Toronto ACORN Healthy Homes Town Hall 2022
Posted January 28, 2022
Posted January 28, 2022
Toronto ACORN members had a Healthy Homes Town Hall on Wednesday January 26th. RentSafe is going to the Council for a report back, so ACORN members are keeping the pressure on to win improvements on RentSafe.
Our demands are Colour Coded Signs, Increase The Budget For RentSafe To Hire More By-Law Officers, Financial Penalties For Bad Landlords, Speed Up Implementation of Administrative Monetary Penalties, Licensing Landlords, Separate Phone Line For RentSafe, Fix The Inspections System for Evaluation, Building Scores Must Reflect Issues in Building, RentSafe Must Be More Transparent and Retrofits for Ageing High Rises.
As tenants continue to have ongoing issues in their buildings, we had meetings with various Councillors this month of January to discuss our demands, and invited them to this Town Hall. We were joined by Councilor Josh Matlow, Councillor Anthony Peruzza, Councilor Paula Fletcher, MPP Tom Rakocevic, and Jasmine- the planning and development advisor to Councillor Nunziata. We were also joined by Zee Bhanji who works with Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO), Low-Income Energy Network (LIEN) and Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) as an ally.
We had around 90 participants, ACORN members gave testimonials on their ongoing issues in their buildings and why we need improvements for RentSafe. Members also presented the history of the Healthy Homes campaign and the wins over the years. We ended the town hall with a phone action, as members called Mayor John Tory’s office to let him know what our demands are and to have a meeting to discuss our demands.
Check out the video: