the private sector in these areas. So in all to uh support um I guess efficient and and and and and uh quality investments in communities. uh I think the partnership and the uh the evidence and the information uh is needed to be established in these areas and that does take uh time to do um because as we know engagement is is is it's really important to ensure folks are engaged their voices are heard and not only voices are heard but priorities are set collectively in communities. Thank you. Sorry, I don't have the timer moving on my end, but just want to see may if you have any followup from there or if you're good. Uh, no, not right now. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Um, next on my question of my list of questioners is followed by Kathy. Go ahead, Will. You've got five minutes. Thank you. Uh first of all uh good morning everyone and um I guess it's ID Mubarak uh and Ruse Mubarak for everyone who's celebrating. Uh first of all thank you to both John and Safia uh for joining us tonight. I know you folks work extremely hard u and thanks for your great work alongside Muhammad Shere and the rest of the team. Um I just want to highlight one thing before I ask this question and that is uh you know this item is not new. We did discuss it back in November and this committee actually passed it unanimously. Uh thanks to Deputy Mayor Amber Molly for that exercise of a recorded vote uh which was fun. uh and it did go to the executive committee um where we deputed and at that body it was referred back to staff which is basically defeating the motion the way I see it. Um so if our city and if our mayor um and including our budget chief um Shelley Carroll is really serious about uh in making direct investments in our community, targeted investments in our community uh that actually leverage datadriven solutions that we know work. Um I think it's really important for us to raise this question. So, I'm going to ask some of these questions because I'm going to be speaking to this item later on specifically about uh funding social development plans and community development plans. So, my questions are as follows. Ones relate to scaling social development plans or community development plans citywide. So, what I want to appreciate what your team is going to be recommending to city council on how we're going to scale this plans in the 2027 budget. That's very important for us to know. Um, and maybe you could answer how much funding is available for both social development plans and community development plans in the 2026 budget. uh because it's hard to get that answer and many of us are not on the same page. So that's the first question. Second is we know that due to important work led by previous councilors and city staff, specifically the late uh former councelor Pam McConnell, um former councelor Christine Wong Tam and now member of parliament uh Christine Wong Tam that this initiatives must be communityled, not cityled. So my question is how will your office or how will we resource grassroot capacity to support the implementation of such development plans across the city of Toronto? um you know how what's the plan to formalize requirements for resident le tables uh putting in place the learnings from region park from Lawrence Heights from Alexander Park where social development plans have existed and leveraging what those can community development plans or resident le tables will look like and be supported. The the other thing and that's a point that's very important to us. We know developments are happening across the city but I think the nature of developments is going to shift especially due to build Toronto and Build Canada. So how do we ensure that we prevent displacement through this important uh tools that exist? So, how will the city implement learnings from other neighborhoods like the right to return policies uh are enforcable, transparent and accessible to all affected residents? What safeguards will be in place to prevent the erosion of deeply affordable and rent gear to income housing within development areas? You know, this is something that is adds to this notion of social cohesion and inclusion, which is a goal of a social development plan. Um, and I want to bring it back to why we're here as CABRACK. We want to ensure that there's enforcement of equity and a follow through on anti-black addressing anti-black racism through direct commitments or through tangible commitments. So, in region park, you know, we talk about community benefit agreements, uh, but are they legally enforcable? Are we are we going to be having a blank check to developers through social development plan or will there be real enforcable mechanisms for the community to ensure that those investments are spent wisely in the community instead of project cost to to help developers make more money right how will impacted communities be involved in monitoring reporting and enforcing these commitments in real time so those are some questions you hope can help us get started Thank I'm gonna just yeah turn it over to staff and let them dig in there. A lot to unpack. Uh and so turn it over to uh colleagues to see if there's any specifics they can address um there and then we'll go to Kathy for questions. Thank you John and Safia. Over to you. Thank you chair. Uh maybe I can start it off and then I'll I'll lean to my colleagues John and Safia to add in. Um so to your broader question um and thank you for uh emphasizing the importance of social development and community development plans. Um so a couple of key notes around the budget and investments that you had asked. Um the city has uh is investing $33 million in community uh partnerships with over 169 organizations that are across our city. We always apply both an equity analysis in the selection of our partners but also a geographic analysis uh as highlighted by the presentation by John and Safa. We also apply a geographic analysis in some of our investments such as our community safety investments. We're investing rough u $5 million in the budget for community safety initiatives across our city. We're targeting those investments where we know that there are significant challenges around safety in our cities uh in our city and predominantly those are some areas that have large black and racialized populations. So that's an another example of geographic based investments. Um and more broadly as you highlighted as part of the broader community development social development investments um and as the Toronto Community Housing Corporation shared uh the success of the $26.8 $8 million um community benefits announcement they had in December which is going to have substantial investments in region park. Um not all our investments uh are at that scale. Um so some of the investments we have in um uh uh Downs View are are to help support staff uh resources to help organize but there are significant infrastructure investments that are happening in terms of the building of a library community spaces as well as Jane and Finch uh as well as Mount uh Dennis. Now what we also do uh to your broader point or the question chair around um community engagement is we do have uh significant community engagement tables and inputs and John can sort of speak a little bit more about that community community uh engagement and inputs. Okay. Uh thank you thank you for your question and through the chair um in terms of community engagement community engagement is ongoing across the city across the city as I've identified in the presentation where strong neighborhoods was uh focused primarily on 31 neighborhood improvement areas. The work has expanded citywide postcoavid or post the COVID uh uh um stoppage. Um now we are engaging citywide uh community groups, community specifically community-led groups across the city. Um the approach uh we've identified is a targeted universal approach within strong neighborhoods. The uh uh vision is that uh for equitable opportunities for all Torononians regardless of where they live. We also recognize the importance of uh action plans like the uh confronting anti- action plan to confront anti-black racism because now that provides a specific lens in terms of engaging uh uh black community leaders uh organizations uh local businesses uh where that was was more broader uh uh pre208 uh was more a general sense of equity. Now it's specific and and and with that um I think it's very important that when plans are initiated in communities that uh the community is engaged and connected to the opportunity but uh what's essential is that trust and awareness is built of the process and the process is ongoing. Uh as uh Mo has mentioned uh in areas like Downsu and uh in Jane Finch we are developing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms uh with community uh and that means not only the community partners, organizations, local leaders but also with local business partners as well. Uh this work is emerging and developing as we are called community development. uh but uh the greater emphasis is on having evidence uh of the impact and that means to ensure uh there is much time spent in ensuring understanding of a process and involvement of the process. uh which means we really need to look at uh the the approaches that have worked in other parts of the city but also approaches that are specific to a community uh that connect with that community community specific identity. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um I'm just going to remind colleagues um that our five minutes for questions includes a back and forth with staff in order to try to keep the time so everyone gets the same five minutes. uh and then we'll have an additional five minutes to speak to the item. Um so I just want to do a quick reminder on procedure so uh we can uh continue to keep ourselves to time here. I have Kathy next for questions and Helimo, are you looking for questions? That's all. Perfect. Um so Kathy, five minutes over to you then we'll go to Helimo for questions. Um thank you very much uh John and Safia um and for your presentation. I have several questions uh some based upon the presentation and some what I see as gaps in the presentation a few of them have been touched upon so I apologize if I am repeating but I am willing to ask these questions in a different way and so um there was a uh I'm I'm wanted to know um how is resource allocation determined across the 22 priority areas and the 31 neighborhood improvement areas Um so um how are monies and resources um um allocated and um what is that mechanism? So is it the most vocal communities? I what what are the part how how is that determination being made? In addition, I wanted to know um of the um you've given some examples of region park and Jane and Finch, but there are other areas and so um how do we know what's going on in those other areas? Um, and for all of these address a little bit about impact, but how is impact assessment data shared with communities and uh how is how does the city assess the impact of its investment in priority areas? Um, and we've talked a lot about an evidence-based tool, one that's under that's being test in a testment fa testing phase right now, but I've yet to see a description of what this tool actually is. is so if it's being tested obviously it's it's something has been built and so it's difficult to address like how it can be improved without even knowing what it is and so um I would like to see like or hear a description about what is this tool um and lastly how are inequities being addressed across communities that uh maybe are not part of I think this question was asked previously that are not part of the major uh improvement areas. Thank you. go with the evidence first. Thank you for the question, Kathy. And so through the chair, I can address some of your questions and then I'll pass it off to my colleague John to answer some of the others. And so in terms of uh resource allocation, there are a number of placebased prioritization tools that the city currently uses to make some of these decisions. So we have, as you referenced, the NIA approach, the urban heart at Toronto model that was developed in 2014, but recognizing that that was 12 years ago, there are some a number of other uh uh identifications that city staff have also supplemented that with. So there are um so there are uh a number of different approaches and sometimes city divisions utilize their own to specifically support their specific mandates. So as as John had referenced in the presentation, our colleagues at parks and recreation have developed their own uh their own methodologies to support their work as well as our colleagues at children services around child care. And so uh there are also placebased planning um or placebased plans such as the downtown east uh action plan. There are also a number of equity based strategies that inform and guide the ways in which the city makes investments and and supports communities and neighborhoods. There's there's the community coordination plan. And so the the goal and the for the tool that we're building is to take a a number of those learnings from all of those various different initiatives and to consolidate them into into one kind of holistic tool. Uh you asked uh also about how uh the what the tool is looking like and how one can can understand and and engage with it and I appreciate that question so much because that's exactly what we want. We want people to engage and give us give us uh some some insights into into the tool. And so shortly there will be some uh there will be a a web page that will be available with information about about the work that we've done so far as as well as some of the questions that we'll have and that will include both an engagement uh engagement and communications uh approach and through that process we'll be sure to distribute it amongst the members of the uh confronting anti-black racism advisory committee uh so that we can get the the feedback that we need to ensure that this tool is is useful and functional specifically uh for black communities as well as neighborhoods across the city. and I'll pass it to John. Thank you for your question uh and to the chair. Um in specific response to how do we know what's happening in other areas um social development uh division plays a very important role in terms of uh not only engaging communities but also working with uh city services and community partners. There are a number of ways that uh we are informed by uh community and community partners. I'll highlight a few. Uh one of the ways that we are continually informed by nonprofit organizations is through the community coordination plan. We support a city-wide table in partnership with the United Way that has uh 300 partners, nonprofit sector partners participating uh as I mentioned. And another way is through our strong neighborhood strategy as we've begun to engage uh local community uh leaders uh of community-led groups across the city. Um we also have developed an advisory that uh has is relaunching as a citywide uh advisory uh to have uh uh key uh resident uh leaders from across uh the city of Toronto. Um, as well as continually working uh with uh um uh not only organizations but community groups, we understand though that uh through the city we can recognize that there are areas of the city uh I think Mo has mentioned like Mount Dennis. There are other areas like the Golden Mile. Um there are areas uh like Thorncliff Park in which uh it's it's really important to have and establish uh relationships and partnerships with community organizations and community groups not only for investment but also for our readiness and response to everything that is happening in community uh and and Mo also mentioned our work in community safety. So there are community safety networks across the city as well. Uh and in collaboration in a number of different areas whether it's through city planning initiatives uh whether it's children's services or parks and wreck making sure that we have that connection to community and through city services as well as community groups and I'll add our partnerships with economic development uh BAS uh business improvement areas and others. Uh every community is a complex amalgamation of different organizations and groups and so we have to ensure that we are building on the relationships with those groups uh in in order to make evidence-based decisions uh and to develop tools as I mentioned as monitoring evaluation tools that uh are public tools that will be of public record that will be uh uh uh cited in reports as they come up uh to specific investments like uh uh Mount Dennis, Jane Finch, uh Downs View in accordance to those plans. Thank you. Thank you, John. Um hopefully Kathy that that satisfies the questions and I will just briefly remind um colleagues uh and members of the questions that were posed to us by the committee members as well and encourage us all to maybe take a few moments to um respond to those and also provide additional insights and feedback based on today's discussion. Um thank you so much Kathy. I'm going to go over to Halimo. Helimo, you've got five minutes. Thank you Deputy Mayor. Thank you John and Sophia for your presentation. Um I think this my question kind of uh stems from the three feedback questions that you guys provided us and John you touched on some of what I want to ask. So as you're developing the tool um it sounds like you're taking a very targeted approach and how you um like who you bring to the table and who um you're ensuring kind of has a voice in the development of the tool. My question is around if there's a plan for um creating broader awareness of the availability and accessibility of the tool once it's implemented. Uh for example, for like students and future leaders to be able to know that it exists and access it um should they like interested in social development in their communities as well. Thank you for the question. It's as you see John and I are both excited to answer it. Uh so through the chair this is a really important aspect of the implementation and rollout of the tool and we are uh we are in currently we have a number of advisory committees that that support and uh the development of the of the tool as well as uh the the various different elements and part of that will also be to include their their insight into the communication of the tool and understanding its functionality and use. We will of course also leverage existing bodies, existing infrastructure as John mentioned, community coordination plan uh as well as a number of different initiatives across various city divisions. Uh the the groups like the confronting anti-black racism council advisory committee will also be important to leverage. And one of the questions that we had uh for for this for this advisory committee is how can we ensure that the that this future tool that we're building is relevant and meaningful specifically for black communities. That is also feedback and insight that we're hoping to to get from from the members here so that we can ensure that to exactly to your point that students, community groups, residents, whomever is doing placebased planning will be able to utilize and and leverage a lot of the the work that we're we're doing in partnership with them to fulfill our our common goals and common mandate. Great, great question, Helimo. Thank you so much for that. any follow-ups from you? I was just gonna because I'm I'm thinking of um like researchers and uh like hospitals. I wonder if if those are avenues where like they that the tool can be disseminated as well like through list serves or uh memos and things like that just to reach um because housing is is such an important like it's it it's part of everything, right? So, uh there's outside of just like community leaders, there's existing structures and institutions um that are also key stakeholders and that might be another way of reaching kind of a broader audience as well. Thank you guys. