MEET THE CANDIDATES: ELECTION SPECIAL
FROM OCTOBER 2022 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX
Wards
2 - ETOBICOKE CENTRE
3 - ETOBICOKE-LAKESHORE
4 - PARDALE-HIGH PARK
5 - YORK SOUTH-WESTON
9 - DAVENPORT
10 - SPADINA-FORT YORK
11 - UNIVERSITY-ROSEDALE
12 - TORONTO-ST. PAUL’S
There are more than 700,000 people under the age of 25 living in Toronto, many of them struggling to cope with our city’s skyrocketing housing costs, surging inflation and uneven access to services and resources. With the municipal election fast approaching this fall, we canvassed front line workers at Toronto-based youth organizations for their toughest questions — and put them to 59 city council hopefuls from eight West End wards. Here’s what they propose to do to make Toronto a better place to be young
Davenport
- Alejandra Bravo
- Simon Fogel
- Grant Gonzales
- Moséa Houghron
- Shaker Jamal
- Steven Leca
- Jacob Maydansky
- Lazare Shorter
- Allie Spencer
Etobicoke Centre
Etobicoke-Lakeshore
Parkdale-High Park
Spadina-Fort York
- April Engelberg
- Kyle Enslen
- Ausma Malik
- Laura-Maria Nikolareizi
- Arber Puci
- Igor Samardzic
- Andrei Zodian
Toronto-St. Paul’s
University-Rosedale
York-South Weston
Davenport
Alejandra Bravo
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
My priorities are protecting existing affordable housing, enabling the building of a range of housing and ensuring that there is an affordability mandate in major new developments. I will fight for stronger protections to prevent unfair rent increases and ensure more rights for tenants. It is time that landlords be held accountable. To improve living conditions, I will also advocate for a maximum allowable temperature to keep tenants safe as our climate changes and work with tenants’ groups for better protections [for renters]. I support making it easier to build ‘gentle density’ like multiplexes, stacked town[s], laneway housing and garden suites in every neighbourhood, in addition to building more units located along transit nodes This is one way to make our neighbourhoods more vibrant: by welcoming new neighbours through affordable housing options that cut down on sprawl and make our city more sustainable.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Youth mental health is in crisis in Toronto. While the primary responsibility is with provincial ministries, the city must forcefully advocate for overdue investments. At the same time, there are urgent interventions needed, including strengthening the city’s capacity for mental health promotions, especially community support teams. There is inequitable access to support and opportunities for youth that must be urgently addressed. This ranges from youth-focused programs, community arts and recreation. Trained staff, including social workers, must be available to youth in crisis. This vital task must be reassigned to first responders working in community care instead of asking police officers to do work they are not equipped to do.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
As an immigrant child who arrived in Toronto with my parents, I know the challenges and the struggle to settle and pay the bills. More avenues for permanent residency must be made available to migrants and their families, whether they are workers or students. The City of Toronto must uphold the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, removing barriers to vital public services. I support the regularization of undocumented people, especially youth. I have also been an advocate within the public school system and will work with school trustees to advance this agenda. Settlement and integration also require affordable housing, good public transit, cycling infrastructure and decent work, and I will be a champion for these at Toronto City Council.
Simon Fogel
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Housing is expensive because of onerous zoning and development restrictions on housing supply that create artificial scarcity. Private homeowners should be allowed to make rental units like garden suites and additional stories with minimal City government interference. Much of the city ought to be upzoned to allow multiplexes.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
There is a great need to expand mental health services, both at the crisis and pre-crisis level. The police Crisis Intervention Team needs to be made available 24/7 to peacefully de-escalate encounters and sustainable long-term psychotherapy needs to be free and accessible to everyone.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Libraries are a vital tool to help marginalized people improve their circumstances. My aim is to provide the resources necessary for all libraries to have extended and consistent hours and to have staff and computer equipment reliably available to assist with navigating employment and life planning challenges.
Grant Gonzales
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I am a lifelong resident of Davenport who is being priced out of my own community. I currently live with my family – mom and sister – as I continue to weather the storm of this housing crisis.
In order to make housing more affordable, we need to build supply that meets or exceeds demand. The City of Toronto must make it easier to build more housing faster, including supportive, social and affordable housing, purpose-built rentals, modular housing and laneway/garden suites. We must continue to build density especially around transit hubs and promote the construction of “missing middle” developments, like mid-rise buildings and multiplex homes.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
The City of Toronto must continue to play its important role in delivering financial support to community-based mental health agencies. As the former president of a community health centre, I know the value of these agencies to the most vulnerable populations in our communities.
Furthermore, I will advocate strongly to expand modular supportive housing in the city to help people experiencing homelessness transition to housing stability – this must include mental health and addictions services. I will also explore allocating below-market-rate units to community mental health providers to attract and retain their expertise.
Overall, mental health is a provincial responsibility but as councillor, I will lobby the Ontario government to ensure that Toronto receives the support its residents deserve.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
While the City of Toronto is not directly responsible for education and financial assistance, the city can help make life easier and more affordable for students, such as making student transit fares more affordable. I would explore expanding the eligibility requirements for the Fair Pass Transit Discount Program to include individuals receiving support from the Ontario Student Assistance Program.
I will work with City Council to meet our goals as part of the Toronto Newcomer Strategy, especially taking concrete steps to ensure undocumented residents can feel safe in accessing City services, and assured that in accessing these services, they will not be reported to immigration authorities.
Moséa Houghron
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Well, that is a very interesting question. Is it a city councillor’s job to make rents affordable? I don’t believe that is possible unless the City Council owns all of the city’s properties….What a Toronto city councillor can do is educate and advocate on constituents’ behalf, to property owners, on a larger scale or general community platform, for the importance of sustainable pricing in property rentals in order to build a thriving and sustainable community.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
The question is what are the factors that have contributed to the deterioration of mental health among young people, thus resulting in longer wait times and needs of assessment? Another question would be: do families want City Council interference? Early detection/prevention is the key to addressing mental health issues, but that would take open and honest dialogue for all participants involved. In order for mental health issues to be resolved, they need to be acknowledged, and every individual is different. Measures that City Council can take would be to partner with school trustees and their districts along with parents and guardians to establish measuring tools that indicate where/how mental health issues can arise. Then to implement a preventable plan to deter negative outcomes. The City Council could hire more practitioners in mental health to meet the surging need. That would mean increasing taxes to higher. Which would lead to constituents having to work harder, away from their families, which can lead to additional mental health stresses to cover mental health access.
As an only child, Canadian-born and raised in this city to a single entrepreneur mom, life wasn’t easy. Many aspects of nurturing were missed. I moved out of our 4-bedroom 3-bath home into a rooming house, collecting government assistance, to become a single mother myself in my early twenties. Yet, I was able to raise a son that would acquire an academic/athletic scholarship to one of the great Canadian universities and graduate with two degrees, and get drafted to the CFL. That was only accomplished by acknowledging how situations and circumstances were done was not necessarily the best way, and reaching out and accepting a better way.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
There is no easy in life. Torontonians like other Canadians at times have a hard time accessing services that they feel entitled to. At all times one must be willing to earn that which they want to accomplish. Canada has always been a country that has welcomed people from abroad. The key is for newcomers to understand Canada was built from newcomers contributing as opposed to looking to make withdrawals. Young people also need to be in a position where they are looking to contribute. With that said, as a City Councillor I would look to forge relationships with industries providing internships, that allow young people an opportunity to experience the workplace while finding a profession where they can obtain a degree or diploma to acquire the skills needed to achieve. Yes, times have changed. Is Toronto the perceived compassionate city it used to be? Not really. Our necessity for more than we need does make it hard for others. But anything is possible with desire.
Shaker Jamal
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I want the City of Toronto to issue $1 billion in housing (only) bonds. We issue green bonds for the environment. Let’s do it for housing as well. 40% of the revenue from the bonds I’m proposing will be used to build co-ops. The remaining 60% will be a mix of purpose-built rentals and homes for sale at 70% of the average purchase price, available only to those with incomes less than $85,000 (the median income in Toronto).
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I want to formalize the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS) pilot project. The TCCS is a non-police response with multidisciplinary teams of trained crisis workers who will respond to non-emergency calls from people experiencing a mental health crisis and requests for wellbeing checks. Since its launch in March 2022, it has shown great success. I will work hard to have the TCCS mandate formalized and for its budget to be increased, so that it can be expanded to serve and support all residents across Toronto.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
As a young parent, I know first-hand how hard it is to access city services like child care. The federal and provincial governments have reached a funding deal to roll-out $10/day child care. The city has a role to play by creating city-run daycare spots that can offer the $10/day childcare that everyone (including newcomers) need access to. So, I want to increase funding towards the creation of more child-care spots. Furthermore, in addition to creating the child-care spots, I want to pay the staff working at these child-care facilities a living wage. These workers are taking care of our future and need to be paid a decent, living wage.
Steven Leca
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to this matter, but the first thing I would do is cut the red tape at city hall, which is delaying much-needed housing. In Davenport, there has been great strives to get new rental buildings up like The Campbell, but more needs to be done to get affordable housing created, so I propose to team up with builders and non-profits builders to create more affordable apartment buildings targeting the young working class and families who need affordable housing.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
My son is currently studying to become a social services worker, so he has helped me to gain more insight into this matter. One area that I could see that can help to cut down the wait times would be to invest in more digital tools and online counselling. Today’s youth is online, and we need to meet them there so they can gain faster access to the help they need.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I believe the best way is to create a specific citywide website targeting the youth and undocumented newcomers. There are currently great non-profit organizations and other service providers fighting this good fight along with the city, but it’s just difficult to access a central base database that can serve this purpose. You have to go through different websites to find the correct information you are looking for. Creating a City of Toronto website, which gathers all the details of service providers and city programs will help alleviate some of the stress faced by today’s youth and undocumented newcomers when looking for services.
Jacob Maydansky
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
This starts with a citywide initiative. We need to open up zoning so that the whole city becomes available for multi-unit residential zoning. Right now, as it stands, certain neighborhoods and areas are only open to high density zoning. That needs to change. As well, we need to lower user fees (building licensing and zoning approval fees) so that smaller builders and construction companies can put more plans up to build housing. Right now the city stands between a fork in the road, either becoming more socialized and building more public housing or making it easier for all builders to build. Our city is currently in the hands of homeowners who don’t want construction and developers who like the high cost of building because only rich monopolies can play in that space. We need more public housing and more multi-density zoning in all our neighborhoods. We need to view housing as a human right and a need and not an investment tool because that only fuels speculation and creates bubbles like the one we currently have.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
While I don’t disagree with this statement, I would like to put forth a different approach. I think people in this city are just poor and overworked. I think being poor and overworked and not having hope lead to a lack of mental health. I think high rent, high food cost and low wages have a larger impact on mental health than even mental health care providers would like to admit. If I was able to, at the stroke of a pen, I would hire more nurses and hospital staff and pay them more to help out. But, as it stands, healthcare is a provincial issue which I do not have heavy bearing in. But what I can do is try and make the city more efficient, make it easier for you to go to work and stimulate cultural and community spending to try and target the soul even if the mind is under heavy duress. I am part of the youth and I’ve suffered under the anguish of poor mental health myself. If you have more money in your pocket for recreation and enjoyment, that might make you happier and stimulate the economy more than any clinic ever could. Now this approach doesn’t fit the mold for all cases and serious issues should be approached with more intensive funding and programs, all of which I agree with.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
In my opinion, the city does an okay job at this already. I would like to hear from others who have been having issues. But to my knowledge free educational classes and work placement programs have been in abundance before COVID-19 and aid does not seem that hard to come by. I will plead ignorance on this one.
Lazare Shorter
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
The choices that youth are given for individual responsibility for housing without the support of family is one of the major failures of all levels of government. I want the city to do more to make safe shelter spaces available for those under 18 facing these difficult decisions.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I am challenged to give a better response in general to questions of youth mental health without a medical background. But the City of Toronto can do more to make these resources available.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Those who are both young and undocumented face the most difficult challenges. I want to do everything possible to protect this vulnerable group in our population from deportation, imprisonment or imposed return to their parents’ home countries. I will do what is possible both within the city’s jurisdiction and also try to engage with representatives at other levels of government on behalf of youth who have been left to lift the burdens of their parents’ choices.
Allie Spencer
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Making rent and housing more affordable for young people is a major priority, as we continue to welcome young people to Toronto’s universities and colleges and into the workplace, and as people seek to establish their families here.
One area I would like to see explored more and would support is co-operative housing initiatives where residents contribute to their house, building, or neighbourhood, making the costs of living in a co-op lower and more collaborative and community-based. Not only is this a more affordable option for housing, but it also has built-in connections with others, which is a particular passion of mine: I desire to see people building meaningful relationships with their neighbours in order to improve their quality of life and living in Toronto. There are ways we can encourage human connection through thoughtful and strategic city planning and I believe co-operative housing is one way to do this.
To encourage younger people getting into the housing market, I would challenge city council to lower the Toronto Land Transfer Tax for homebuyers under age 40 to help reduce costs that come with buying a home in the city.
I would also support advocating to the Ontario government to alter or reverse the 2018 decision to remove rent control on buildings built thereafter. As life has become more expensive, knowing that one’s rent will not be increased significantly each year provides residents a sense of security they deserve in their living situation.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I would support more accessible health services and reduce waitlists of community mental health care by working with local schools, social services, non-profits and charities to champion the work they are seeking to provide to young people in their and the wider community.
In my experience, oftentimes organizations working with young people are bogged down with administrative demands that take away from the necessary work they do. I want to help remove red tape from good organizations and groups so they can serve people better.
My background is in youth mentorship and children’s programming and I have led successful, enriching programs for young people in Ontario and Manitoba, and in other nations. It is so important to have mental health care, but I see a big gap in youth-focused community activities that could help address mental health needs before a young person is in crisis. I believe through implementing and prioritizing 1) great public spaces where young people are welcome and encouraged to be, like well-lit basketball courts, or 2) more initiatives to connect youth with mentorship and volunteer opportunities, as well as 3) more youth-centered regular events at community centres and libraries, we could address some of the circumstances that lead young people to need higher-level mental health care.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I believe one of the most underrated services in Toronto are the 100 public libraries. When people know about the libraries, they tend to really appreciate them, and for good reason. Since these spaces already exist across the city, I would champion the use of libraries to offer education and financial assistance for newcomers. We could do this by supporting knowledgeable people in the community who want to give their time to help newcomers gain an understanding of the city and the necessary information they need to thrive. A key component of this will be communication through neighbourhood associations, BIAs and other message boards and forums.
Etobicoke Centre
Thomas Yanuziello
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I’ll start by giving my full support to the recommendations published by More Neighbours TO: legalize housing for all, make rules that make sense, build affordable at every opportunity, ensure consultations reflect communities and tax equitably and sustainably.
While I’m grateful for all the hard work that went into this plan, it’s a shame that a group of volunteers and advocates had to come up with it. The City of Toronto should have a dedicated task force whose sole responsibility is ensuring that rent and housing remain affordable for residents by researching strategies and offering recommendations to council to make it happen. I would also support rent and vacancy controls to stop landlords from raising rent and bad faith evictions.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
People despair because governments are not taking the necessary action to secure their future. The mental health crisis is a symptom of the climate and housing crises causing critical amounts of stress in our youth. By electing progressive candidates we will be able to take appropriate action and put more minds at ease. However, that’s a long-term solution and we are facing an urgent mental health crisis. To provide immediate support, we need to have an emergency 3-digit number for mental health concerns to speak with trained professionals who can connect people with the services they need. I would also pressure the province to include mental health coverage under OHIP so treatment can be available to anyone regardless of their income level.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Thankfully, Toronto has many organizations performing community outreach; they know where the cracks are in our system and who is falling through them. I will work with these existing community organizations to provide streamlined access channels to these services and give them any support they require to identify and help those in need. In order for these services to be effective, they need to be made accessible in any language and through a variety of channels too. We can also launch an awareness campaign in multiple languages and different forms of media to reach anyone our community outreach organizations are unaware of.
Etobicoke-Lakeshore
Bonnie Hu
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
As a young person in my 20s, I have been paying rent in this city for years and have seen my rental payments grow over time. I am a survivor of hidden homelessness and have lost my housing on short notice due to what I perceived to be a threat to my safety and was lucky enough to have a friend who was willing to lend me his couch for 6 weeks.
I propose that the city expedite the building of housing units and specifically dedicate housing for low income earners. As a younger millennial I am very familiar with the unlucky economic hand we have been dealt that has stunted our earning ability. Housing is a right for local residents and should not be a commodity to be sold to whomever in the world is willing to pay the most for it in a perversely incentivized system that drives up prices and mainly benefits developers, real estate agents and property tax collectors.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I have used Ontario’s health care system for much-needed mental health care since 2011 when I was a teenager. It took years and several hospitalizations before I was able to reach a place where I felt that my needs were met. It is a life or death issue. I propose that the city train more counsellors who can be employed to handle the high demand in mental health care among youth. Counsellors should also come from backgrounds that reflect the cultural diversity of this city. In my personal experience much of the so-called care I received in the early years was simply the dispensing of psychiatric medication, which often had counterproductive effects for me. The real focus should have been accessibility to trauma-informed, culturally relatable talk therapists.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I arrived in the Greater Toronto Area on my own as a teenager and understand firsthand the vulnerability of young newcomers to the city. And even as a Canadian citizen who is a person of colour, I have been treated poorly based on my ethnicity, especially as someone of Chinese descent during the COVID-19 pandemic. My racialized background had also made it harder for me to find employment when I was younger, which I wish I had known instead of being told the myth that “discrimination is illegal and thus does not exist” in Canada. Newcomers should be educated on these pitfalls.
As someone who originally arrived in Ontario to attend post-secondary school, I have found that the education industry in this province has been at times exploitative. More focus should have gone to advising as to which programs were the right fit for students and to provide realistic statistics on employment prospects instead of deceiving young, naïve people through aggressive marketing. Newcomers who seek education should be given advice that benefits them instead of the school’s pockets.
I am proud that Toronto is a sanctuary city where undocumented newcomers are at least safe on paper. Newcomers to the city deserve access to city services regardless of their status. One area that can possibly be improved on is translation services.
Amber Morley
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
The city’s Expanding Housing Options Report from 2020 acknowledges the link between zoning and more housing options and includes a number of relevant issues that we need to tackle. These include density (especially on major streets and near transit), parking minimums, development charges and housing types permitted as-of-right. The as-of-right piece is front and centre because it could allow more gentle density like duplex, triplexes and multiplexes within the building envelope of single-family homes. Instead of having monster homes continue to pop up, we could instead have a triplex of the same size, for example. Smaller changes like laneway suites, garden suites and coach houses are on the way but we need to make these options accessible, affordable and easy to build. Working towards a larger mix of housing and rental options will support Toronto’s youth with affordability and access.
We should also be dedicating city-owned land for affordable housing development and work with other levels of government to leverage provincial and federal lands.
It’s important to note this isn’t about overwhelming neighbourhoods with more residents than the infrastructure can handle. It’s also not about erasing the history of neighbourhoods. The reality is that many parts of this city actually have a declining population and the growth strategy within the Ontario Official Plan limits where new development can go. This hurts communities who are losing people, especially young people, results in underused infrastructure like transit and schools, and hurts businesses who need strong, populated communities to continue to thrive.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Municipal services require additional funding to expand. The city has a mental health strategy but we are in need of provincial funding to expand and improve access to these services. Council’s main option is to petition the province for more funding and support. This includes Toronto Public Health’s Community Support Team and 211, which was launched in 2020, connecting residents to one of seven primary mental health service partners for direct phone support.
There may be an important opportunity ahead as the federal government and provincial governments renegotiate the Canada Health Transfer. Mental health will be at the heart of those discussions and we need to make clear as a city, and through the province, that federal money is needed.
The city can focus on upstream mental wellness measures that build individual and community resilience, such as recreation infrastructure and community centres, expanded childcare, commitment to parks and green space, providing access to city-owned buildings to non-profits to offer programming, etc. The city has a unique opportunity to be inclusive and could also explore delivering mental wellness programming through Toronto Public Health.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
There is clearly a need for more collaboration between the City of Toronto and the Toronto District School Board. The TDSB makes decisions about which schools educate which students. For undocumented newcomers, the TDSB has the jurisdiction to determine who to admit into schools. I am committed to working with school trustees to discuss ways to improve access to these students.
However, there is a more general problem. New developments in the ward are often seen with signs outside in which the school board tells parents that their children will not be able to access the local school due to a lack of pupil spaces. Parents are then forced to bus or drive their children to a school that is sometimes kilometres away. I am a strong believer that all children should have unrestricted access to education. Kids are kids, and they should be able to receive an education. Therefore, the answer is a planning one – both the city and TDSB need to communicate better to ensure our public school facilities and offerings are responsive to our fast-growing communities. In my role as councillor, I see myself supporting and advocating for access to schools in Etobicoke-Lakeshore to make sure space is not an issue for all the youth in our ward, including young and undocumented newcomers.
Marco Valle
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I want to expand the Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition program to create more permanently- affordable housing, increasing supply through incentivizing homeowners to create more rentals (not developers, gentle densification).
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I believe we need more mental health resources in general. One of my biggest gripes is that we have crisis lines and help lines but very little in the way of ongoing resources. Additionally, the few ongoing resources that exist are usually dedicated to a specific segment of the population (income, age, race, gender, identity, etc.) or are out of the ward which limits people’s ability to make use of these.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I will support the creation of more workshops and information sessions. Generally, the undocumented and youth are unsure of where to get assistance, which compounds their issue of not having documentation. With the knowledge of what programs are offered where, they would be able to seek information in a safe, confidential and informative manner. Once armed with this knowledge, they will be more prepared to navigate the world and resources around them.
Parkdale-High Park
Siri Agrell
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
This is a huge priority. Cities and neighbourhoods only thrive when people can afford to live there, and we’ve already seen too many young people pushed out of Toronto or into poverty because of the cost of housing. I honestly don’t know how people are doing it as so many of the young people I know are making the same salaries I did when I graduated university, but paying more than three times as much in rent. When it comes to solving this problem, it needs to be a bunch of things all at once. We need to protect tenants and improve building standards. We need to incentivize people to provide rental options and create new ones. We have to prioritize and speed up the construction of new building types that aren’t just expensive condos, but that provide affordable places to live at all ages, family sizes and income levels. We need to encourage all employers to raise their wages, so that people’s incomes reflect the current cost of living. And most of all, we have to understand this as a priority for our city. Toronto should be a place where people can build their lives, where young people can live and work and enjoy themselves and feel valued. Every city councillor, every employer and every resident needs to understand that and help us make sure it’s possible. And I will be a loud advocate for young people and for new solutions that make sure this city is built for them too.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I think we’ve all been living through that surge over the past few years. I saw first-hand the impact the pandemic had on young people and the mental health realities that so many families were facing. We are living through overlapping crises of public health, mental health, affordability, polarization - all while the city is also facing a reckoning on its own finances. One thing I will do is be a major advocate to other levels of government to make it clear this is their responsibility too. Cities are on the front lines of these issues, and are absorbing almost all of the cost, but we can’t do it alone. We need federal and provincial governments to dramatically increase funding and resources for mental health supports in Toronto. We need governments to understand that supporting people’s mental health is the best thing we can do to help people succeed and to avoid even bigger problems in the future. When I worked for the mayor in 2017, we saw a drastic influx of Nigerian refugees entering the city’s shelter system. Through intergovernmental advocacy, Toronto made it clear that we could help, but not without direct funding that would make it possible. With that support, we successfully found housing for thousands of families in and around the GTA. Cities are the best at implementing, we are the closest to people’s lives, but we need more money to make sure we can address this growing crisis of mental health in the young. We need to make it clear that lives depend on it.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
One of the things I love about cities is that we take care of residents, regardless of citizenship. As a Sanctuary City, all residents have full rights to access City services without fear, regardless of their immigration status as part of a policy called Access T.O. We need to make sure people know this, and direct more attention and resources to removing the huge barriers that still remain. I will work to make sure undocumented residents have access to housing, and are protected from rental and workplace discrimination. I will work to expand library hours as the Toronto Public Library has become a beacon for accessible services for so many disadvantaged groups. I will work with my local School Board Trustee, Toronto Employment and Social Services and other agencies and non-profits dedicated to these issues to make sure we understand the issues undocumented Torontonians are facing and how to help.
Andrew Gorham
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Housing for everyone and every family earning at or below the poverty line is mandatory. A developer does not get a permit to proceed unless they prove that 100 percent of the development meets the criteria that every person earning at or below the poverty line is provided options for safe, comfortable affordable housing options.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Hire 50 percent more nurses at a competitive wage that meets or exceeds inflation rate. Give a one-time $1,000 signing bonus for every youth social worker accepting a one-year contract.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Education is free. Full stop. You are here, you are enrolled in school. Expropriate unused buildings for use as access centers and promote widely. Have welcoming groups at all major transit nodes such as YYZ, UPX and main subway stations.
Christopher Jurik
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I believe the youth of today are vital to the future of tomorrow. Many I’m sure will find it more difficult to navigate themselves through living in a city such as Toronto than their parents did. I’ve heard stories about cities such as San Francisco where multiple young people, up to four or five, are having to share one-bedroom apartments just to make ends meet. My biggest fear is that we may be heading that way.
As part of my campaign I’m asking that we think more about geared-to-income housing as opposed to affordable and non-profit housing. Under this proposal the young people of today would be able to find affordable accommodations within the GTA. However, this has to come with the understanding that housing such as I am proposing may not be in the downtown core where everybody would like to settle.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
With regards to mental health, this is an issue not only for our young people but for a lot of older adults, even more so now as we are coming out of COVID-19. The pressures facing our youth today may be different from most older adults, but it’s pressure none the less. Unfortunately help will only happen with proper funding from our provincial government who at the moment seem to be at war with the healthcare providers. It may be possible to make partnerships with the federal government and bypass the province altogether so the money is guaranteed to reach the municipality instead of Queen’s Park. Cutting out the middle man so to speak. With this new funding model along with existing funding we could hire more staff and cut down on wait times by allocating funds into less traditional spaces where young people would feel more comfortable, like free drop-in centres instead of hospitals.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Education is the backbone of our society and it is something that should be available to everyone. This should also apply to young people who are undocumented. Again, we need to turn to our federal partners for help since it’s usually Ottawa that opens the doors to welcome people to this country. Everybody is welcome as far as I’m concerned but the Feds need to take up the financial burden they are placing on the municipalities. The first thing that has to happen is to provide money for food, shelter and clothing. After that, if English is not their first language then they must be enrolled in ESL classes to make the transition into the school system seamless. Once that occurs, we can provide funding for education based on an individuals’ financial needs. For young people who are naturalized Canadians, financial assistance is already available to them through the province.
As a city councillor I would be more than willing to sit down with our federal and provincial counterparts to spearhead programs that would work towards addressing these issues but unfortunately right now it would seem that we don’t have a government at Queen’s Park that really sees any value in education and healthcare workers. This is why we probably need to move past the province with our requests and head straight to Ottawa.
I would also go on to say that if we want to make changes at the city level that require cooperation from our other levels of government, then youth must have a voice. And because we live in a democratic society you can be heard by placing an X on a piece of paper come election day.
Chemi Lhamo
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Tkaronto is one of the richest cities in the world yet we have over 1500 youth that are experiencing houselessness. In order to tackle the housing crisis, we must first stop the criminalization of houselessness by recognizing that housing is a human right. I will work to increase the deeply affordable housing stock by investing in non-market housing models, increase the RGI housing subsidies and increase the funding for the Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition Program. These investments can be in partnership with community organizations that prioritize youth housing because youth experiencing houselessness are more at risk for exploitation, traumatic occurrences and declining health and addictions. Additionally, the housing solutions must also include after-care programs that include skill building and mental health support. With a review of all publicly owned land, such as Green P sites, we can relocate parking underground and build more affordable housing.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
While the need for mental health care increases, waitlists are [growing] so much that it leads to temporarily closed lists. This is shameful. It’s crucial that we demand the provincial government to increase funding in mental health services and take the responsibility to fund the city-run community health centers that provide free mental health services to youth. Through the city, I’d also like to explore and fund peer support programs and other creative initiatives to increase support. In addition to continuity of care, the promotion and prevention efforts are key. I will work with the school board trustees to support early intervention for children and youth while in school because the right care at the right time can save lives. We must work together to tackle the stigma of seeking support and making the information to find help accessible.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Firstly, showing up and listening to the non-status people and our youth. The Choose Chemi team and I spent last Sunday between canvass shifts at the migrants rally calling for #statusforall. I grew up in a household with only ODSP income and as a newcomer (specifically “stateless refugee”) in this country, it was a battle to even get into regular classes. Politics is personal. Given that provincial and federal jurisdictions have eligibility requirements for services like health care and social assistance, the city can leverage Sanctuary City to promote equity. Toronto Public Health must implement Access T.O. and improve its services i.e., access to vaccines and dental care. As signatories of the Canada-Ontario-Toronto Memorandum of Understanding, allocate and push the other levels of government to stabilize long term funding for Toronto’s Newcomer Office. Technically, no persons under 18 in Ontario can be denied public schooling, including undocumented folks. Now the challenge is for youth above 18. With the sanctuary city movement, there are partnerships and funding opportunities that can and must be explored. I’m a facilitator. As the councillor, I’ll ensure to bring roundtables with community service providers, leaders and organizers to identify the key challenges faced and work to build solutions together.
