The City of Toronto has issued its first extreme cold alert for the winter season of 2007/08 today. Many meteorologists with lots of computer power work together to make the call about extreme cold alerts, but the bottom line is that the weather can be deadly for those who are outside, such as homeless people.
Don't cannibalize TO's affordable housing stock
Toronto City Council will consider a plan to sell about 500 “scattered” affordable homes that are owned by the city on November 20, 2007. The sponsors of the scheme say that that some of the millions of dollars that would be generated from the sale could be used to re-house the 500 households, and the […]
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TO set to launch 10-year housing plan
It has been a while coming, but the City of Toronto is set to launch its 10-year housing plan on Wednesday, Nov. 7. The city's plan is called Housing Opportunities Toronto (HOT) and it comes one year after the Wellesley Institute's Blueprint to End Homelessness was launched. The HOT plan draws on many of the […]
Barbaric…
… that’s the only way to describe the urban health landscape in the United States, the richest country in the world and the self-proclaimed leader of the “free” world. I’ve been in Baltimore for the International Conference on Urban Health and on Thursday afternoon was invited to visit parts of the inner city. I visited […]
UN to Canada: Take action on housing, homelessness!
Canada has received both a sharp reprimand and a strong call to action in the preliminary observations of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Miloon Kothari, in his preliminary observations at the end of his fact-finding mission to Canada (October 22, 2007).
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Federal throne speech Tuesday: Three questions…
The Speech from the Throne, which will be read on Tuesday, October 16, sets the key objectives for the federal government in the next session of Parliament. The throne speech, along with the budget (which is usually released in February), are the two most important annual policy statements of the federal government. The policy environment […]
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Affordable housing forum with United Nations' expert
A public forum with MILOON KOTHARI, United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, and BARBARA HALL, Chief Commissioner, Ontario Human Rights Commission. Friday, Oct. 19, 6 p.m., Church of the Holy Trinity, Trinity Square (southwest of Yonge and Dundas). Miloon Kothari, the UN-appointed expert on housing rights, is on a fact-finding mission […]
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Cruel news from the streets of Toronto
Streethealth, a community-based nursing group in downtown Toronto, is releasing a new survey of the health conditions of homeless people today (Wednesday, September 19). Based on a detailed review of more than 360 homeless people, the new study builds on the ground-breaking 1992 Street Health report. It makes for grim reading: Here in the richest […]
Building a great city!
Toronto is the biggest city in Canada, and among the half dozen largest cities in North America, but our city is suffering from a lack of investment in social and physical infrastructure (everything from affordable housing to public transit). Toronto Mayor David Miller launched a new web site today that sets out the facts and […]
25 in 5 poverty reduction campaign
A group of prominent Ontarians, backed by a network of community organizations (including the Wellesley Institute) has launched the “25-in-5” poverty reduction campaign at the start of Ontario’s provincial election. The goal of this non-partisan campaign is to get all political parties contesting Ontario’s provincial election to make two commitments: First, to adopt a target […]