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Absolutely. And we have a as part of our summer advisory committee committees, we do have a number of academic partners who sit on our advisory committees presently. uh and we are one of our one of the goals is to continue to build those relationships across the various different post-secondary institutions in in the city as well as uh as you mentioned other other major institutions uh to ensure that people know about the tool and that it's useful and that it's uh being utilized as much as possible and with our partners at the United Way of Greater Toronto who have many of those relationships as well uh we will we will work in tandem to to ensure its broad reach. Thank you. Thank you. I just have a quick question myself um and then we will turn into speakers. So we'll take a speaker list in a moment for anybody who wants to speak to this item or move a motion on this item. Um we have had a lot of really great discussions. We do have one more speaker. Sorry. Uh Queen wants to uh has questions. Yeah. Thank you, Madame Clerk. Um Queen, why don't you go ahead and take your five minutes? I'll do my question last. Go ahead. Thank you everybody. Um, thank you John and Sophia for speaking today. Um, I believe the number 33 million uh was named possibly over 100 organizations. I was wondering how that money is currently disseminated. How do people access these funds and how is how are the funds broken up across communities? My apologies. I did not hear the question. If you can repeat the question. My apologies. might shut me off. Oh, okay. So, I heard the number 33 million over I believe it was 100 organizations. I was wondering how is the money disseminated? How do people access these funds and how are the funds disseminated across communities? Thank you for that question. So, through the chair we have different types of grants. So, one set of our grants is our community service partnerships. These are uh community organizations that have been selected to partner with the city as part of this grant. There's an application process. So, we have roughly um 169 organizations that have gone through the application process that do work across our city delivering 321 programs. And so, part of the funding goes to these organizations. Our consideration in selecting these organizations includes a geographic analysis, an equity analysis of the clients that they wish to serve uh and the needs and the types of services they're they're providing. We also provide through our community and funding unit different types of grants. We have a local leadership grant that just recently closed. The local leadership grant is for residentled initiatives in different areas of our city. We layered as part of that grant a prioritization of our neighborhood improvement areas and our emerging neighborhoods. So every single time we roll out a grant, we intentionally consider the uh the different neighborhoods and add in the analysis of the different needs uh to ensure that there are opportunities uh across our city, but the opportunities are also focused in on areas of our city that have been identified through the neighborhood improvement areas and the emerging neighborhoods. And then the uh just another example is our community safety grants. We targeted that using um uh historic data on uh violent crime incidents and different types of uh incidents to identify where those are occurring and then layer on again geographic needs of our neighborhood improvement areas to then make opportunities available for both residentled initiatives but also community organizations that are seeking to address uh youth violence. So those are some of the ways that we've done that. Uh thank you. So, I was wondering as a part of this toolkit, uh, I sit on the alliance committee, um, in Lawrence Heights and some of the things we've heard specifically about the communityled, you know, grants initiatives, the struggle with some community members, um, during the application process. I was wondering as a part of this toolkit, will there be something addressed um to make you know the the grants more accessible to community and also the turnaround for community communicating to community members whether or not they've received funding. I'm happy through the chair. I'm happy to start and my colleague John I'm sure will have a lot to add. Um so I'll talk more broadly. Generally what we do with our community funding opportunities is we always provide a trustee uh for uh grassroots organizations that don't have necessary infrastructure in terms of uh administration and or uh other uh infrastructure that large organizations do. So the trustee can often times be the one who holds the funds to support resident le initiatives and we do that um in a lot of our different grant opportunities. We also work with the grantee to identify what the city's requirements are for reporting the timelines. We support them in terms of understanding those and then we also provide usually before we release a grant an information session for everybody um to know about what the grant opportunity is and then we follow up uh with an information session for anybody who wasn't successful so they can understand why they weren't successful. Maybe my colleague John can speak to specifically Lawrence Heights. Yeah. Uh so uh and specifically to Lawrence Heights, I think the importance is the followup and and continued support of community groups. Uh so we have uh staff in Lawrence Heights that uh are working with not only the trustee organization but will work specifically with the community groups um not only in leadup to the grants but in followup. And I think overall uh part of the engagement is also looking at capacity building uh understanding the grant process but not only understanding the city grant process but grant processes overall. And so we've uh uh worked in partnership with our community funding unit to uh actively look at how we can increase the opportunities for community groups to build on their capacity. you've seen and we've added it to actually uh events like the mayor's openhouse event. We've had a number of community groups come through that were very interested in our grants uh uh programs and and that's led to ongoing engagement and we would be doing similarly in Lawrence Heights as part of the community action plan within uh Lawrence Heights supported by the deputy mayor. Great. Uh, thank you so much, Queen, for that question. Um, just one final call. Any other questions? Yeah, deputy mayor, I just want to ask one other question. So, if you go another round, that'd be greatly appreciated. Another round just because we have to get um through the rest of this agenda. I know the next item is going to be really needy as well. Um, so I'm going to ask my last question. I'm going to suggest if folks have other uh insights or suggestions, questions for um staff that they can put those forward through their speaking remarks when we'll each get five minutes in just a moment. Sorry. Sorry, Deputy Mayor. Um Amber Moly, this question is going to inform what I'm going to be saying and I haven't got a response to my first question. So, I just want to take the opportunity to ask it. In the past, we've allowed for second rounds and we do have time. Okay. So I'm going to go with my question Wed and then we'll we'll see where we land from there. Um so my question is specific to the phasing of this work. Uh we've talked about how impactful and invaluable STPs can be but that there is still a lot of learning and application of that learning to make sure that they are uh being appropriately shared making sure that they are accessible making sure that community can follow the process and participate. Would you agree that any scaling of social development plans and community development plans would make sense most sense in connection with the forthcoming community needs assessment tool that you presented on today and are working to develop? Um can you talk to us about how the development of this tool uh and the roll out of it will lead to more successful community development plans and social development plans into the future and and how that alignment or sort of cadence um should be taking place for maximum impact. Go ahead. Thank you for the question to the chair. Um it is very important that the uh through the development of uh this uh tool uh that it has an influence in terms of how uh we support uh the identification of areas uh for let's say a greater focus in terms of community planning whether it's a community development plan or it's other types of plans. uh one of the ways that will be essential and it it's it's embedded in the tool is the qualitative uh uh data. So understanding the uh lived experience of folks, the assets that they have in the community uh that they identify in the community, the priorities that they identify in the community is really important uh from a community to community to a neighborhood to neighborhood uh uh basis. Um I think this is why this approach uh uh you know evolves from the urban heart tool which was uh uh mainly focused on quantitative data collection. We want to have a mixed method uh or use a mixed methodology in terms of uh collecting data. Um that approach has actually been informed by our work in areas uh like region park uh uh in Thorncliffe Park in in Mount Dennis, Jane Finch and other areas as we have done investments in those areas. What's come uh uh what's what we've been uh uh uh made aware of by community is the importance of the community experience, the importance of the assets that are identified uh by community. uh and and this is why we want to have it as a fundamental component of uh the the tool being developed. And so our uh that evidence uh needs to be more robust. And with the qualitative uh data, we will have uh more robust evidence in communities to inform any type of planning. May it be a community uh development approach or other city services in in terms of their uh uh strategic plans as well. Uh so I think that's what's really important, excuse me, an important opportunity moving forward with this tool is that it provides a more holistic look at community and involves the input uh in in terms of assets from uh residents and other community partners uh in in in our overall uh mapping and learning of neighborhoods in the city. Thank you. And would you agree often we know and some of the questions that have come up from members is you know ultimately who decides right where the investments go or how the money is spent. Uh in my experience a lot of that does come down to leadership and representation. You know that's the sort of politics side of it. Um, can you illuminate a little bit about how helpful it is for advocates and organizers and community to have this kind of tangible evidence and data to support their efforts when engaging with leadership decision makers um to ensure that the resources are going where they're most needed or most impactful. Thank you for the question and through the chair. I think it's the utmost important that uh community leaders, community advocates and I will say community leaders come in many different uh are from many different walks of life and I do say community because uh that that that we we have encountered uh uh groups that uh face many different challenges and we need to ensure that we have approaches uh that not only get folks into the boardroom or the committee but actually we're going out to connect to folks where they are. Um because some of these spaces may not be the spaces that they want to be in, but it's essential to have their voice. It's it's essential to connect them to the process. And in in in thinking of the development of a tool, we also have to think of working with community to build the cap on the capacity of data collection of evaluation. uh we should not assume that across communities everybody interprets things the same. Uh we should be developing a you know a common approach and the mechanisms to support their skills and opportunities and find that uh that will inform further how we engage in communities. But uh to your point, I think it's it's really important that uh those voices are not only part of the engagement p uh process but also recognized uh in reports uh recognized in uh overall evaluations and uh to ensure that uh the evidence uh we have evidence-based it also needs to be community- based in terms of the evidence. uh and then we need to uh uh not only have uh and and and resist the approach of transactional relationships but connect those folks to ongoing mechanisms of a connection. some in some communities that exists already. In other communities, uh those spaces and ongoing connection points need to be supported by a broad base of partners including the city uh uh Toronto community housing uh uh including nonprofit sector and in in connection with our in conversations with all of our partners. I think everybody is interested in ensuring community voice is a part of um the development and implementation and ongoing uh uh work of this tool. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. John, uh we are going to move into a speaking. Um we have Sorry to interrupt. Uh deputy mayor, could we ask for a second round? I have a very important question that I need to pose. Um, I'm going to just note I have a hard stop at 12:30 and we still have the eviction. We're going to very quick, very quick. I'm not going to take a lot of time. Okay. Thank you. Um, members of the committee, is that the will to go to a second round? If you're in favor, if you could do a show of hands for a second round. I see a couple of folks um and some non-members and I can't see in the room. Willie, go ahead. Why don't you Thank you. Yeah. So I I think this same question was asked by several members and I didn't want to walk away without an answer today because it's going to inform the deliberations that we're going to have next. Uh first of all the 33 million that was referenced this was was neighborhood grants and I just want to make the distinction uh social development plans I'm not sure uh what the thought uh process between community development plans but my understanding social development plans it funds prioritize actions uh that are happening in that neighborhood. So, you know, with neighborhood grants, this the city could co-develop what those criterias are for people to apply for grants, but when it's social development plans, it's the community that leads that discussion and identifies prioritized actions. And the funding that we got from the city of Toronto towards the social development plan region park the 2.5 million it was directed towards action prioritize actions that were identified by the social development plan stakeholders table which involves residents grassroot organizations. So my question is very specifically I I in region park we've had for example half a million per year in 2026 is there any plans to put funding for either region park Lawrence Heights Alexander Park any of these communities that have a social development plan and is there a plan to scale it up to other neighborhoods? as well. So, we passed the motion at a November meeting where we're talking about 250,000 to half a million. So, I just would like an answer to that because that'll be helpful us to understand um how to move forward the funding framework specific to SDPs and SCDPs. Go ahead. So through the chair, social development plans are tied to TCHC properties are going through revitalization as as the member knows. And so through the chair, we already highlighted the 20 26.8 million that was announced by TCHC that will be significantly u enhanced in investments um in region park. We highlighted in the presentation the work that is underway in Alexander Park to support um community uh uh development work there as well as work underway in Downsview Park as well as work underway in Lawrence Heights. Uh more broadly, the example given around the community grants is that these are grants that are geographic focused based on what we are hearing in ter terms of some of the needs that are resident driven. So going back to the community safety example, residents have highlighted in these neighborhoods some community safety concerns and the investments are to enable resident le actions in these neighborhoods. So there I think for the through the chair the committee needs to understand that community development plans social development plans are just one tool. There are other tools the city uses to enable community and resident driven investments in neighborhoods. And that's the purpose of that example that was provided to the member. Thank you, Muhammad. I just have about two minutes. Just want to make sure that we appreciate that yes, there are neighborhood grants that support resident le priorities or neighborhood uh priorities, but is there funding in the 2026 budget or there plans for funding that's going to be directed to supporting residentled initiatives through a social development or community development plan. As you know, uh the community benefit dollars, for example, in region park are not going to be spent this year. It's going to take some time for that money to flow to communities. So, right now, we have organizations that have been doing phenomenal work keeping our community safe, keeping our communities much more livable, creating opportunities for youth, supporting mental health initiatives, and they have no funding at all. So the question is when will that funding roll out to communities uh through social development plans or community development plans. So through the chair I'm happy to connect with a member offline around what specific groups are or lack in funding but we do provide funding to community groups in region park and other areas and my colleague John can speak on that. Uh thank you for your question. I I would point to the city's not only grant funding through initiatives but also ongoing partnership grants in region park that is yeartoyear uh that happens through our community funding unit. Uh and also going back to the you know social development plans have been a a fantastic tool for leveraging additional funding. So it's not only from the grant of uh through the social development plan as we have identified the you know the community benefits agreement that is a leveraging of work that comes from the investments in the social development plan in region park having TCH at the table having the developer at the table having the community at the table having an ongoing platform that's in community uh I would characterize investments in uh region park as coming from a number of different partners coming from not only the developer but the base funding is coming from all uh levels of government that focus on child care, healthc care and other services as well as uh the city services that are in region park that are have been uh actually improved through revitalization. So it's a you know uh it's a complex uh uh space like all communities are complex but region park has been very successful in terms of attracting additional funding in particular private sector funding and funding from foundations because of the work of community partners in region park. Thank you. Um, just wanting to see if there are other members around the table who want to take advantage of a second round of questions since we've opened it up. Um, not seeing any online. Anybody