Gord Perks
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
First, the city must legalize multi-tenant housing across our city, and support a variety of housing options in our existing neighbourhoods. The city must create new tools to build affordable housing, encouraging “missing-middle” housing and legalising rooming houses across the city. All of this should be guided by improved consultation processes that are responsive to the community.
Second, the city cannot and should not solely depend on private landlords to create the affordable housing we need. Through investing in public housing, such as our projects like the Parkdale Hub and 11 Brock, we are able to create affordable units that can be targeted towards communities and demographics in need. In some European cities, fully half the population live in some form of very high-quality social housing. In Canada we tend to treat co-ops and public housing as a last resort. I am working and will continue to work to make socially-owned housing the housing of choice.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
While the city partners with health agencies, including those focused on mental health, it is unfortunately the provincial government that handles mental health services. Doug Ford’s Conservatives have drastically underfunded the support needed. Council must advocate for proper support from the province to allow our city to tackle these challenges.
One of the most pivotal actions the city can unilaterally take is to ensure we stop criminalizing those with mental health challenges, especially those in disadvantaged situations, and members of BIPOC and/or 2SLGBTQA+ communities. In Parkdale-High Park we have created one of the four Crisis Response Pilots taking place in our city, allowing medically trained crisis intervention assistance staff, not police officers, to answer distress calls. I will continue to support and push these test pilots forward, and ensure they are properly funded and supported to see the best results for our communities. We have also led the way in the creation and implementation of the Toronto overdose action plan, saving lives for those living with substance addictions and mental health issues.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
City Council has adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in regards to citizenship and documentation. This policy must be aggressively enforced, and supported by all levels of government. The city must also invest in the public services that open doors for people such as recreation programs and facilities and library services. The city must continue to advocate for the province to support a variety of job creation programs for racialized workers to get started in their industries and trades.
Steve Yuen
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Affordable housing should be available for everyone who needs shelter but is unable to meet the high rent and housing costs. Housing should be focused on the less fortunate with immediate needs. This could include young people, seniors or new immigrant families. Having safety nets in place to facilitate these needs is equally important. Rent controls, co-op living, shared shelters are avenues to explore and consider.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Our provincial and federal health care/CAMH support in Toronto and Canada is one of the best in the world! Healthy competition in both the public and private sectors offering choices for effective treatment with minimal expense and time will help expedite best practices and lower costs for the seamless treatment of our citizens.
Health services for youth could be expedited:
with the continued support of youth shelters such a Covenant House, Daily Food Bank
by utilizing school guidance/counsellors and expanded kids help lines
by leveraging our federal health care system as well as our Social City programs (e.g., Children’s Services)
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Direct immigrant parents and guardians of these youths to Toronto City Social Programs
Educate Cultural Community Centers on the process
Utilize the Toronto Public Library’s untapped resources to help the integration process of newcomers into our city as points of contact with bricks and mortar and key personnel
Encourage efficient, seamless integration into our neighbourhoods and the GTA
We need a positive plan for our future. It is time to bring in new ideas. Only change will make it happen.
Spadina-Fort York
April Engelberg
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I support protections for tenants to ensure that rent can only increase in accordance with inflation, regardless of when the unit was built. I have experienced having to move in this ward because my rent was increased by $500 (!!) and will advocate to put a stop to these economic evictions.
I will also collaborate with the City and developers to make sure that all new development includes affordable units with rent geared to income.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I will collaborate with Toronto Public Health to improve free mental health services around the city.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I want readers to be aware of a promising new pilot project called Toronto Rent Bank – City of Toronto, which provides grant assistance to low-income households who are facing eviction due to short-term financial difficulties. The services are available in several languages. I will support this program and others to assist young people around the city.
Kyle Enslen
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
This is a major part of my platform and one of the key reasons I am running. Along with rezoning and building more houses, there need to be policy changes which help the average middle class citizen in Toronto. Initiatives which I will be strongly advocating for are as follows:
Introduce a rent registry, ensure that every unit which is up for rental is tracked and mandated in a database.
Remove short term rentals, as it is in direct competition for people looking for rental housing.
Greatly increase vacancy property taxes on empty homes, and broaden the tax to all properties which are vacant for any period of time.
Create more incentives to rooming houses, and allow rooming houses in more neighbourhoods.
A key reason why rentals/housing is so expensive in the city is because it is a great investment opportunity, and technology has made it incredibly easy for anyone to take advantage. Every person who is trying to rent or buy a house is competing with everyone who wants to be a landlord or operate a short-term rental. Average people do not have the equity to compete with landlords, so we end up paying their mortgage through our rent.
I will be working incredibly hard to ensure that owning homes as an investment is much tougher than it is today, and that the homes belong to those who live within the community.
You can visit my website www.vote4enslen.ca/hard-on-housing to see more on what I‘ve written about this subject.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Everyone in the community needs better access to mental health care, and we need to focus our efforts on those who need it the most.
We need modern rehab facilities within the city to support those who are struggling the most. Drug addicts, those living in tents, are suffering daily with little support. For the average citizen, there are limited resources when it comes to mental health, and waitlists can be as much as six months long before you get in contact with a professional. I would propose a tiered system, where everyone who is on a waitlist would have access to a therapist until they can get time with the professional they need.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Everything should be able to be easily accessed and registered online. It is 2022, and the city of Toronto has some ancient technology backing their most fundamental services. I would advocate for an efficiency audit of the city’s practices when it comes to providing these services.
We need to remove unnecessary redundancies from city systems, and make everything as easy and straightforward as possible for members of this city, and those trying to be members of this city.
Ausma Malik
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
There is a housing crisis in our city. Housing affordability is the biggest issue affecting our neighbours, and it’s disproportionately affecting young people and renters. I hear about these challenges with housing every day when knocking on doors in our community. We’ve all heard the stories: young people are paying a huge portion of their monthly income on rent, sometimes needing to pick up an extra job on weekends. They may be sharing an apartment with multiple roommates to cut down on costs. Or if they’re able to do so, they’re living at home for longer and longer because they simply can’t afford to move out. None of this is fair, and none of these challenges have been sufficiently addressed by city council.
I believe that housing is a human right. Housing in Toronto has for too long been treated as a tool to build wealth for big developers and the wealthy. The time for this is over. What’s needed at city council is a major shift in the balance of power and the political will to get the job done.
I am a real voice for renters. I will fight to expand rental supplements and the rent bank to prevent evictions and keep people in their homes. We need to strengthen the RentSafeTO program to protect tenants and ensure apartment maintenance standards are met.
Council needs strong advocates focused on the enforcement of Toronto’s short-term rental regulations, with the goal of returning the city’s ghost hotel inventory to the housing market. We also need to increase the city’s vacant homes tax to discourage housing speculation. I plan to continue to advocate for real rent control to the provincial government so renters have the protections they deserve.
Our city must make the best possible use of our public lands for deeply affordable rental and non-profit housing. This means identifying more opportunities for city purchases of land to build new affordable housing, as well as maintaining our current stock. Large repair backlogs at Toronto Community Housing (TCHC) are putting our neighbours at risk and need to be cleared as soon as possible.
