Ottawa ACORN’s Community Summit: Continuing to Build Grassroots Power!

Ottawa ACORN’s Community Summit brought over 50 members from across the city together to talk about issues that really matter—like affordable housing, tenant rights, and climate justice. The goal? To build people power and make sure our voices are heard by city leaders.

The leaders kicked things off by reminding everyone that if we don’t fight for change, nobody else will.

The summit covered Ottawa ACORN’s major campaigns, like pushing for more affordable housing, better tenant protections against displacement, regulating landlords who neglect repairs and pests, and fighting for climate justice. After learning about the issues, members broke into groups to brainstorm how to get more people involved and how to make real progress on these campaigns.

By the end of the day, everyone had a chance to commit to an action—whether it was helping spread the word or showing up for a campaign. To keep the momentum going, leaders wrapped things up by encouraging everybody to take a stack of flyers on a campaign they care about to flyer their building and neighbourhood. Over 100 flyers were taken so keep an eye out for a poster in your area!

The Community Summit was a great meeting to continue building strong grassroots power in Ottawa and showed that when we come together, we can make change happen.

Shoutout to ACORN members Hassan Youssouf, Sharon Katz, and Sara Laviolette for leading a great meeting!