in the room? Uh, okay. I'm not hearing any either. So, we are going to hand up. Just a moment. Sorry, Queen. Yeah, go ahead. You've got five minutes. If you could reset the clock, Madam Clerk, please. I know you. Thank you. uh the ways in which uh folks are building capacity and for you know residents in Lawrence Heights. I was wondering if there's any plans to you know have reviews of the current process cuz I know you said that there's a process to build capacity but a lot of community members who have participated and feel like the process is unsuccessful. Um, is there any plan for, you know, community reviews and changes made? Thank you for your question through the chair. Uh we continue to work through the deputy mayor's uh community action plan to look at not only uh partnerships uh in uh so that city services are working together but also partnerships with uh a number of key organizations in the community that have led to uh investments like recently the community safety hub uh and youth spaces in the area. I think along with that is a need for actually evaluating what we have and mapping uh what exists in the community and look at how we can improve on engagement in that community. So that is part of a process that we have with community groups and and uh not only community groups but also with uh uh the some key community partners like Unison and North York Community House. Um, and and I'd like to say just as a shout out to Lawrence Heights. Uh, I I've worked in Lawrence Heights for many years before uh uh moving on to other areas and and coming back to the community. I recognize many faces that were asking for exactly that, a reconnection of community groups. So we are going to look at in accordance to uh the plan that has been initiated by the deputy mayor how to uh have re-engagement with community groups on a regular basis. Uh and talked about with that with staff now that some of the major milestones uh in terms of getting folks uh together uh have uh uh um been uh there have been efforts to step that forward. uh we have to look at our community engagement strategy and we'll be working that on that through the lion uh with community members. Great. Thank you. Oh, good queen. Not hearing any followup, so I'll take that as a yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much, colleagues. Um we will now go to speakers on this item. Um I am starting a list here. I have uh May uh with a motion. I have W. Um any others? Halimo. Any others to speak to this item in the room? If you could just indicate your name for me so I can add you to the list. I don't have a view into the room right now at all. Seeing your hands up. Okay. Wonderful. Um, and then I will also just say a couple of words and take my own advice. Um, uh, so me, we'll turn it over to you for the first speaker on this item. You've got five minutes. Thank you so much. Um, I've shared my motion with Gina. I'm wondering if it can be put up on the screen so folks can see. So, this motion is not something new. It's the same ask as our last meeting, but we weren't able to get it this year. But that does not discourage us from continuing to advocate for our communities. We are now asking for this to be considered for the 2027 budget allocation. I'm bringing this motion forward because the presentation we received makes one thing very clear. The city of Toronto already has the tools. We have the frameworks. We have the evidence to support community development. What's missing is the scale and sustained investment needed to make that equitable work across the city. We heard that the Toronto Strong Neighborhood Strategy has evolved over time from 13 priority neighborhoods to 31 neighborhood improvement areas and now to a broader citywide approach. But despite that evolution, investment is still concentrated and many neighborhoods, particularly those with large black populations, continue to experience underinvestment. We also heard that the social development plans and community development plans are amongst the city's most comprehensive tool. They are long-term, they are equity focused, and they are rooted in community partnership. They bring together residents, organizations, and institutions to address issues like safety, housing stability, employment, and access to services. But right now, these plans are largely triggered by redevelopment or limited to specific geographies. So the question becomes, what about the communities facing the same challenges without the benefit of these triggers? Through the discussion today, it's very clear that where funding goes are shared by maybe a mix of data, policy alignment, and internal prioritization frameworks. But we also know that data alone does not capture the full picture, especially when race-based data and lived experience data is still evolving. And without that consistent proactive investment, we risk continuing a model where only a select number of neighborhoods receive deep sustained support while others remain in cycles of underinvestment. This motion is simply about shifting that approach. It's about moving from a reactive model where funding follows crisis, redevelopment, or designation to a proactive citywide strategy that invests in communities before conditions worsen. By proposing ongoing dedicated funding in the range of $250,000 per neighborhood per year, we are not just funding programs. We are investing in local capacity, resident leadership, and long-term community stability. We are also calling for a clear framework, one that identifies priority neighborhoods, embeds community-led governance, aligns with the city's strategies, and creates real accountability through equity-based indicators and disagregated race-based data. Because if we are serious about confronting antilack racism, we have to be just about serious about the conditions that allow these communities to thrive. We know that underinvestment is directly linked to issues like community safety, housing instability, and economic exclusion. And we know that social development plans and community development plans are proven tools to address those at the neighborhood level. So this motion is not asking the city to create something new. It's asking the city to scale what already works and to do so in a way that's intentional, equitable, and sustained. The 2026 request may not have moved forward, but the need has not changed. If anything, it has become more urgent. This is our opportunity to ensure that going into 2027 budget, we are setting a clear direction, one that prioritizes equity, community leadership, long-term investment in neighborhoods that need it most. Thank you so much and I hope that you support in advancing this motion. Thank you so much, May. I really appreciate that. Um, members have an opportunity to ask questions of the mover. Um, so if there's any points of clarification that you might have for this motion that's been put on the the floor for our consideration, um, each member has three minutes for clarification of the motion. Um, I do have one clarifying question. I'm not sure if anybody else does. Please, uh, indicate if you would like to ask a question of the mover. Um, I will go ahead with my question. may in the language and apologies I I only have one small screen I'm working on at the moment but in some of the language it says um in advance of the 27 budget for all neighborhoods to have a set amount of investment when you say all neighborhoods you mean all Toronto neighborhoods all priority neighborhoods how are you assessing which neighborhoods um are suggested to get that dedicated funding sorry I'm see I think The original idea was um for the funding to be allocated and directed towards these priority neighborhoods because there is that history of underfunding. But we do know that um the language has kind of changed from uh priority neighborhoods to um sorry I forgot I think neighborhood improvement areas um and the number has changed. So, I feel like that is also another thing that um we do need to flesh out and figure out in which neighborhoods um because some of these neighborhoods that are not in these priority neighborhoods still have uh these challenges. They still have a lot of social injustices issues going on. So, I do feel like there needs to be more work done on the city on that behalf. I don't think that language or um the breakdown of these neighborhoods has been updated since 2014 and a lot has changed since then. So, um I hope that answers your question. It it does and it leads me to a followup. It's actually exactly what I was thinking and it's come what's coming up for me is because I grew up in one of those neighborhoods that was just outside of the criteria. So, we were never really considered for additional resources, supports or grants. Um even though we live in a small pocket of poverty amongst a more affluent area. So understanding John and Safia have presented to us today this tool, this Toronto neighborhood assessment framework that's going to essentially give us the next iteration of what those neighborhoods look like, how many of them there are um you know what the demographic data and other analysis um looks like. Um I'm wondering if you would consider a friendly motion that essentially amends that portion to say that um we would in advance of 2027 budget process um that part of the development of the neighborhood assessment tool that we've just had presented to us and is underway um that we have a alignment with that as part of the 2027 um budget process because I think the concern that I have is putting the cart before the horse. Um, we're doing this reassessment. We have these tools being established. That work is underway currently and it's meant to land next year, 2027. And I think that we want to make sure that this suggested resourcing aligns with that assessment work. Do you know what I mean? Um, and I'm just wondering if it is prudent of us to try to be intentional with that language in the motion. If you don't want to take it as a friendly, that's okay. We can leave it as is. Um, but, uh, I think clerks can help to, uh, make a slight amendment that would line this work up more specifically, perhaps. Would it help to add like a radius on the outskirts of the communities? So I know like Go ahead. I was just going to say I think the thing is is like this next tool is taking all of the learnings from the previous like assessments we've done and going deeper. And so the hope is this tool will help us be able to do more targeted investments more and have a more deep understanding of where that needs to go. But for us to say put this money into the neighborhoods that have been identified through old framework feels like it's not aligning in a good way with the next, you know what I mean, iteration of this work. And so, um, United Way and Social Development is actively doing this. Um, my understanding from Safia and John is there will be a report coming at the beginning of 2027. And so, I'm I'm just wanting to have us align this work so that it kind of lands together and that the assessment is foundational to the future um, investments that the city would be looking at. I'm not sure clerks or colleagues in the room if there if there if that's like making sense or if there's a way to kind of tease that into a friendly amendment um to this motion or whether uh I should be thinking about a standalone motion or something different. So correct me if I understand this. um because we're dealing with like an older framework and older um versions on how we view neighborhoods and how things are broken up, it would not necessarily make sense to move forward in naming that. So would it make sense to or is the ask that we put this budget ask to the neighborhoods that this new tool is going to identify the first portion we're together? You're following me on the first portion. The second portion is essentially giving a little bit more latitude to the city to say, let's get this assessment framework completed and use that information to do the future investments. So So I'm I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. So it it's kind of I feel like we're kind of saying the same thing where this money so this money should go to these neighborhoods identified through this new tool with the great work that the city and the United Way is doing. So more communities are involved. So should we just directly name that um and say that pending the release of this new tool um and there will be more inclusions in neighborhoods etc that we can just allocate this because I don't want to remove this specific budget ask. I think that it's very important for us to name um the amount that we're investing in our communities. We see that the Toronto Police gets all types of money when they do all different types of things. Um, so I don't think that we should shy away from this specific amount. I think we should be very clear on it. Region Park got this amount and they did wonderful things. Um, gun violence reduced. There was just a shooting last night in Jaden Shepard. There is a lot going on in our city. People are suffering. People are dying. So this type of money, I think it needs to be lamed. And um, as our committee, we are the confronting anti-black racism committee. So I think we should really stand strong on that. So maybe if we amend this motion um to to name that it would include the neighborhoods I guess that will be named in this specific tool. Although we don't know which neighborhoods will be named in this tool. That might be another issue that we'd have to flesh out. But I'm wondering if what I'm saying I'm just speaking out loud here is making sense to folks in the room. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm thinking as an example like how Laur Lawrence Heights is impacted by violence but Neptune is often left out of the conversation there. Exactly. Yeah. So I think the thing is the point is and I'm 100% may I think we're aligned is that we want to see dedicated funding allocated through city budget process and that this new tool is used as the um foundation uh of how that allocation um you know or where those allocations happen type of thing. So I think we're very much aligned um dedicated funding to the neighborhoods where it's needed. Um that's the recommendation of this committee. I think we've already moved something to that effect and we I think have generally been supportive of that um important message to the city like this has to happen and this needs to be prioritized. I just want to make sure that we're using this neighborhood assessment tool to um underscore and underpin that work um because we know it's active. It's again um an iteration of what was in the past and we want to be doing that allocation based on the most up-to-date assessment framework. That's a complete framework qualitative and quantitative. Does that make sense? So then like the Neptunes of the city might have less likelihood of being left out or other, you know, community neighborhoods that might have been previously missed in past frameworks. Does that um I I think it makes sense. Are we able to kind of get all these ideas into specific writing so we can kind of see how it sounds? Yeah. What I'm going to suggest is that we um go to the other speakers. Uh we'll look to the clerks um and colleagues in the room. I know my chief of staff is there as well. We're sort of texting back and forth. We'll try to nail down the language so that we can um retable that friendly like just the whatever small change to make it a friendly amendment. Um so we can set that aside for the moment um and work on that and bring it back if that sounds okay and we'll just move on to next speakers. Um revisit this in a moment. Thank you. Sound good? Yeah. Um okay. Thank you guys. Apologies for all that back and forth. Thank you. Just a note, MBA also wants to get on the list. So, I just want you to know that. Deputy mayor. Oh, you want a question? Go ahead. Um any Sorry, other questions of the mover. You hear me? Okay. Um I did actually just want to ask a clarifying question if possible just so Yeah, if we can reset the time and you'll have three minutes. Go ahead. when I just want to clarify when it comes to this motion. I think what you were speaking about was that proactivity around the funding and making sure that while yes the data uh we are data informed in our decision-m around where funding is allocated, we are also being proactive and not waiting for the data to say hey there's a crisis in this area. This is where we need to allocate it. Um so I just wanted to clarify that what you're trying to put forward is while we appreciate the uh tool that is going to be used and the frameworks that are being applied, we're also trying to look at ways in which we can um be a bit more proactive in understanding what the the tool will eventually see is like sorry I'm just trying to find wording around um that motion to understand the relationship between the tool and your motion a little bit better. No, you're you're definitely spot on, KA. I think that what I'm and what uh the rest of or like many members in this committee is pushing for is taking this social development funding, community development funding and using it as a proactive tool versus reactive. Um I think that there are kind of maybe different approach on why SDPs or CBT CBDs do get implemented and oftent times they are tied to revital revitalization. And if we're just being honest, that's I think it's gentrification when a neighborhood becomes all pretty pretty and there's new condos and there's new this this and that that you know there's more now funding the city is more willing to kind of fund or funnel more funding into these specific neighborhoods versus the fact that for many decades that these neighborhoods have been suffering from gun violence, low unemployment rates, whatever the case may be, housing instability, um rising mental health issues, especially with the pandemic uh that just passed, all these issues are on the rise and I think that from my perspective SDPs and CPDs combat these issues 110%. I think that we need to be very careful as you know kind of waiting till after the fact that a disaster happens and we see the way that the world is going. We see the state of our economy. Gas prices are going up every single day. People are not able to afford their rent. Eviction um rates are on the rise. All these things are tied together. when we think about um what is the word uh I studied health policy I don't know why I don't remember it um but it has to do with social deter yes yes thank you the social determinance of health um when we factor those um ideas and using something like the SDP and CPDs directly name and address all of those determinants at once and I think that Um, it's a wonderful tool. We've seen it work in in Regent Park. We've seen exactly what it can do. So, I understand that there is this need for more data collection, but we already know that it works. You know what I mean? So, if things want to look good and pretty on paper, that is one thing for the city to pursue, but what we want to see is action taken based upon that. I I I hope that answers your question. Sure. And I think that what that does is it actually um so I actually have a question for how this should how I should proceed with this. Um, I think what it does is highlight maybe a question that we still have for this group here. So, would I be able to ask that or do I have to wait until for past questions of staff? So, can I question for record just just to put it out there? Um, I just want to say that I think that what May's motion really put highlights really well is that we need to also take a look at the early indicators and what are some of the ways that we could take the data that from previous frameworks and bring it into this current framework so that we're not having to have for lack of better words, you know, uh, previous mistakes, you know, happening again and seeing the impacts in our community in that way. Um, so that would be kind of what I would take from that motion that you're proposing to put towards a staff here. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Um, technically you have another four and a half minutes if you'd like to speak to the item generally. Uh, otherwise we're going to go to speakers to the item. Other speakers to the item. Um, I have on the list um May has gone promotion. And I have Wolit. Um Wolit, go ahead. You've got five minutes. Yeah. So, first of all, I just want to thank May uh for putting forth this motion. Uh I'm in strong support of the motion. Uh I know we've had this conversation back last year in November and it was brought to the executive committee and unfortunately um uh we don't have a clear answer of which neighborhoods are getting how much dollars to implement a social development plan or a community development plan in their neighborhoods. We know we have 158 neighborhoods. Uh, and I just want to be very clear, social development plans are not simply neighborhood plans. They're targeted actionoriented investments investments uh that reflect the priorities identified by residents, grassroot organizations and leaders and community stakeholders and they're one of the most effective tools we have to confront anti-black racism at the neighborhood level. Um, so, uh, in the spirit of this motion, I'm just going to reiterate that we've seen what is possible in Regent Park when this work is resourced. Uh, through sustained investment, collaboration, community leadership, we've achieved civic communities, including zero gun related deaths in 2023, increased youth engagement, employment, stronger coordination between residents, agencies, and the city. But this did not happen by accident. It happened because there was dedicated funding, staffing, and long-term commitment. And yet, despite this success, they still no clear, transparent understanding of what funding the city has committed to social development plan moving forward. The presentations before us today, and I went through this presentation last week, thanks to the city staff for circulating in advance, speaks to evidence-based planning tools and frameworks. But communities do not need more tools. We need investment, we need governance, and we need accountability. And I will say community governance. Residents know what's best for them. residents know what's best the uh when it comes to investments in their neighborhood. It shouldn't just be city staff. It should be community-led. And and this brings me to a critical point. Our budget reflects our priorities. Last year's budget or the 2026 budget that was actually uh just approved this February. Toronto Police Services received $93.8 million. And there wasn't any meaningful community consultation. Name me one place where a committee member could go and speak to those investments. They were actually shut out of the Toronto Police Services board meetings. That is horrific. And we've done so much consultation throughout for social development plans, community development plans, and we have no answer on whether Regent Park, Lawrence Heights, Alexander Park is going to receive the dedicated funding they've been receiving for the past couple of years. So, we've made this ask repeatedly that neighborhoods should receive $250,000 to half a million dollars to invest in prevention, community safety, youth opportunity, and social development with that goal of social cohesion and inclusion. So, we must ask, what does that say about our priorities? Are we investing in responding to harm or preventing it? Because social development plans are prevention, their safety, their equity in action. The city has 158 neighborhoods. It has identified priority areas, emerging neighborhoods, and equity gaps. The data already exists. The question is, will the city match this knowledge with sustained funding and community-led implementation? I believe this motion that is put forward by may provides a clear path forward. It calls for 250,000 to half a million dollars annually per neighborhood and that's the goal. At least we can scale it up while we reach that goal of all 158 neighborhoods uh receiving some funding from the city to support those residentled priorities prioritize actions that address anti-black racism. There's no one single neighborhood in the city that is free of anti-black racism. Right? So we are our goal is to have it fund the ent. And now we've been asked, hey, we need to think about how whether this is sustainable. Well, when the TPS, Toronto Police Services asked for $93.8 million, that question was never raised. Was just given. So, let's be honest here. This is not new work. We have a citywide framework grounded in resident leadership. We have race-based data and accountability mechanism. We have we this is a motion that could help us align with the Toronto action plan to confront anti-black racism. This is about scaling what we already know works. We must also be honest about a critical gap. Too often social development plans are tied to revitalization redevelopment. But anti-black racism does not only exist when cranes are in the sky. Black communities deserve investment regardless of whether redevelopment is happening. So, I want to encourage you folks to vote in favor of this motion. Um, so that we are very clear with what we would like to see, which is investment in our communities, investment in people instead of just investment in incarceration. Thank you. Thanks, W. I appreciate that. Limo, I have you up next for five minutes to speak to this item. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Um, I wanted to try to answer one of Sophia and John's questions, specifically number three, like how can we best ensure the city's future tool is meaningful and relevant for black communities. Um, so in my day-to-day job, I support many individuals who are economically, socially, uh, marginalized and vulnerable. And alongside their strength and resilience, there is a sense of kind of hopelessness and helplessness in combating the structural barriers that they face. Um, so I think what would be really helpful uh once this tool is implemented is to include education on how decisions are made at the city level and how tools such as this impact those decisions especially around social developments. And more importantly, I think it would be very meaningful to um really connect it to tangible and material outcomes that impact the day-to-day lives of individuals. uh because like you know you turn on the news and you hear there's funding for this and there's funding for this and it sounds great but if in your everyday life you're not actually seeing any sort of changes and you're experiencing some of the challenges and barriers that are being named then it can kind of create a disconnect. So I think demystifying how these processes work and really um helping people understand um the the power that they do have in supporting changes that are like that can positively impact themselves, their families and their communities can make uh the utilization and the uptake of this tool um a lot easier and people I think would be more excited about it if they they can kind of make those connection s explicitly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate those insights and uh and good words. Um I'll just share I have a couple of thoughts on this one and um uh as was mentioned May has driven incredible leadership on behalf of the CARAC on this area. We know that social development plans work. We know when communities are connected and engaged um to decision-m and empowered to be part of conversations that inform their own future um that a lot of um success can be seen. We heard about hopelessness in community. We know that empowering people um to be part of solutions is an important way that we navigate moving forward in a good way. That being said, there is an incredibly complex matrix that is the city of Toronto when it comes to how resourcing happens, how funding happens, and how decisions are made. And I really want to underscore and advocate for the suggestion Helimo just made around educating people on the process. One of the reasons why redevelopment spurs develop dollars to do community development is because there's then money on the table from developers and other stakeholders that are at the table to be able to facilitate some of this work. We heard about SDPs typically being funded directly through Toronto Community Housing Corporation which has their own separate and standalone budget from the city of Toronto though it is funded through the city. So again, it's a very complex matrix to I think follow and for us all to better inform ourselves so we can be making um decisions uh and recommendations that are going to result in the kind of direct impact and tangible action and improvement that our communities deserve. And I know we're all here to drive that important work. The reality of our governance structure in Ontario is something like policing is legislatively mandated. Something like equity and inclusion is a conversation. I mean there we have rights to these things but they are not mandated and legislated in the same ways. So when it comes to how we allocate um the public purse for example, all of those become really relevant and important discussions for us to continue and to be at the table for. So sorry I I know the time is a little bit off folks and I was trying to keep it on myself, but anyways um I'll I'll try to to to be brief and sort of wrap it up. One of the things that we know for sure is community development is a forever evolving process. It requires all of our participation, but there needs to be anchors in it. Whether that's terms of references, accountability frameworks, uh who drives the work, who holds the work, right? And who keeps things moving in a good way. Those are all important questions and they're all going to be unique and specific answers depending on the neighborhood where the work is happening. But for the city of Toronto to have a robust framework and tool that helps decision makers like us um advocates and organizers and community to ensure that when we're advocating for dollars to go somewhere that there is going to be um confidence in that process and confidence that those dollars are going to land in community and be led with by community. I think that's really important. Um, and so my friendly mo amendment that I was suggesting to may and apologies in a little bit of a roundabout way. I'm going to ask the clerks to put that on the screen. Tried to just really um pair it down, boil it down um to make it simple as possible. So in addition to the motion from me uh and all of the pieces within, there's just uh one or two lines of a recommended amendment. Um, so I'd like to put that on uh the screen if clerks can help me with that um for members to review. We'll take a vote on that. We'll take a vote on the item and then we'll move to our next one. Um so there's the language there. So you can see the portion that's bolded under um the first recommendation for economic and community development committee request. city manager in consultation with our committee uh or sorry the CAPRACK unit and relevant divisions to report to city council as part of the development of the neighborhood assessment tool and to provide a briefing note as uh part of the 2027 budget process on a citywide rank for um scaling social development plans and community development plans including all of the pieces that May had already um put in and and built out. So that's the the friendly uh amendment there. I appreciate sometimes the concern about the pace of the work, but I think if we want to go far, we got to go deep and make sure that we have strong roots and strong foundations to build off of uh in our ongoing work together. And I I hope that this uh allows that kind of an alignment. Um so I'm just going to do one final call out to any other speakers, anybody else wanting to speak to this item. I'm seeing none online. I'm hearing none in the room. So, we'll go to a vote on the a uh amendment and then the motion. Madame clerk, please correct me if that's the correct order. Sorry. Is that the correct order? A friendly amendment and then motion. I can't hear you if you're speaking to me. Sorry. And I can't see in the room. Just a moment. We're just having some technical issues. Okay, no problem. Thank you. I'm glad it's not me. May, are you good with this uh amendment? Yes. Thank you. Confirming. Um, so is it possible to make the screen larger? I can't see it. Um, thank you clerks if you're able to full screen that for us. I tried to read it out just in case. And I also was having trouble. I need to put my glasses on. Um, but that will also be reflected in the updated minutes as well. Um, so with the uh mover accepting the friendly recommendation, I believe we just have to move the motion itself as amended. Correct, Madam Clerk? Um I apologize. So we uh so we would vote on this motion first um the amendment by yourself and then May's motion afterwards. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Um all in favor of the friendly amendment on the screen before you in bold by show of hands. Thank you. Online I see unanimous. I'm not sure in the room. Thank you. Any opposed? So that will pass. And then on the motion from May, all in favor by show of hands, just give us a moment. I'll display the motion. Thank you. The full one will come up again. We're unanimous online. I trust in the room as well. We'll see once clerk can put that motion up for us. There we are. So the motion by May as amended is on the screen now. All in favor by show of hands. Wonderful. Thank you all. That passes. Um great work committee members. I know this has been a really really robust discussion and sort of a great um piece of work May has been leading on. I really feel strongly that this is going to be important to the future of our city and how we make decisions and how we make investments. So, um, thank you all for that great work. We are going to move a little bit expeditiously. We have another presentation of staff. We have another couple of speakers on that item. Uh, we'll move into discussion and debate and then we will have a couple of administrative items that we may need to defer um to next meeting, but we'll do our best to to keep to good time. I'm just going to ask the clerk, sorry, to reset the clock. Uh, and we would love to invite our colleagues over to the podium to present um for us. Uh, we have apologies. Let me jump back over here to my script. Um, so there are actually two presentations on this item, so it may take a bit of time. I will check in just before 12:30 to get the will of the committee to see if we can um work through to complete the agenda um versus taking a lunch break, but we'll check in around 12:20. I'm going to just note to staff if you can keep your presentation to the highlights um for us. Uh we'll dig in on any details and thank you for circulating that as well. Um, so from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, Chzi Alexander is the director of the Center for Advancing the Interests of Black People and Lindseay Vitz is the director of operations planning and program services. They are both here to give a presentation on advancing community development through evidence-based planning. Uh and then from the housing secretariat, Sarah Blackstock, the director of tenant services and support is here to give a presentation on citywide supported eviction prevention programs and sociodemographic data collection. Both very needy presentations. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions of staff. Um welcome colleagues to the table. Please go ahead when you're ready. Um, just before we begin, um, can, uh, can members of the public please, uh, turn their cameras off and mute themselves while we listen to the presentation and, uh, have questions from, uh, members? Um, through the chair, uh, we, it's the house, it's Jen St. Louis from the housing secretariat here, and I think we were going to do a quick presentation quick and then pass it off to TCHC if that works. Happy for you to reorder in that way. Thanks very much, Jen. and Sarah Blackstock had to leave had a a conflict. So, I'm here as well as my uh colleague Don Nichols from the housing secretariat and I'll pass it off to Don to do the presentation. Hello everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to present. My name is Don Nichols. I'm the manager of the grants program in the housing secretariat and I'll be presenting on behalf of the housing secretariat. The purpose of today's presentation is to provide an overview of the key eviction prevention programs supported by the city and an overview of the sociodemographic data that is currently being collected. So some of the presentation highlights I'm going to talk about the disproportionate impact of evictions on black and indigenous tenants and also talk to you about eviction prevention programs um and some of the data that they're collecting for sociodemographic uh data collection. We are having this important discussion today because we know that black and indigenous tenants in Toronto face systemic and structural marginalization and discrimination that puts them at increased risk of eviction. As just one indicator of this increased risk of eviction, the 2021 Canadian Housing Survey found the number of black and indigenous people who have experienced an eviction in their lifetime is nearly double the rate of other respondents. And that of course means the city's eviction prevention programs need to be responsive to these realities. 