To address the climate emergency and the huge percentage of citywide emissions that come from buildings, I will advocate for retrofits and renovations that make housing more sustainable and climate-friendly. New construction projects must be net-zero if we hope to reach our climate goals.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Young people in our city are struggling. They’re dealing with high costs of living. They’re juggling work, school and other responsibilities. They may be anxious about the effects of climate change and the implications of our changing world on their futures. They may be dealing with trauma and need support. In a city like ours, we all deserve to receive the care that we need. Mental health is just as important as physical health. Unfortunately, our lack of publicly funded mental health services is a huge gap in our prized healthcare system. Filling this gap is a change that must be made at other orders of government to strengthen our healthcare system. I will continue to provide support and advocacy to my provincial and federal counterparts in this area.
We know that, currently, timely counselling services and mental healthcare are reserved for the people who can afford to pay. This is unjust. For people who can’t pay to play, and for students in university, often wait times are far too long due to high demand.
Ensuring everyone has access to mental health services in their community is critical. I commit to being a voice for increased funding for public community services. We need to hire many more mental health care providers and cut down on wait times for all, specifically starting with and prioritizing areas that may be disproportionately affected by poverty. It’s also important to meet people where they are by providing low-barrier services in accessible locations where young people actually gather. We should also provide additional support for providers to continue offering flexible options for therapy, including remote opportunities.
Mental health care providers should be paid and treated fairly, and young people should feel confident that regardless of their income, they will receive the quality care that they need.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
It is critical that we support young and undocumented residents as they are welcomed and integrated into our city. Many of these newcomers may be fleeing violence or oppression from other parts of the world and need stability.
We should continue to provide robust support to settlement and community service agencies which help orient newcomers and connect with them in their native language. The city should continue to expand its multilingual outreach and focus on streamlining and simplifying the process of connecting new residents with the services they need to thrive; this includes providing sufficient financial support and education.
We should also consider making greater use of social strategies in order to increase engagement and mitigate social isolation. Most recently, Vaccine Engagement Teams at the city mobilized trained community members to be key points of contact in the neighbourhoods where they lived and worked. They provided access to resources, reflected the diversity in culture, race and language of Toronto’s equity-deserving groups, and facilitated targeted outreach to individuals and communities. I would support adapting this strategy to help integrate newcomers to our diverse communities.
I would also be an advocate to other orders of government to cut red tape for new residents and allow them to continue working in their fields free from unnecessary and burdensome credential requirements. We need to welcome our international neighbours by ensuring people are able to contribute their gifts and use their skills and education in their new homes.
Undocumented residents should be able to access resources and supports without fear or judgment. I will work to remove barriers to access for these groups, such as onerous identification requirements. In my job as Director of Advocacy and Organizing at the Atkinson Foundation, I have long been an advocate for equity and good jobs for all. I will continue to work in collaboration with community organizations representing vulnerable workers to be a voice for international workers at the city. As the first hijab-wearing Muslim woman elected to public office in Canada, I am dedicated to staring down hate and will continue to work to achieve racial and economic justice in our city.
Laura-Maria Nikolareizi
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
One of the priorities for me if elected to Toronto City Council for Ward 10 would be to address affordable housing and affordable homeownership for all residents. We need to review what parts of the city are in desperate need of affordable housing and homeownership to start taking aggressive steps to make it accessible and equitable for all. We need to work and be inclusive with our city and not-for-profit agencies, our youth, developers and additional private sector support to take real action. Everyone needs to sit at the table and not talk but all of us have shovels in the ground. No more words. We need action that creates impact. If we start to review urban planning properly in collaboration with other organizations, we can quickly move forward to develop multipurpose compact housing and support all residents to live, work, play, move and prosper.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I am speaking as mother and community influencer who is around young children every day and it is important for us to make sure that no youth or child feels abandoned, left behind or let down. If elected as Toronto city councillor for Ward 10, I would make mental health and wellness a priority for our city. We must offset potential risk and keep young people engaged and included on their road to well-being. We need to execute a range of concurrent strategies to ensure young people are supported while waiting for services, such as:
phone check-ins
group programs (mindfulness, social recovery, trans-diagnostic therapeutic groups) peer support activities
brief intervention therapy modules to engage young people between their intake and first sessions
walk-in and drop-in sessions
provision of self-help information and resources.
Other strategies to help reduce the wait times include:
monitoring cancellations to maximize attendance from wait lists
referrals to alternative services
arranging student placements to increase staffing capacity quickly filling workforce vacancies
virtual online therapy sessions in a group or individual basis
live chat check-ins
same-day drop-in centre group therapy
hiring of more psychotherapists to work in agencies, schools, community centres and higher institutions
I have identified several key actions that would make a difference and help meet the growing demand to support mental wellness centres for our youth in the city across the board for everyone which should always be equitable, inclusive and accessible.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
First off, we need to be engaged, present, inclusive and equitable. Those are the pillars I follow as a person, as a community influencer, as a daughter of immigrant parents from Cuba and Greece, as a mother and, if elected, your Toronto city councillor for Ward 10 Spadina-Fort York. We need to implement policies and practices to support the resilience of students and newcomers who have migrated to Toronto and support settlement achievement. We cannot succeed in settlement achievement without strengthening our partnerships with cultural, spiritual, community and city agencies, school boards and the Ministers of Education, Health, Immigration both provincially and federally. It takes a committed village to ensure that we invest in our future who are already contributing to the growth of our community in Ward 10 and our city overall. The City of Toronto must be a model to the rest of Canada to influence how we support and pave the road for individuals who choose our city as their home. I will work hard, be dedicated to provide information for students, individuals and families to not overcome financial and/or logistical barriers to access any type of support when it comes to any government service.
Arber Puci
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Skyrocketing rents and house prices are especially hard on young people, for them housing affordability is a big issue and it should be. At the moment, the province has the Reduce Poverty Plan and the federal government will make $2 billion available to support housing affordability. Toronto is impacted the most with housing affordability. We as a city need to fight to get as much money from the province and the federal government invested in the city to make housing more affordable for young people.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
We all know that our heath care infrastructure at the moment is overloaded and lacking the necessary backing from all levels of governments. The strategies I would like to see implemented are: 1) policies that allow mental health care to be located in primary medical care and in schools can help improve access, 2) partnerships between primary medical care practices and mental health care specialists can make mental health services more accessible for some families and 3) increase the capacity of healthcare providers and educators to support the health, mental health and education of youth.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
First, I think we need to make young people and/or undocumented newcomers feel like they are part of the community. City services are often built with small children and adults in mind. Young people are our cities’ future community builders, business owners, public servants and families. By engaging young people, we send the message that they are a part of our community too. We need to relook and rethink the city services to include young people and/or undocumented newcomers. Only then, young people can get the best out of the city services.
Igor Samardzic
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
As a young person myself, I relate to this question on a deep level. I myself have a roommate and rent in the city and many of my friends have moved out of the city to afford rent. We need to increase housing across the housing spectrum, with a focus on affordable, deeply affordable (RGI and Toronto Community Housing) supportive and purpose-built rental housing. Housing is a human right and everyone deserves the right to live with dignity.
We need to take a multi-pronged approach. We need to improve the planning process when it comes to housing. This includes shortening the development application process, being flexible on certain technical standards, building more affordable housing, allowing for more as-of-right housing in our neighbourhoods that includes duplex, triplex and walk ups, allowing for gentle intensification on our main streets and increasing density along our major transit station areas. We need to be mindful that when we tax and apply fees to developers, these are simply downloaded onto the end user. We need to work with developers, stakeholders and the community to achieve saving for end users.