2020 Welssley Institute report um forced out evictions race and poverty in Toronto. Eviction filing rates are double in neighborhoods where black renter households make up 36% of households compared to neighborhoods with 2% black renter households. This difference persists even after controlling for poverty and other key variables. The Welssley Institute also conducted interviews with community leaders and service providers who affirmed that black renters face heightened eviction risks due to a mix of economic vulnerabilities and racial discrimination. The city's street needs assessment also indicated that indigenous people make up approximately 3.2% of Toronto's population yet accounted for 9% of surveyed individuals in the 20 in 2024. People who identified as black accounted for 58% of all respondents while representing 10% of the general population in Toronto. I'm going to provide an overview of the key eviction prevention programs supported by the city and some of the socio uh demographic data including racebased and indigenous identity data that is collected through these programs. Eviction prevention in the community, otherwise known as EPIC, supports tenants at imminent risk of eviction by providing short-term case management to prevent evictions and sustain tenencies. The program is delivered through six community organizations as well as a city of Toronto team. In this program, we collect sociodemographic data, including indigenous data and race data, which includes black identity. The data indicates 42% of the household evictions prevented were for blackled households. The housing secretariat funds six agencies to provide eviction prevention in the community services across Toronto. One of those organizations is Blackled Medina Community Services. These projects offer in-person short-term case management to households facing imminent eviction. They provide responsive and person- centered case management services and they implement rapid wraparound short-term case management plans to prevent eviction. They pro they provide preventative measures including education and support around tenency rights, build and sustain relationships with housing providers across Toronto, and support capacity building by providing information and support around system navigation. Eviction prevention supports contribute to preserving affordable housing stock in the city of Toronto. The next program I'm going to talk about is the Toronto Rent Bank program. The Rent Bank supports Toronto tenants facing imminent risk of eviction by providing one-time financial assistance for rental arars to prevent eviction or for a rental deposit to avoid homelessness. This program is delivered uh by neighborhood information post and several community partners of which two of them are blackled organizations including Margaret's community housing and also the Santra de Francohone to grant Moronto. Our data indicates that 15% of grant recipients were blackled households. The other program I'll talk about is a Toronto tenant support program. So the Toronto Tenant Support Program provides information, outreach, and legal services to Toronto tenants in private market rental housing. It's delivered by three organizations. The Canadian Center for Housing Rights, the Center for Immigrant and Community Services, and the Federation of Metro Tenants Association. TTSP information services are low barrier and do not collect sociodemographic data. The TTSP legal representation services collect age, gender, and membership in target group data, but currently not racebased data. Race-based data will begin to be collected in Q3 of 2026. We also fund uh a couple of additional programs called extreme clean and hoarding supports. So extreme clean projects provide low barrier cleaning services to avoid eviction related to safety issues and hoarding support projects provide case management for tenants whose hoarding behaviors put them at risk of um eviction. Extreme clean and hoarding supports are delivered by two organizations in the city. Um, extreme clean projects due to their nature of being low barrier do not collect race-based data. Hoarding hoarding supports um that provide case management supports do collect age, gender, and membership and target group data, but not currently racebased data. Race-based data for these programs additionally will begin to be collected in Q3 of 2026. Also wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of the partnering that the housing secretariat is doing with black le and indigenous organizations to better serve black and indigenous tenants. So we do have a number of strong partnerships in delivering eviction prevention services. So those include Medanta Community Services, which is a black le black serving agency funded to deliver eviction prevention case management services that works in strong partnership with the epic city program. We also provide funding for Margaret's housing and community supports. Um Margaret's is a blackled housing hub that acts as a local access center for the rent bank program and delivers a supportive housing project as well for the city. We also have a strong partnerships with Wigwamin that operates an Aboriginal housing support center with two locations that provide assistance for indigenous individuals and families in need of affordable housing or at risk of being homeless. They also support tenants with rent bank applications as a local access center. One additional um comment to make is that we were also able to onboard an additional housing hub called the Santra de Franophone to Grand Toronto for um black franophones. Um they are also providing a local access center for the rent bank program as well. Okay. Believe that's the end of my presentation. I'm not sure if we want to if TCHC wants to come and present and then open it to questions. Yeah, thank you. I am going to have both presentations uh and then we'll open to colleagues uh on the advisory to ask questions of all the staff who've presented. Um so, thank you so much, Jen, and Don for that information. Uh and we'll invite our colleagues from TC over to the table. Thank you. Welcome. Um, we're glad to have you joining us for today's presentation. Thank you again, Chesley and Lindsay. Uh, over to you. Uh, let's get settled and plugged in. And just members um to confirm once this presentation is concluded we will open up so we can hear directly from our deputants today. We've got two deputants on this item and then we'll take it into committee for questions of staff for five minutes each and then into speaking. Thank you. Good afternoon. Uh, thanks to the chair and the committee members for having us present here today. My name is Lindseay Vitz. I am the director of operational planning and program services at Toronto Community Housing. And my name is Chelsea Alexander. I'm the director of the center for advancing the interest of black people at Toronto Community Housing. Hi. Uh I will attempt to move quickly through the presentation given the time constraints and then I will hand off to my colleague Chesley to contribute his component. So uh first off I want to state that TCHC's goal is always to support stable and successful tenencies and that eviction is used as a last resort. Our eviction rate from 2015 to 2025 is has remained below 1% even during periods of operational and economic pressure. There are a couple of different types of evictions. Briefly uh we have nonarers evictions. Those relate to serious safety risks, illegal or violent behavior, catastrophic property damage or confirmed rent geared to income subsidy fraud. We also deal with evictions related to a rears or non-payment of rent and that occurs when tenants do not pay their rent in full every month. Specific to a rears, I'm going to highlight some data. So the average AR rears amount when an AR's eviction is completed is 27 excuse me $27,790 and it takes an average of 3.6 years to complete an AR's eviction. Um we have an example here a household and and these are uh not all identifying information's been been removed from these examples to protect privacy. um a household evicted with approximately $100,000 in a rears after staff worked to save the teny for almost four years. The office of the commissioner of housing equity was involved three different times in that case and there were a number of different local repayment agreements as well as one repay one mediated repayment agreement at the LTB for non-ar some highlighted data include 148 completed evictions in 2025 and it takes an average of 2.2 two years to complete a non-arers's eviction. And these types of evictions happen uh in cases of severe hoarding. Uh it can happen with assault or other unlawful behavior uh destruction of a unit uh implicating serious fire safety issues as well as uh RGI fraud. Here's a summary of our data from 2025. This is a snapshot and you can see that on the far left hand side for both arars and non-arers that's the number of notices for eviction served. So for arars it was just under 5,000 notices served. For non-arers it was 576 notices. Um and then when we have repayment agreements or agreements uh around tenant behavior for non-arers the number gets smaller and then you see mediated agreements at the landlord tenant board for arars at 216 eviction orders granted 189 and finally 61 completed evictions for arars and a similar uh decrease in the number of cases at each of those stages for non-arers with a final 148 completed evictions in 2025. Five. Uh the next two slides are fairly dense, so I'm going to go over them quickly, but it compares the um legislated minimum requirements uh for evictions against TCHC's process. Um so the top layer is the requirements, the timeline requirements and the process requirements uh set out in the residential tenencies act. Um so for step one uh a landlord can serve a notice for eviction one day after the rent is due. This is for an ARA's eviction. Um TCHC never serves on the first day after a rears is due. I can say that uh with a very high degree of certainty. We work for up to six weeks with tenants before serving in a an an N4 a notice. Um we then apply the landlord can then apply to the LTB for an eviction order for TCHC. When it comes to a rears evictions, we don't apply for an eviction order until the office of the commissioner of housing equity has worked for up to 45 days with the household to try and see if we can uh get a repayment agreement. Uh for step three, there's an LTB hearing and there are a number of components to that that the landlord and tenant board manages themselves. Uh the outcome of a hearing can include uh an order of a repayment plan, refuse an eviction request or a granting of an eviction order. TCHC even when eviction orders are granted for both arars and non-arers does do our own internal oversight um before we will uh proceed with uh in move enforcing the eviction. And then finally um the tenant for an aers's case the tenant must pay or move out um and TCHC intervenes with soft landing supports where it is safe to do so. Um we provide uh outreach to the household prior to the eviction being enforced um with uh referrals to shelters and resource information. And then the tenants have a number of days 30 days to uh retrieve their belongings from the unit. I'm going to highlight a couple of cases where TCHC um has averted an eviction. As you can see from those um the data, there are quite a number of cases where we are not proceeding to eviction where we're intervening. Um so there's an ARS example here with significant high high dollar value of arars working through the office of the commissioner of housing equity the legal clinic and support from the Toronto rent bank um that the uh successful resolution uh was achieved and the eviction was cancelled and the tenant is in a sustained repayment agreement with support from other organizations. For the non-erars example, it's an excessive clutter case and we heard uh my colleagues speak about the um the extreme clean services that the city provides and funds. This is an example of where those kinds of services can really be brought to bear to support uh a diversion from eviction and this is just a such case. Um and then just an overview of 10 years of evictions data. Um as you can see in the chart on the right hand side, it averages 42% over the past 10 years. Um and this represents uh completed evictions and we understand the LTB tracks and publishes the number of evictions made to the tribunal and this number is often much higher than the number of completed evictions at TCHC. Thank you. All right, I'm going to go through the next few slides if that's okay. Um so first acknowledgement. While TCHC does collect um some identity based data through our tenant survey, right, which includes uh age, income, disability, and the make of some of our households. Um what we don't do is currently collect that data in a way that would allow us to disagregate and understand very specifically impacts of our eviction processes on particular demographic groups or intersecting identities, right? Like I couldn't tell you how do our eviction all evictions cause harm. We understand that, right? How does that specifically impact black folks and the intersections of blackness? We can necessarily do that right now. Sorry. Next slide. Thank you. Um, so TCH is committed to the development of a data for equity and impact framework and associated identity based data collection policies, governance standards, and procedures. I started at TCH in July of last year and those conversations started around that time about the need to drive this. How do we drive this forward? Um the aim is to ensure the collection and analysis of disagregated identity based data including but not inclusive to race, gender, age, income, disability within our framework. Um, in doing this and doing this the right way, TCH will be positioned to be better positioned to provide deeper insights into evictions, ers, tenant relocations as requested in the motion, but as well as other areas of significance or other service areas identified through the data framework development process. So, where are we now? Currently, we're driving toward the delivery of three key objectives within the scope of our identity based data project being led through the center for advancing the interest of black people. One is the development of a data equity and impact framework for TCHC. The development of uh tenant identity based data collection policy governance procedures and standards and the development of a process to apply appropriate anti- uh anti-black racism lens to evictions. uh this work is being supported by an external steering committee of sub subject matter experts and uh practice leaders in the areas of identity based data collection to guide the process. TCH has TCHC has coordinated an internal working group as well representing multiple divisions and business units of the organization to execute recom who will execute recommendations of this external committee. uh the timeline for this uh will land us around Q2 Q3 2027. Folks who understand this work and understand you know the practice of of developing a framework to collect and understand to collect identity based data and understand disparate impacts. It's he it's a heavy lift and so it's it's not a it's not a short road. Next slide. Oh, I did this again. Um so in terms of milestones um the the creation of our of our identity based data um committee right uh our internal and and external committees those are forming we're finalizing our our um external committee we have pretty much everybody that we've engaged with are on are on board is just finalizing those uh formally um uh the development of a TCHC data policy and governance review uh community engagement and communication strategy which we will work very closely with their external committee to help guide that. These are folks who have experience in developing these tools for other large public sector organizations where community engagement is key um to uh successful development of a tool. Um then there will be internal learning development. Finally, the delivery of a data for equity impact framework and appropriate um and associated policies. Um so within TCHC, the center for advancing the interest of black people um will, it says will consult on eviction cases involving black tenants, providing anti-black racism analysis at each case, tracking cases, identifying systemic issues and trends as they emerge. you know, our office has um likely engaged in almost a dozen eviction cases this year, right? Uh this work will continue concurrently to the development of the data for equity and impact framework to ensure black families, which represent approximately 40% of our tenant populations are appropriately supported in advance of the implementation of the framework. I think that's it. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you us through that work. Um, we do have two speakers on this item. I mentioned that earlier. So, we are going to just ask staff to reposition. They may be virtual. So, let's actually check in. Um, and then we'll open up to questions of staff. Um, in terms of speakers, uh, I have I believe Miguel is registered to speak to this particular item and I believe one other, forgive me as I jump around here. Um so yes uh for addressing evictions through disagregated racebased data we have Miguel a Aila Valarde and um Tamana Yasm mean will to speak to us again. So Miguel I think I saw you a bit earlier. Are you online? Perfect. I see you. Uh go ahead. You have five minutes my friend. Madame clerk if you could. All right. I would like to ask permission to share. Hopefully clerks can help you with permission to share screen. Let us know, Miguel, if you're if you're seeing the share button come up. Hold on a second. Let me see. Okay. Sorry. And sorry, Madam Clerk, if or whoever. Okay. I think I got it. All right. Give Miguel his full five minutes. So, we'll just restart the clock once you start. Okay. Yeah, we've got your screen share up now. can't find my files. I I'm trying to find my files that I want to share. Um do you want to just speak talk to talk us through it, Miguel? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh while I'm I'm speaking to you, um what I'd like to say is that u um I want to thank Kamana for the first time speaking at this um uh committee for the city of Toronto. Thank you so much for your participation. Um I I hope I'm able to share uh on the on the screen. Uh this is an N6 notice that I was served by TCSC in 2023. Um my the name of my daughter is on eviction notice and currently this addiction notice is valid on until October 2027. So imagine the torture of not knowing what to do when you're ser notice. Thankfully the RPNA I want to also speak on support of the RPNA letter uh that WI share um and us through the speakers. Um I want to share uh another picture um with the with you guys. I want to share another one. Um so what happened is that PCSC has to improve improve the conflict resolution and mediation among residents. Um because you know um it is important to notice that a lot of problems are created by noises during the nighttime. Um I was um affected by noises during the night time on a regular basis and because I protested the the noises in my in my unit at night time um I was ser N6 notice. So I I want to uh correct the record by on the TCIC uh presentation. I was not provided with a um eviction pre prevention. They should have given to me a bill for a damaged door before you hit the N6 notice on me. The damaged door is the reason why I was here for an addiction because people the CSU was making me crazy. they were not find out where those noises were coming from. And and and really it was sad that um I spent two years of my life trying to um convince TCS that the noises that we experience all people like myself and I am indigenous by the way I'm speaking on the item. I have disabilities and now I have lost hearing in both ears. So that is very uh uh frustrating for me to speak on this item, but I want to make sure that I want to hold TCS accountable. You know, last week uh sorry, on March the 10, there was a meeting with the city executive and I told Olivia Chow, "Thank you for resolving the issue at 500 wrote that that landlord that the city has been trying to uh enforce those uh work orders and safety of the residents. Thank you, Olivia Trout. Thank you for working with ACORN and other uh groups. But I also want you to know, you know that you are a landlord yourself and these evictions that are happening in TCS has been put on hold and we have had a press conference at city hall and we have explained at the media that those numbers are scary to know that how many people are being addicted including myself. You know, anything can happen until October 2026 and I can get my rear or 22 or 220 up street. You know, I have given my life for this building. I got given most of my activism surrounding housing and this is how I get paid with an eviction notice instead of finding solutions. Thankfully, through my advocacy, we are going to have the first soundproof unit in the history of TCSC because it's the only way to confront a housing rehoming strategy or the housing secretary act so-called mandate to the city and TCAC to house anybody even if they stay awake at night and making life impossible. for us longterm residents who don't deserve to be disturbed at night. You know, my activism I do every day coming to city hall, coming to Rean Park, but I don't I cannot do it overnight. I cannot do it at 3:00 in the morning. I had to be awake. I had to be able to read document. And last and final comment, I want to see more capacity building and I want restoring Miguel to access to the bulletin board at your river. Thank you. Thank you, Miguel. I appreciate you joining us. We gave you a few extra moments there to um get your thoughts out. Are there any questions from Miguel from committee members? Just noting the time, folks. I'm going to move a motion that we complete the agenda. This is our last meeting item. Um, and I do have a a difficult afternoon to to um continue to chair the meeting. So, I'm hopeful folks can support that. But before I move that motion just before 12:30, um, any questions in the room for Miguel? I see none online. Thank you. Sorry, a procedural question. Are you recommending that we defer the the technical uh two items that were skipped at the beginning? Um, one is just an item for receipt. Uh, and then I will be moving a deferral on the second one. Um, but before that, my motion now is to move to complete the agenda. Okay. As opposed to Yeah. So, yeah, I'll be supportive of completing the agenda. I think we have time to get it done. I'm going to not ask questions to Miguel out of time, but thank you. Thank you, Will. I appreciate that consideration. Um, and uh know that we're aligned in a lot of the good work. So sorry on the on the motion to complete the agenda. Um all in favor if you can do a show of hands. Thank you so much. I appreciate that support. Committee members, thank you. Um so we will just continue with this item. Um thank you Miguel again so much. Um Tess, sorry your name is a little small for me to see. Uh Tesmana, I believe. Um Miss Yasm mean you have five minutes to address the committee. Uh we'll start your time now. You can go ahead and we're now on the eviction item. Go ahead. Okay. Uh just for correction, am I answering the STP question that Wally asked me earlier or am I speaking directly to the eviction? You can use your five minutes however you want to use them. So if you want that and then get into your comments for the evictions then that that works I think for us. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you chair. I appreciate the opportunity to respond. I will speak I I will uh I'll speak directly to eviction. Uh the impact of eviction um is not neutral. It is disruptive, costly and deeply unequal and it at its core eviction is eviction is the point where housing instability becomes a crisis. It pushes individual into homelessness, disrupts livelihoods and creates long-term harm that extends far beyond the moment of displacement. For families, um eviction means children being uprooted from school, loss of community support, and in some cases, family separation. These are not short-term setbacks. They are consequences that can shape life trajectories. At the community level, eviction destabilized entire neighborhoods. It weakens social network, accelerates displacement and increased resilience, reliance on emergency system that are already under strain and systematically evictions um eviction shift cost into the public. What could be addressed through early prevention supports becomes far more expensive through shelters, healthcare and crisis services. But most importantly, eviction does not impact all residents equally. Sorry if I'm speaking too fast. Uh let me know. Okay, got it. Thanks. Um in the absence of transparenc uh aggregated data we risk allowing inequitable outcome to continue without uh scrutiny or accountability. So the impact of eviction is not just individual, it is structural. It reflects um how our housing system distributes stability, risk and protection. And if we are serious about in about equity then reducing reli reliance on eviction must be part of the solution. Um so uh and that would be for eviction and I do have the answer for social development plan that asked earlier and uh I don't know if has any more questions so I can address them together or should I address that? Go ahead. Good. You're good. Go ahead. Okay. Uh the impact of social development plan is that they shift how we respond to challenges in our community. Uh instead of reacting to crisis after they happen, social development plan focus on early intervention and prevention at the individual level. This means the residents that are connected to support such as legal assistant, income assistance, income resource and community service before situations escalate into evictions or homelessness. For families, it helps maintain stability by reducing disruption, supporting access to services, and strengthening local support system. At the community level, um social development plan builds stronger network between residents, service providers and institution. This increase increases trust, uh improves coordination and reduce the likelihood that people fall through systematic gaps. Importantly, social development plan also advance equity. They allow more targeted place-based response that reflects the realities of communities experiencing systematic barriers. And from a system perspective, they reduce reliance on costly emergency response by investing in prevention. So the impact is not social, it is structural. It leads to more stable housing outcomes, stronger communities, and more effective of public uh resources. Thank you. Thanks so much again for speaking to this item. Do any members of the committee have questions? Seeing and hearing none. Thank you. Good job. Um, keep participating. It really, really does matter. Um, you can chop jump off video though for now because we're going to take it into committee. You can continue to listen along. Thanks so much. Um, so those are the speakers to that item. Uh, we're now going to open up to questions of staff and I'm going to take a questions a list of questioners to start. Um members wishing to question either TCHD staff or housing secretariat staff on this item. If you could indicate your interest by raise of hand or call out to me if you're in the room. Yep. We'll lead. Anybody else in there? Will lead. Queen. Keba. May. We all have questions. Need to write them all down so I can keep us in in order. Okay, perfect. Um so I have Queen Kemba May. Sorry. Keep up, May and Kathy. Yeah. Okay. Did I miss anybody? No. Okay, great. Willy, why don't you kick us off with five minutes? Just a reminder, the five minutes should Yeah. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I know we're we're rushing through time. It's an important topic. Um I am going to be moving a motion uh to ask that this committee support a moratorum on evictions from social housing uh from uh u believe July until November. So while city council is on recess for the upcoming municipal elections uh so that motion hopefully Gina will bring it up uh when we go to speaking on the item. uh my questions and you know I just want to thank uh friends both from the city uh and TCHC who have joined us today to speak to their efforts uh preventing evictions. Uh I I I do uh recognize that uh it has been successful in most cases. Uh but we do have uh tenants specifically tenants at risk that are falling in between the cracks. Uh I have supported over 30 families that were facing evictions from TCHC. Um I have worked with TCHC staff, amazing staff that have prevented most of those evictions. But in many cases when it has gone through the landlord and tenant board, um we have actually right now seniors, very vulnerable tenants that are displaced from their neighborhood that have been evicted and there's no pathway back into social housing. In fact, there are barriers, including tens of thousands of dollars in fines uh that have to be paid uh for them to even be considered to be rehoused in social housing, which I find deplorable and actually anti-black. So, I'm going to ask this question. I filed the Freedom of Information request back in December of 2025 and through disclosure obtained from Tribunals Ontario, we're seeing significant discrepancies between eviction data recorded at the landlord and tenant board and what has been reported by Toronto Community Housing publicly. So my question, and this is both to city staff and to safety staff because it's very important. Are we working collaboratively to identify uh best practices and interventions to support tenants at risk of eviction so there's a preventative uh approach instead of just responding when the latter and tenant board has already made a ruling. Uh I do see an increase in resolutions through mediation in 2025. I think it was over 100 cases from what I saw in the data from uh Tribunals Ontario. So what does that look like? Uh so can you explain how the city reconciles the differences in data being collected through tribe uh tribunals of Ontario? what is reported by TCC and does the city itself get into uh the important work of analysis to identif independently verify that data or do they just leave it to the subsidiary Toronto Community Housing to uh independently act as a landlord on the analysis of that data. So that's the first question and I have two minutes left so quickly. Yeah. So I can take that and then pass it off to TCHC. Um so through the chair uh the city does have regular compliance um processes with TCHC as well as we do with the other over 200 social housing providers that the city has oversight over that includes uh reporting on evictions. Um and uh I think Lindsay can speak to the discrepancy which we've we've talked through through the chair. Um the discrepancy is related to the difference in how the landlord tenant board reports. So they're reporting on notices filed with them as well as eviction orders granted. That is very different from evictions that are actually enforced uh by the sheriff or tenants who vacate the unit under order. So that there's the discrepancy is that they're looking at different they're measuring different things I guess is how I would frame it. Okay. My next question quickly is um does the city currently track what happens to tenants after evictions from TCC housing? How many enter shelters? How many become unhoused? How many secure alternative housing have they secured? If this data has not been tracked, how can the city evaluate the true impact of eviction policies on black and equity deserving communities? And I want to highlight the algosling inquiry as an important reminder uh that was uh put forward by the ombbudsman office. So through the chair we rely on TCH to um uh forward that information to us uh and they have fairly good data on uh tenants who are evicted who continue to work with them on a soft landing or alternate housing. Having said that, there are a number of households who do leave or who are not interested in getting that assistance. And I'll leave it to TCH to um to maybe flush that out a bit more. Yes. Uh through the chair, definitely um Jen is correct. When somebody is continuing to work with us, um we do understand what their situation is, but we don't systematically track that data because in the majority of cases, those tenants don't continue to engage with us. Thank you. Um, next on the questions, I have Queen. Queen, you have minutes. If we can reset the clock and please go ahead. Yeah, I have three questions. I hopefully I get them out quickly. I noticed that there aren't like dates for the milestones. I was wondering if you could give us some brief dates for those milestones. Um my other question is given the urgency of the anti-black racism folks are experiencing um with TCHC, is there a way uh are you guys collecting data currently as well before the Q2 Q3 period in 2027? Mhm. And how many of those are being reviewed um by the center for advancing interest of black people with the TH TCHC? Is that three? Sorry, I got two. I got I got milestones and I got what data we're currently collecting. Basically, the third one is um is it being reviewed by your committee? Fair enough. Okay. So, um milestone dates um we didn't get so granular here. One is understanding as this work around the development of a framework, development of policies, whether it's the work that the Toronto Police Services did or the province has done or various children's aid societies have done. What we understand is that these processes generally take 18 months to two years. Right? So we knew that rather than rather than what I can say right now is that our internal committee has been formed number one our external committee our members are confirmed not not finalized right our internally we are we've currently conducting a data policy and governance review we'll be meeting we will we've already had an an initial meeting with our internal committee our external committee We'll start to meet formally once we have all paperwork in. We'll start to meet properly in April at which point we will then start building out again the data for equity framework and the policies. That's what will be will come in Q2 Q3 2027 right the other two is community I don't have a timeline for community engagement right I really I couldn't say what the timeline is likely as we build this committee together likely six months out I would say community engagement staff uh learning and development will come likely two to three months prior to these reports coming towards the board. All right. When it arises, is there currently a process for when uh you know evictions from like folks, black folks experiencing eviction, is that something that come across your desk? And what is the process the current process for that? Are you going to say something? So, currently people can engage with our office in a couple of ways, right? Well, a number of ways I guess people will reach out directly whether it's via phone to and connect with our resolutions coordinator or via email right directly or writing us a letter to say I'm facing this case can you support us as I said since I've arrived in July of 2025 about we've been involved with about a dozen eviction cases right also there are times when staff will reach out to of those dozen some of those are folks reaching out to say, "Hey, we need help." Also, there's times when staff will reach out to us. So, we've had staff reach out to a number of times to say, "Hey, this is what's happening with this case. We've started this evictions proceedings or we're at early days of evictions proceedings. What might be what may we be missing? What might we be misunderstanding or not seeing?" Right? And then thirdly, there's times when folks from the office of the commissioner of housing equity, they'll reach out to us and so they have reached out to say we're dealing with a particular family or addict a particular evictions case, right? It's a black family and they will ask us for our input or for our consultation. So those are the ways that um folks will will come to us, right? And then we're not we're not, as I said, we're not currently the organization isn't currently tracking um identity based data in a way that we can then look and say, so what's happening here beyond individually? What's what trends are we seeing? What is how is this impacting black mothers or black children or black men or black folks with disabilities or dealing with mental health or addictions issues, right? Um we're not do we're not able to we're not currently doing that. in a way that has appropriate rigor. I guess that's why we need to a develop a framework and then b develop these policies, right? To do it right. Folks may be trying to do it, but they're likely not. If you're going to do it, just build out the framework and do it the right way one time. Did I answer your question? Good. Great. Uh, thanks so much, Queen. I appreciate that. Next, I have KA up for a five minute question. So, if you could just reset the clock. Sorry, Madame Clerk. I have you doing double duty today in my absence. I appreciate that. Thank you. And go ahead. You've got five minutes. Awesome. Thank you. Um, first of all, good afternoon. Um, and thank you so much, Lindsay and Chesley, for making the time to uh have this presentation for us. Um, I also want to say thank you to Wol for uh acknowledging the context that I think we understand that TCHC has made strides to prevent evictions over the years. Um, and of which I'm in agreement with. Uh, but I also have some questions just about the data that you provided within this presentation and also within the freedom of information request that we mentioned earlier. Um first being that while I understand that less than 1% of the uh tenants are being evicted um or I think in the FOI it had mentioned that it's 96% to be specific. Um that's up from 0.58% from the previous year. Um and I just wanted to know if you had any uh explanation of any of the factors that might be contributing to that increase. Um my other question is also just on the estimated timeline that you discussed Chesley on uh some of the the external committee that's going to be implemented around I think you said Q3 to Q2 or Q3 2027. Yeah. Um I think we all understand that that's a heavy lift um to in organizations like TCHC especially with the the vastness of the organization. Uh with that being said, could you paint us a picture of some of the resources that TCHC is putting towards this initiative, especially given the importance that you've outlined in the presentation? Uh so I can speak to the increase in eviction rate. Um if we look from 2023 to 2025, there has been an increase uh based on this is based on TCHC's data. I don't have access to the raw data that was informed the freedom of information request. So, I don't want to speak to it because I I believe it might be comparing apples to oranges. I'll speak to TCHC's data. Um, so in uh 2023, we had an eviction rate of 39%. 2024 we had 58% and 2025 it was 51%. So, it is an increase from 2023 into 2025 for sure. Um it is difficult to identify specific drivers within the data. Excuse me. Um evictions are complex and they take a long time to get to resolution and so understanding specific drivers can be really challenging. Um we did have an eviction moratorum on a rear's evictions during COVID and so uh staff believe that that may be contributing to a slight increase year-over-year as we're still working through some of those cases. But like I said, uh these these the data is complicated and there's multiple drivers within. Cool. So your question about resources towards moving the work forward, right? Um I don't have a hard number other than to say what we know is what I brought forward to the CEO is to say uh external committee members will need to be renumerated engagement. there will be it will require real resources. likely where the most resources will be is um again as we've said we will while right now cases are coming to us as folks bring them to us whether it is staff saying hey I don't think we have a good line of sight on this o reaches out to say hey can you give us some additional consultation or um tenants reaching out last year again we saw about or since I've been here we've seen about a dozen right we have one um um resolutions coordinator who's able to manage that work. The commitment now is to say in cases where black families or families that are identified as black come forward um or not come forward are identified entering the evictions process somewhere in the evictions process. So I imagine that some are very easily resolved well relatively easily resolved. Again this the fact getting a notice causes tension and stress. I grew up in Toronto community housing. family has received eviction notice in the past when I was a kid, right? It's not I can I can appreciate the stress, right? But there there'll likely be a number 6 700 what have you. It's far greater. One resolutions coordinator likely won't be able to handle that. And so we will have to put forward for additional resources to create to ensure that these families are supported and there's not there's no bottlenecks. Right. what I've I've been really clear with folks internally with the extended leadership team and the CEO to say this is not a resource this is not a resourcene neutral um um proposition right is to get to lift this it requires fuel and uh that's I've been given that commitment so is that fair no that's completely fair and I just want to squeeze one quick question in that um just to follow up on uh Queen's question I know you kind of talked about the um identity based data that you are able to collect. Are you able to collect I just want to clarify if you're able to collect data on race specifically. No. No. Okay. Thank you. Thanks Nikki for those really great questions and um good answers. Definitely got me thinking about a few more things as well. Um next I have May uh and then followed by May for questions we'll have Kathy. Go ahead May. You've got five minutes. Thank you so much. I'll try to be as quick as possible. I have two questions. Um, one kind of related to KBAS, um, on the note of rising evictions. Um, I'm pretty sure that over the past few years that the amount of available units within Toronto community housing has decreased. If I'm not mistaken, please correct me. Um, but yet evictions are on the rise. Um, so I'm wondering how is that possible? Um, I know that for when you answered Kea's questions that you said that the factors are not necessarily clear on why evictions are rising, but I thought that was interesting to point out. Um, and my second question, maybe suggestion, I'm not sure. Um, you said that most times when you interact with tenants that are being invicted, they directly reach out or it's a staff member that reaches out. I'm wondering how we can streamline this work where you find the people that are evicting evicted. I'm not sure if you already answered that, but I think that um a lot of times that people are not necessarily sure of the resources that are out there. Um, we've heard cases where, you know, communications are not necessarily clear on the eviction process and we're hearing that the this is how eviction is supposed to work, but people are experiencing it a different way. Um, and you said that you stepped in, I think, last year of June, and that you're now working with Toronto Community Housing and doing this amazing work, which I do commend you for. So, I'm just wondering how we can bring this work directly to tenants, not only the tenants that are being evicted, but you know, just that knowledge building um and mobilization so people do know what is out there because you can't predict whether you'll be evicted tomorrow or or next year. Things and circumstances do change. But just so folks are aware that there are resources um it sounds like it's a new resource um and a new line of communication that is now being established. So I'm just wondering about that. Can I go first? Yeah. All right. So I'll go first in terms of streamlining the process. Right. So up to now folks have been or currently folks come to however they come to us some will be tenants. A lot will be staff and the office of the commissioner for housing equity who reach out to us for perspective and then we get involved that way rather whether it's heavy or whether it's light we're involved and provide consultation. Right. Um the proposition moving forward is for all evictions that involve black families will come to we will be involved in supporting whether it's both f the center is meant to coach build capacity and collaborate right with tenants and with staff to confront and disrupt anti-black racism and to promote black thriving. Absolutely. So the process the proposition for the process going forward is that all cases regardless should come to us. So largely we will get cases that will come for staff will bring those cases forward. How whether we bring them individually whether we create a process for a weekly or a monthly case conference to say this is what's coming forward and some of that they will likely identify this is the stage where it's at first notice. We think we can handle these. These are the ones where we're going to need to require more coaching, more capacity building, more support, right? And then we will likely put our hands on those and move those along in a in a different way. There will there be times where there be families who staff say, "Oh, we can do we got these." And then families or black families will be like, "Yeah, this isn't it." And and they'll come circle back and reach out to us secondarily. I imagine that there will be some of those those cases and so absolutely we would need to there likely be some types of communications right ongoing communications for folks to understand you don't have to wait that you can come and find us a as as well right I'm mindful again resources is a is going to be the ch how we resource this the right way will be a challenge right if under resources it creates a bottleneck and then things get missed right so is that Uh and I'll try and answer your question about uh the comparison between the number of um evictions that are completed in TCHC and then the overall number of vacant units that come forward. Is is am I getting that right? No. Um I'm talking about the amount of units in general in TCHC. I believe um I read it somewhere that that has decreased over the years. like the amount of units that houses people has gone down over the year yet evictions are still on the rise if that makes sense. So um TCHC's overall unit number has stayed relatively static. We did have some transfers of assets and units outside of TCHC through a process mediated by the city. Um that was about a thousand units just under a thousand units I believe. Um and then you had the separation from TCHC into TCHC and seniors housing. And so if you're seeing a big drop in the number of units, it's likely uh 2021 um 2022 where you're seeing the seniors units being separated out. The eviction rate is always calculated against the total number of units within TCHC at any particular time. So I don't know if that answers the question, but that's how the numbers sort of work out. So you said that um some of the senior homes and other um buildings I guess would now be transferred out of um TCH. So are those numbers included in the eviction data or only in the historical data when it when those units were TCHC units? Right. So at the point where those units are transferred out, those units are removed from TCHC's overall unit count and then they're no longer considered. Uh certainly for seniors housing they would have their own data on that. Um certainly for the seniors units. Thank you. And I do think that's an important note. Um TCHC did have a split and a new uh corporation, the Toronto Seniors Housing Corporation was created that still works very closely in tandem with TCHC. TCHC is still the asset owners. Um but there is a separate board and budget um for Toronto Seniors Housing Corporation which is a fairly new development in the city of Toronto in the last few years. Um thank you may for those great questions. And next for questions I have Kathy. Kathy you've got five minutes for questions of staff. Go ahead. Uh thank you very much uh for recognizing me. Um the advantage of uh going last is is that some of my questions have already been answered. So I will uh just focus on um the one question. I really appreciate reading the reports and and hearing about the Welsley report that showed that evictions for black residents even controlling for poverty and other factors was still double. Um and also hearing that the TCH uh evictions were less than 1%. What I deduced from the presentation information is is that uh likely the largest number of evictions may be involving privately held rental units. Um and it's great to know that uh there are programs uh for individuals that have received an eviction notice, but my focus here now is thinking about accountability and prevention. And so what kind of enforcement mechanisms are in place and accountability mechanisms are in place in order to mitigate landlord racebased evictions by privateowned rental units. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. I hope the housing secretariat um might be in a position to respond. Or whoever staff in the room. Oh, sorry. Can you repeat the question, please? Uh Sarah Black who leads that. Um yeah, there black people are uh renting uh housing from area from privately held units, not just TC TCHC. And so when we're thinking about anti-black racism and this committee is actually considering the entire city, not just TCHC. So I want to know what enforcement mechanisms are in place or what in general accountability mechanisms are in place in order to um assure that there's not anti-black racism in housing and evictions that are racebased based upon the information. If we know that we're controlling for poverty then evictions are not just in the wels report we know that evictions are not just for arars. So um I'm saying that that um what's in place to consider for these privately held um units where we are um also renting not just TCHC. Thanks for the question. Um we the city has a number of programs that support tenants who are facing eviction and we do collect race-based data including uh black uh identity data. So we have a sense of who is accessing our eviction prevention programs and that in so that includes the eviction prevention program in the community. um that also includes the Toronto tenant support programs that provides legal supports uh to people who are facing um eviction. So we have data in that regard um to help us understand the risks that black tenants are facing the needs that they have from uh eviction prevention programs and that's informing how we um grow those programs and the partnerships that we develop. Don I don't know if you want to add anything else. Yeah, I would also just add that we have uh several information services as well for tenants to access as well as for service providers. And we've actually seen um even through 2026 budget increase an increase in legal supports for vulnerable tenants um as well as some increases in our key uh eviction prevention programs like the rent bank and the eviction prevention in the community program. So as as followup um what I'm hearing is is what uh resources are available for individuals that may have been evicted. But my question is about suppose you have a high percentage or numerous uh tenants who come to one of these resources, right? And you find out that in a certain community that there are certain landlords that are evicting people on a regular black folks on a regular basis. what what can we do? What's been done? Um what mechanisms are in place in order to control for that? Um so we do have um outreach services. So if if we have a large number of tenants who are coming to a program, whether that's a housing hub or through the Toronto tenant support program and are identifying a particular situation where there's a large number of people facing eviction, we have the capacity to leverage partnerships, including with the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations and other community- based organizations both to support those tenants uh to assert their their rights um and to try to work with them to address other issues there is data um avail there isn't racebased data available from the LTB my question is not being answered actually like is is there any accountability to to go after the landlord or to or or to say that that housing discrimination is illegal and so therefore um landlords have to abide by housing discriminate anti-housing discrimination rules I'm sorry I don't seem to be avoiding your question and so hopefully I'll take another kick at the can and answer it more directly. Um, we do the city does fund legal services. So if tenants needed access to those legal services, those would be available. We in the cases that you're describing would also refer to uh community based legal services if if the ones that were uh funding weren't available. Does that more directly answer your question? Um, it says that we need a motion at some point that says that housing is illegal, housing discrimination is illegal and then and put some teeth to that. Thanks Kathy. Appreciate that. And thanks D. It is a it is a toughy and it does sound to me like it's more along the like a human rights complaint. It's more sort of the court of law um you know that um uh avenue for resolution. Unfortunately, there aren't it sounds like we're hearing from staff very many tangible um mechanisms within the purview of the municipality at this time in this area, but we do and will continue to collect the data and you know understand the information so we can appropriately advance um appropriate solutions. So thanks for that Kathy you are the last on the list of questionnaires. We are going to move to speakers. I know Valid is going to speak to this and also has a motion. I just want to take a list of any other speakers to this item. Uh if folks online can just do a show of hands if you would like to speak to this item. I'll add you to the list. I'm not seeing any uh folks in the room if you'd like to speak to this item or have a motion on it. Uh if you could um unmute and just indicate your name so I can add you to the list. Okay. It just as part of the motivation for the motion just because I want to save time. Uh, if the clerk could just help allow me to share my screen online, that'd be great. Can you guys hear me still? Yeah. Was there anybody else who wants to speak to this item? No. No. I do just have a quick question of staff will lead before I turn it over to you to speak. Um, so I'm going to just quickly do that if you'll allow me and clerks can get your motion up as well. Um, during that time, um, I do have a question on this um, proposed motion. I believe spoke a little bit in his preamble that he will be moving a moratorum. Um could you could an eviction moratorum question to staff could an eviction share yeah your your mic um could an eviction moratorum affect the ability of TCHC to fulfill its legal responsibilities under the residential tenency act and housing services act. Um, I can speak to that. I I would recommend that a legal opinion be sought uh in that case. I I don't want to give, you know, what could be construed as legal advice here. Okay, that's helpful. Um, and just noting again with everything our complex system, there are underscore underlying legislative responsibilities that we do need to be mindful of. It's something that I am uh attuned to. Um, I'll leave that there with my questions. Uh and I'll speak to this item after Wol presents his motion. Um I will turn it we'll now take it into speakers and Wit over to you for five minutes. Thank you so much. Um just cuz uh I want to make sure that folks are aware of the data that was referenced um earlier. I'm just going to quickly share my screen if that's okay with the clerk and oop here it is. Let me go share just the time madam clerk if someone could hit the start button as well. Thank you. Okay. So, um the points that were raised earlier, thank you um uh to May and Keba and Queen. Uh if you look at the screen, this is TCC's own data. The number of total households actually went down from 55,000 to 50 to 40,932. And I think there was a a point that was raised that relates to seniors housing may have been moved out of that portfolio. So, that could be one of the reasons. Another point that was raised was, you know, this is a talking point, like less than 1%. I think one eviction is too many. Um, and if you see, if you see the numbers, it's going up from 0.58% to 0.96%, which is almost 100% increase in evictions from 2024 to 2025. You can all find this information on the region park uh na.ca CA website including the data uh from tribunals of Ontario pointing out that 2023 was the worst year for tenants or at risk tenants. Um and this was the year that the moratorium was lifted, right? Um this is the amount of applications that were filed to tribunals Ontario. But I'm going to go back to my motivation and I'll ask Gina if you could just put forward the motion. My motivation is that we need to have a moratorum in place while city council is in recess um for the municipal elections. Uh Toronto is in the midst of a deepening housing crisis. But more specifically, we are witnessing a growing crisis of evictions from social housing and we must be very clear about what that means. Toronto Community Housing is not just another landlord. It is the housing of last resort. The city of Toronto owns Toronto Housing. It's a subsidiary of the city. If there's one impact uh to help address my friend Kathy's question, uh we can't do much in the p private sector, but we can do something with TCC. And when someone is evicted from TCC, they're not moving to another unit down the street. Too often they're moving into homelessness, into shelters, into overcrowded conditions, or into complete housing instability. This motion calls for a temporary moratorum on not just well, it says a related evictions, but I'll love to hear from everyone else. Not indefinitely, not without conditions, but long enough for our city to do what it has not yet done, which is understand the scale of the problem and implement real solutions. Because right now, we're making decisions without data. We do not have complete, transparent, disegrated data on who's being evicted, why they're being evicted, and where they're going after eviction. And yet we know enough to act. We know that black, indigenous, and racialized tenants are disro disproportionately impacted. 