When it comes to rents, we need to ensure a tenant-first approach that makes sure rents stay within an affordable ceiling and that illegal evictions don’t take place by strengthening protections for renters. As well as encourage participation and incentives from all levels of government.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Over the last several months I have met with a number of mental health providers to discuss supports particularly for unhoused youth. We need to increase access for wraparound supports for youth and our unhoused population. This will require investing not only from the city but advocating for all levels of government to contribute. We need to support initiatives like the Community Crisis Response Program and work towards a community centred approach that avoids criminalizing those with mental health struggles.
We need to hire, retain and compensate mental health professionals adequately. Too many of these trained staff are overworked and not properly compensated. We need to support these workers.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
The city must be a leader when it comes to supporting undocumented newcomers. I have been a part of the Higher Education Access for Precarious Status Students committee at the University of Toronto that has been advocating and fighting to emulate a program similar to York University that allows undocumented students the ability to access post secondary education. We are hopeful that a program like this will soon be available at all institutions across the GTA.
We need to implement a policy of care and compassion that centres people first and provides access to undocumented newcomers for education and financial assistance. We need to change the way that we serve residents by removing barriers to service including certain IDs and the need for folks to prove their status before receiving assistance or support. We can put people first and simply allow them to access supports like financial assistance and education like any other resident of Toronto. I will continue to work with various educational institutions and the Ontario government to allow for greater access to financial supports and OSAP.
Andrei Zodian
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
I support expanding shelter beds through sleeping pods to solve the current crisis. Longer term, I hold Vienna and Singapore as models of successful strategies of collaboration between multiple levels of government, as detailed on my website https://andrei.zodian.net.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
A specialized emergency hotline for mental health issues combined with diversion of a small amount of some of the funds currently allocated to policing should help with current backlogs as well as freeing police resources for more violent crime.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I am an immigrant myself and I remember coming to Toronto in the 90s and making good use of our wonderful library services while waiting for my (delayed) papers to arrive. I would continue and expand the current multilingual communication campaign for city services consistent with our welcoming approach. I support increasing spending on education and especially early childhood education and filling the gaps created by delays in implementation of the agreement between the province and the federal government on subsidized child care.
Toronto-St. Paul’s
Josh Matlow
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
support incentives for single family home owners to subdivide their homes into multi-units
advocate for a Public Builder model to build truly affordable homes on city lands
support as-of-right zoning on arterials
ensure rent control for every affordable housing development that receives city subsidy
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Wait lists for youth mental health is under provincial purview; however, the city has a role to play through:
ensuring youth mental health clinics have low or no cost facilities in new developments
providing youth spaces in community centres and libraries that are funded and staffed with outreach workers trained to refer youth in need to mental health professionals
increasing the quality and quantity of youth programming in city facilities and working with the school boards to open schools on evenings and weekends to provide space for additional youth programming
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Again, access to education in provincial and school boards. However, I will continue supporting policies that ensure that residents are not asked their status when trying to access essential services.
Thank you for raising these critical issues to support Toronto’s youth. I was proud to move motions, working with community leaders and experts from across Toronto to launch the Youth Equity Strategy and the city’s Youth Spaces program.
University-Rosedale
Axel Arvizu
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Our generation is facing a housing crisis. We need to build inventory. I will advocate and work with building departments to ease basement apartment conversions. I also plan to improve alternative housing options such as laneway and garden suites so that families can stay together and/or cool down the renters and sellers’ market conditions.
We should as well, fix the backlog at the Landlord and Tenant Board, investors and home owners are scared to put their house or apartment on the market because they are afraid that they will have no recourse if they get a bad tenant.
Rent increases should be capped and resources to subsidize housing should be allocated to people that need it.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
This is a complicated question because our whole healthcare system needs to be revamped. We need better access to healthcare, better quality of healthcare, better value of health care. All of these while the age structure of our population is changing. I will make sure that resources are allocated to mental health and facilitate direct and speedy access to the people that need it.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Fortunately in the province of Ontario, young people, documented or not, do have access to basic education as well as access to city services. I will advocate to make it possible for universities to remove barriers facing undocumented applicants that wish to get a post secondary education. As far as financial assistance goes, I believe the federal government is working on a program that would grant status to some undocumented workers on a case-by-case basis.
Robin Buxton Potts
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
We have to treat the housing crisis with the urgency it deserves, which begins with the city investing in thousands of new, deeply affordable city-owned-and-operated rental units. Additionally, we need to make it easier for people to convert existing single-family homes into multi-unit homes, things like rooming houses, laneway suites and multi-unit homes. We must ensure that these units are safe and well made, and can remain affordable through rent control and eviction prevention strategies. I was proud to help expand and convert the city’s Rent Bank loans into grants, helping keep people in their existing homes.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
While working for Kristyn Wong-Tam, we moved a motion asking Toronto Public Health to create an Office of Mental Health in order to better understand the needs of Torontonians, especially youth, racialized and queer people who have the largest barriers to accessing mental health services. As someone who has suffered from depression and addiction, I know how critical access to these services are for people who want them, and the city must do a better job of coordinating existing services, identifying gaps and strongly advocating the province for the resources we need.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
Barriers such as access to web services and language barriers keep too many people from getting timely help. Local Libraries are an excellent place to help reach into communities and provide that assistance. Investing more in our libraries is a big priority. Through the vaccine campaign, we also saw how much success we got when we invested directly into local communities to let them lead outreach. Peer-to-Peer support and training are going to be critical for reaching new audiences.
Norm Di Pasquale
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
We ultimately need to put an end to the commodification of housing. Housing is a human right, not a means to make people wealthy. City Council can enact stronger policies that will open up more housing for rental and ownership through stricter controls on people who own multiple units, ensuring units are not being left vacant with a strong vacant homes tax, and continuing to support the immediate inclusion of family-sized units that are affordable in new development.
Alongside the above steps which council can take immediately, I will support zoning that supports the ‘missing middle’ densification of housing, ensure that the city uses their housing dollars to provide deeply affordable and supportive housing, and continue to advocate to other levels of government to increase their investments in the housing market with war-time urgency and spending.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
The City of Toronto can leverage its role as one of the largest and most integral Public Health authorities in Ontario to attract and acquire services to assist people in need of mental health care. Where the province has failed to support residents to treat the various symptoms of distress they are living with, the city can create a network that can support and direct youth looking for help to the services the city has put in place to help serve. This is not a new concept. It is one that we currently have undertaken to support those in need during the pandemic, and we can strengthen and increase its capacity through dedicated staff and funding to make people aware of this important health service.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
The City of Toronto remains a Sanctuary City and therefore must provide these services to residents, regardless of their immigration status. To support more residents being able to access these services, we must provide targeted and specialized outreach, similar to the efforts to increase vaccination uptake during the pandemic, to ensure that no Torontonian is falling through the cracks. By making all residents feel welcome, safe and supported we can ensure that the new life they are working to create in Toronto starts off on the best possible footing.
Dianne Saxe
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
The lack of affordable rental housing is a critical threat to our City and risks driving younger people and frontline workers out of the City. Responsibility for this difficult situation lies primarily with the federal and provincial governments, due to factors such as interest rates and population growth (immigration). However, the City can and should do more to help.
Zoning changes, such as a Missing Middle Housing Strategy, can create a larger supply of smaller housing units, by allowing homeowners to subdivide and/or add rental units to existing homes. Rooming houses, which can provide affordable accommodation, should be licensed and regulated everywhere in the city. Townhouses, triplexes and similar missing middle homes up to four stories should be legal, as-of-right, in all residential areas. Multi-unit homes should be permitted to be at least the same size as single-family homes.