40 to 42% of TCHC tenants identify as black. We know that seniors, families, and people with disabilities are among those being displaced. And we know that their evict disections are not simply administrative. They're structural. They're tied to poverty, rising costs, inadequate supports, and systemic inequalities that this committee was created to address. This motion is also about accountability and alignment. The city of Toronto has committed to confront anti-black racism. It has endorsed the Toronto Action Plan to confront anti-black racism. It has recognized the United Nations International Decade for people of African descent. But those commitments must show up in our housing system because housing is not separable from anti-black racism. Housing is one of its clear expressions, clearest expressions. We must also confront a fundamental contradiction. On one hand, we say that social housing is a safety net. On the other hand, we're evicting people from the very safety net without a clear pathway back into housing. That is not s a systemic system of care. That is a system of displacement. This motion proposes a different approach. A moratorum to stop the immediate harm, a rehousing pathway to support those already displaced and data transparency to ensure we are making evidence-based decisions moving forward. And at this at its core, this is about a simple question. Do we believe that people in social housing deserve stability or not? because if we do, then we cannot continue evicting people into homelessness while we figure out what to do next. I urge this committee to support this motion, to send a clear message that evictions from social housing must be treated as a last resort, that housing stability is central to racial justice and that the city must act now to prevent further harm. because once a tenant loses their home, the cost to them, to their family, and to our city is far greater than the cost of preventing that eviction in the first place. So, I want to thank uh members of the committee, and I want to encourage TCC and the city to actually move forward with implementing the collection of disagregated racebased data, a motion that we passed last year, immediately, not in quarters 2 and quarter 3 of 2027. That's too late. Black people cannot should not be made to wait another year for action. Thank you. Thank you, Will. I appreciate that and thank you for the timing. Um I have a couple of questions. Is there anybody else who has questions of the mover on this um with this motion? I'm seeing no one online. I don't hear anyone. Um, sorry. I have a question for TCHC but not for would I be able to do that right now? Sorry that speaking. I don't see sorry Tamana. Sorry. We're in committee now so we're not able to dialogue back and forth with staff but um keep participating. You will you'll pick up you'll pick up on the process here. Um thank you so much. This is just for committee members. So, I will just quickly ask uh we'll lead a couple of quick ones for me on this item. Um appreciate your advocacy on behalf of vulnerable residents um and the work that you've been doing in this area. As you know though, I do have concerns with this approach um for a couple of different reasons. Um you mentioned the moratorium period during co that moratorum period are you aware it was strictly for aersbased eviction and that causebased evictions did continue during that time? Yes, I am aware of that and that's why the motion is worded as areas related evictions. Uh so it's consistent with that and the motion is scoped down based on advice from members of the committee and others that it's from July 30th to November 15th, 2026 because of the recess u that city council will be in due the municipal elections. I think it's critically important if things do happen in the summer that relate to uh you in action that needs action from city council uh that uh that city council is sitting. So this is why I'm uh proposing a limited moratorum for that period. Um two followups on that. Um city council does not have any direct involvement with evictions related to TCHC. Um so can you unpack that rationale for me a little bit more? Yeah. So this so the city can uh through a shareholder direction like a motion from city council uh direct TCE to do things that are in the best interest of the city. Um I argue that through this motion that a moratorum is in the best interest of the city. It's in the best interest of black people. Uh it will help us um address a couple of things. One being that um uh in the motion it names that the city council requested the board of directors of Toronto Community Housing uh to direct the CEO in partnership with the city manager to report to city council by the quarter 4 of 2026. So by the fall of this year, the number and demographics of TCC tenants facing eviction diseed by race, gender, age, postal code, and type of eviction. uh the number and demographics of formal TCC tenants who have been evicted and remain unhoused or housing insecure and immediate and long-term interventions to prevent evictions and support rehousing in social housing. My friends, we can't kick this down the can by another year. Like that's what we heard from the presentation. This motion asks for quick action now that we start collecting is the disegrated racebased data uh on who's been evicted from social housing so we have a better appreciation of what supports their need uh in from a preventative uh perspective but also uh after they've been evicted. Thanks. I just have three minutes. I don't know if the time's going there. I have five seconds. I have one more question. Um you spoke about urgency and I've been working with a few different tenants um around different challenge related to safety in their in their buildings. Um how would you ensure the safety of other tenants in TCHD is uh if a TCH is unable to have all the tools available to resolve life safety concerns such as fire risk or tenants who have demonstrated history of violence against other tenants. Excellent. Excellent question. So um you know what I always remind my uh everyone who I speak to about this issue is that we actually have a court system. Uh when folks are charged with a serious offense and they are proven guilty, they're jailed and those units are basically abandoned. Right? I am not arguing that those units should be retained. That should those are units that should be sh you know given to folks who on the waiting list uh of social housing. But in many cases because of systemic anti-black racism, people get charged and years later they're found innocent. But the harm has already been done. They've already been evicted from social housing. They've already been displaced from their community. And I think it's imperative that we work cohesively to ensure that we basically set in place a moratorum when it comes to um areas related evictions. Um but also try to appreciate that there are nonaras evictions that happen and not necessarily because they're uh just bad neighbors. They could be systemic uh factors in place as well. So, um, this motion is going to help us appreciate that between this time period this summer, we can we we allow city staff and TCC staff to work cohesively to bring forward recommendations to city council at future meetings on how do we stop this evictions from social housing. like we can't address what's going on in the market uh housing if we can't address what's going on within TCC right now and an increase of about almost 100% is a lot uh no matter how we want to phrase it uh as less than 1%. One eviction is too many. One family being evicted is would still cause harm throughout the system not just for the individuals involved. Thanks W. Any other questioner questions of the mover? I'm seeing none. Uh, any other speakers to this item? Anybody in the room? May. May. Go ahead, May. And then I'll say a couple of words and then we'll put the motion to a vote. Go ahead, May. You've got five minutes. Uh, I'll try and make this quick. I know we're crunching for time. Um, I really wanted to commend and thank Wed for bringing forward this motion of a moratorum. I think it's bold. I think it's radical. And I think that as a committee we have to ask for really big things to get big results. Um we see this is kind of related but not really but on Friday the prime minister of Spain actually announced that he will be doing a rent freeze for everybody in this country due to what's going on in the world. So when we are in positions of leaderships, when we are positions where our advocacy is taken seriously, I think that we need to do what's in the best interest of the people that we claim to be serving. And I think that this moratorum does exactly that. Um we seen with the data that's some has been collected, some has been not, but we know what the reality is when it comes to anti-black racism in housing. We know how black families are affected. we know how black single mothers are affected. None of these things are easy things to face and I think that calling for this moratorum um is the right thing to do and I I hope that the rest of the committee does um vote in favor of this. Thank you so much. May um I will just say a few quick words uh if court can uh reset the time and keep me honest here. I'll try to keep it brief as I normally do. Um, I really want to acknowledge the importance of ongoing dialogue in the area of housing and supporting vulnerable people. As we know, this disproportionately impacts black folks. That has been underscored and validated again through the data that was shared today. Um, and we need to continue to hold folks accountable and make sure that there are mechanisms in place. Um, so that folks, especially those most marginalized, have pathways to um, stability and to success in their lives, whether that's in housing or otherwise. When it comes to the eviction moratorum, I won't be supporting the motion today. Um, not because I don't agree that there is work to be done. Um, but because I am really concerned about some of the unintended consequences that this might um this might create. Um, oftentimes when we think about quick solutions to a challenge and we're not contemplating second, third, fourth order consequences, we can unfortunately sometimes create more harm by doing that. Um again I mentioned in my capacity as a city counselor and even prior when I was working as a staffer and even prior when I was working as an organizer in community um there are unfortunately times when this is a mechanism that's needed to keep communities safe. Uh when there is one problematic unit or one problematic issue whether it's violence whether it's other challenges. Um, we've heard that the time to even get someone evicted, it can take two and a half years on average. So, this isn't something that happens overnight, this isn't something that happens without due process. And we've heard today from um the Center for Advancing the Interests of Black Folks at TCHC, a new body that has been stood up with a specific focus to do this exact work, supporting mediation, supporting soft landings, supporting people through um difficult um stressful processes to make sure to hopefully address the vulnerability that is created within those circumstances. Uh we need to continue to do that work. We heard about I think it was overall 61 households. Um we heard about a full-time um staffing and necessary resourcing to support what ultimately ends up shaking out to 1% or less than 1% of a community. And I think instead of putting a moratorum on it, we need to be holding folks accountable to continue to do the work, deepen the work and do better um to drive better outcomes and results. I also want to just plug here Humber College um not just because I'm an alumni but because I have referred um residents and and folks within my community to their mediation program. Uh and I would highly encourage TCHC to think about the kinds of partnerships uh and opportunities to make sure that there is no bottlenecking as people start to learn more about the services and supports available to them, especially within black uh communities and black families that we're seeking out the appropriate partnerships to do this work in a good way and ultimately help people move through these processes. Um but I think there are a lot of risks associated with a moratorum. I don't think that a municipal election is a sound rationale. I don't see a direct correlation between those things. Uh obviously a pandemic is a very very different circumstance when it was the last referenced moratorum. And so while I appreciate the uh intention behind this um this motion, I don't agree with it in in practice and I won't be supporting it. Um, but obviously we'll uh call a vote and members are absolutely welcome to to vote one way or the other. And again, I do think that this work overall needs to continue to advance. The other aspect of the conversation that we haven't really had at all today or heard much of is the types of housing that's coming online as our city continues to grow and develop. We know that condos that have been largely driven by the private market aren't serving anybody's needs. And we also know that there has not been any transitional or supportive housing built in our communities for generations. We're just now getting back to the table with affordable housing. We're getting back to the table with cooperative housing. But we also need to ensure that hard to house folks or more vulnerable folks have the appropriate housing options that support their success and that can look different for different folks. So, I also think there's a lot of important advocacy and work to be done around the diversity of housing options available to folks in our city in addition to the supports to proactively um ideally keep them uh where they need to be. So, those are my thoughts and comments on this particular item. Thank you all. I actually took my five minutes. Look at me. Might as well. We're right close to time here. Um but thank you guys for listening and uh we will now go to a vote. Um, I'm just going to ask for a recorded vote. Um, because I want to be recorded in the negative on this one. As I mentioned, I won't be supporting it, but um, folks, vote your vote your heart. Uh, and I'll ask the clerk to please call for a recorded vote on this item on the motion from the lead, which I think is then the item. But, madame clerk, I'll look to you for direction if we do the motion and then separate um the item. Um it's just one uh motion uh because there's uh no recommendation before us. So it would just be on uh on the motion here. So um recorded vote on uh W's motion. Um all in favor in favor. So for folks online as well, if you um are in favor of this one, you can just throw your hand up and the clerk will take note as well. So in favor W Kali Ali Queen Kakoy Kendall Ford May Mohamad Makima Deanna Walters Haley Moashi. Thank you. And those opposed to the motion. Those opposed. Deputy Mayor Moley is abstain. Not everyone has voted. Um, sorry. Kathy, are you opposed or in favor? Neither. I'm abstaining. I am also Yeah. Sorry, just for clarification. procedurally. My apologies. Madame clerk, is abstain an option on this? Uh, abstaining is not an option if present in the meeting. Okay. So then I oppose. I oppose. Caris Newton Thompson opposed. Kathy Moscow, how do you vote? Oppose. I think we just have George. I'm not sure if you've been captured. George, are you opposed or unsure? Um, would it be possible to come back to my vote? I think we have everybody. We did not. Yeah, we did not uh capture your vote. Okay. Um, in favor? Thank you. Georgia Mo is in favor. So that motion carries seven to three. Thank you much colleagues. I really appreciate that. Um we are not usually split but I think that that shows a healthy you know discussion and um and debate. So really appreciate um everyone's time and energy on that and that will flow through um to the next step. In terms of the remainder of our agenda, uh we do have two quick items. One is procedural to acknowledge. Um sorry, Caris, I think I see your hand up. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just want to ask for the next meeting that we do have a short break. Yes, thank you so much. I do appreciate that. I didn't um that's my apologies. Uh we will be wrapping up here in the hopefully the next five minutes, Caris, and then we'll make sure that we can better manage the agenda in future. Speaking of the future, um I do want to just acknowledge um this letter from the city clerks on our agenda as you will have seen that informed us about Lucina Rakatovo uh has resigned from our committee as of January 19th. We want to send a heartfelt thank you and appreciation to Lucina for her contributions to the committee, especially as a committee's vice chair. Um it was really wonderful to work with Lucina, have her insights and feedback as part of the process and I know a lot of you members developed great relationships with Lucina as well. Um we wish her all the very best um in her future endeavors uh and want to just again acknowledge her great service to the city um through this committee. So we'll just have a a motion to receive the item. Is someone able to put Can I like to move a motion to accept the item? Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All in favor of receipt of receipt Lucina's um thing that's passes. Thank you very much everyone. And that actually leads us to the next item which is the election of the vice chair. So with Lucina's departure of course we do have a vacancy in the vice chair role. Uh while we will not be filling um Lucina's role as cab as a cabar member we will look within the membership to have a vice chair for our final meeting. uh later few more months. Um in consideration of the responsibilities of the vice chair, I want to suggest that we elect the vice chair at the very beginning of our next meeting and give everybody some time to think and connect with each other about if you'd like to put yourself forward for that. Uh and we'll have a vote uh I'd like to move that we consider it today's meeting. Um I'd like to actually nominate May Muhammad as our vice chair. So I have a motion to defer this one bull and I one minute till I can no longer chair this meeting unfortunately. So um I appreciate May's nomination and I think that's great um for everyone to think about and consider. Uh and we can proceed with that nomination right off the top of the next meeting if that is acceptable to members. There won't be much to do between now and then anyways. Um but I will be moving a deferral on this item um with excitement about May's recommendation. I'll explain why I'll explain why I am moving it. I'm going to be resigning after this meeting, Deputy Mayor Amboli. Uh so I may not be able to participate at the next meeting to cast the ballots. I'd like to nominate Mayor Muhammad at this meeting. Okay. Madame Clerk, can we have a standing nomination and an election in the at the top of the next meeting? Is that procedurally No, we would not be able to. It would uh be a call for nominations at uh at the next meeting if the item was deferred. Okay. Um All right. I defer to uh advice um colleagues, is there anybody Well, I guess I'll just ask, is there anybody else who is considering or who would like to put themselves forward or nominate a fellow member for the vice chair role? I would like to nominate me. Perfect. Is there anybody else who would like to nominate anybody else? Seeing and hearing none, madame clerk, um perhaps I could look to you if there's an opportunity to do an acclaim or you can tell me procedurally if there are no other members wishing to stand and accepts her nomination or vehicle to do a quick vote on May as vice chair. Um, I would just need to do a call for nominations three times. So, um, if you like to proceed. Okay. Members, are there any nominations for vice chair of the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee? Two nominations. Yeah, I'd like to nominate May Muhammad. I would like to nominate May Muhammad. I'd also like to nominate May Muhammad. I would like to vote for May Muhammad. Um, uh, May Mohammed, do you accept the nomination? Oh, yes, I do. Uh, I'm calling for nominations a second time. Are there any further nominations for vice chair? I am calling for nominations a third and final time. Are there any further nominations for vice chair? Uh, as there are no further nominations, the nominations are now closed as May Muhammad is the only nominee. Um, I declare that May Mohammad is the vice chair of the Confronting Anti-black Racism Advisory Committee for a term of office from March 23rd, 2026 to November 14th, 2026. Congratulations. And easy. Congratulations, May. Thank you so much, colleagues. Um, that was actually much easier than I thought it might be and very quick and may very excited to work with you in this capacity and I'm glad. Thank you for getting us to get this done now so we can um tee up in advance of the next meeting as well and connect in directly. Uh colleagues that does conclude our business for today. Thank you all so much for accommodating pushing through lunch. My apologies on that. Um and we will look forward to being together again at our next meeting. Um I just need to I don't need a motion to adjurnn. Um I will let you know this meeting is now adjourned. Thank you all very much. Uh and we'll see you in a few more months. Congratulations again to May. Uh and all the best to you all um as we enter into spring. Take care. Thank you staff, colleagues, and clerks. Thank you. Bye bye.

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