To increase the number of housing units, greater density (mid-rise and high-rise) with ground floor retail should be permitted and encouraged on arterial roads and close to major transit hubs such as subway stations. Appropriate public amenities for the growing population have to be provided at the same time, such as wider sidewalks, schools, libraries, parks etc.
The city can also help non-profit housing providers build more housing, e.g. with a revolving loan fund, and allow them to build above city facilities such as libraries.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
Again, this is a problem primarily created by the provincial government, which dramatically underfunds mental health care and prevention for people of all ages. The city can and should ask the province to properly fund community mental health care and wellness hubs and a 24-hour crisis line, and to bring down the waitlist for young people to 30 days. The city can also ask the federal government to decriminalize drugs and to train skilled court workers to divert those with mental health issues out of the justice system whenever possible. It will save money and lives to actively build local opportunities and community hubs for young people to find jobs and housing, to improve opportunities for recreation and community connection and to encourage peer-to-peer supports.
Access to nature and healthy food also help, as does treating all people with respect. The city can reduce conflicts between the police and those with mental health issues by doing more to implement the extensive lists of recommendations from past crises, such as the shooting of Sammy Yatim. The City should evaluate and disclose the impacts of its Toronto Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism and consider whether a second five-year plan is appropriate.
Good ideas, such as Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams, should move beyond the pilot phase with adequate budgeting and reporting. Such teams should include women and visible minorities whenever possible, to build community trust. The Toronto Police Service should also continue its efforts to boost representation of women and visible minorities throughout the force. Both groups number around 20% —better than when I was young, but still a long way to go to reflect city diversity.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
311 provides telephone access to a wide range of city services. I would look into whether 311 requires additional resources, e.g. in additional languages, and whether more can be done to make newcomers feel safe accessing 311.
Young people are often digital natives. I would consult young newcomers about their experience accessing the city’s websites, and how this experience might be improved. Many newcomers may not have access to a personal computer. This gap can be filled, to a considerable extent, by providing additional resources to our public libraries. Public libraries should be open every day of the week, staffed by librarians and equipped with additional computers. Librarians are skilled at helping newcomers locate information and resources, both within the library system and online.
I would also consult the Toronto Newcomer Office and local non-profits with substantial experience serving newcomers to ask for their recommendations on how to make access easier.
York-South Weston
Chiara Padovani
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
Successive federal and provincial governments have failed to invest enough in non-market rental housing. Toronto City Council has not prevented profiteering by developers or corporate landlords, nor has it used its powers to shape the rental market appropriately.
As a tenant, I’ve experienced this first-hand, and to fight it I’ve started the York South-Weston Tenants Union, a group of tenants and tenant associations helping each other protect our tenant rights. Collectively, we’ve prevented hundreds of evictions and saved thousands of tenants money on rent by fighting unfair rent increases. Just last month at 33 King Street, we saved 240 tenants 1.5 million dollars on their rent.
There are no silver bullets to stop this housing crisis, but we must invest quickly to make up for the damage caused by years of federal, provincial and municipal underfunding and appeasement of developers.
That is why I am advocating for:
A moratorium on the sale of municipal lands to for-profit developers
Bringing TCHC housing stock up to a state of good repair
Giving rental co-ops and not-for-profits right of first refusal
Implementing a vacancy tax on rental units kept vacant by landlords
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
As a social worker, I know how vital mental health among other health services is for the wellbeing of community members in York-South Weston, especially our young people.
Beyond advocating for increased funding from the province for these critical services in communities like York-South Weston, I know that access doesn’t stop there — we need service providers that can provide linguistic and culturally appropriate services that reflect the communities they serve.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
I will continue to support and ensure that Toronto remains a Sanctuary City, where all residents have full rights to access city services without fear, regardless of their immigration status.
Pierre Therrien
1. How are you going to make Toronto rent and housing more affordable for young people?
The Toronto Real estate market is about to be “repriced”. Real estate values will drop precipitously, and rents with them, while inflation continues to rise. Due to the drop in construction activities to build houses and condos, many people will be forced out of work. My strategy is to become councilman and then move up to provincial politics, where I will advocate for federal funds to restart the collapsing construction industry and build most of the proposed condos that would otherwise be cancelled. I will advocate for “housing first and harm reduction”, which if implemented correctly, will eliminate homelessness and give youth opportunities to find their way.
2. Wait times for community mental health care have surged. How will you implement strategies that reduce these waitlists and support more accessible health services for youth?
I believe in the decriminalization of drugs, which will defund the police and allow them to work on mental health initiatives. Police will be far less distracted with criminal activity and gang operations. There will be more money available for mental health programs. I think that CAMH is a great place to start. We can find a way to reduce the wait times. Our goal must be to eliminate the wait list for mental healthcare to zero.
3. How will you make it easier for young and/or undocumented newcomers to access city services like education and financial assistance?
It is my passionate belief that young and or undocumented newcomers should receive an open door to Canada’s services at every level of government. Every single immigrant that comes to Canada provides more benefit to Canadians than they will ever use. Therefore, we should accept most youth directly into our service programs. Social assistance is too low. It is impossible for youth to “break out” of being on social assistance, because the resource level is inadequate. I believe in basic income, which can be funded through the carbon tax. The carbon tax is a tax on the rich. I say load that carbon tax right up until youth programs are properly funded and climate change is under control.
WEP made its best effort to reach all candidates running in the wards of Davenport, Etobicoke Centre, Etobicoke Lakeshore, Parkdale-High Park, Spadina-Fort York, Toronto-St. Paul’s, University-Rosedale and York South-Weston. Those who were reachable and who responded have been included in this coverage.
Questions from the Front Lines
We polled youth workers at these local orgs for their most pressing questions for council candidates
FCJ Refugee Centre (www.fcjrefugeecentre.org) provides advice and counselling for refugees and others at risk due to their immigration status, while addressing systemic issues that newly arrived refugee claimants face in Canada, including lack of resources, marginalization and discrimination.
Questions from: Victoria Zea, anti-human trafficking youth coordinatorThe Jean Augustine Centre (www.jeanaugustinecentre.ca) provides in-person and online programming for young women and girls to help them thrive and reach their full potential.
Questions from: Shaniece Phillips, program assistantLil Sis (www.lilsis.ca) is a youth arts platform focused on bettering the arts and entertainment industries for emerging, underserved youth artists by reducing barriers and empowering the exploited.
Questions from: Nkechinyem Oduh, administration and communications coordinatorLAMP Community Health Centre (www.lampchc.org) promotes and advocates for physical, mental and social well-being through inclusive, integrated community programs and health care services.
Questions from: Linda Frempong, Youth Program ManagerThe ENAGB Indigenous Youth Agency (www.enagb-iya.ca) focuses on providing cultural, employment, life skills, holistic wellness and recreational opportunities to youth ages 12 to 29. Programming works to build self-esteem, confidence, skills and self-determination.
Questions from: Cynthia Bell-Clayton, executive director and co-founderFrontlines (www.frontlines.to) is a youth organization providing leadership skills, homework clubs, culinary programs, health education, summer camps and catering services for ages 6 to 29.
Questions from: Kezia Williams, youth engagement specialist, and Latisha Taylor, program team leadYonge Street Mission (www.ysm.ca) is a Christian development agency and charity offering holistic programs and supports for people living with poverty.
Questions from: Eleanor Edwards, community engagement & fundraising specialist