SIGN THE LETTER: Tell your MP to make Toronto’s housing/health crisis top priority

Having a home is a critical determinant of health – a fact particularly well displayed since the start of COVID-19.

That is why we are asking you to stand with the hundreds of healthcare professionals to encourage our Parliament to make ending homelessness a core element of Canada’s pandemic recovery plan.

Housing is key to returning the country’s economy and entire population to good health. To make the millions who experience homelessness and endure substandard housing part of the recovery, make your pandemic recovery plan hinge on housing.

We know how to end homelessness once and for all, all it takes is the political will.

WITH YOUR HELP, WE CAN DO THIS. PLEASE FILL IN THE PETITION NOW TO SEND YOUR LETTER OF SUPPORT.

Learn more about Inner City Health Associates, Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, and the Recovery For All campaign.

TEST MODE

Toronto urgently needs our Members of Parliament to champion investment in housing for those experiencing homelessness, and those threatened with losing their housing, in our city. To realize a durable and meaningful recovery, we need Recovery For All. As our city’s representatives in parliament, our MPs need to lead the way.

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Dear [recipient position will go here] [recipient name will go here],

Your Letter *

Thank you for the commitment made in the Speech from the Throne to end homelessness in Canada. The commitment is noble and the words are good. Now, those words must be put to action with no time to spare.  As your constituent, I look to you not just to keep that commitment but to lead the way.

You have heard recently from constituents across your riding, including healthcare professionals, who describe our city’s housing crisis as, also, a health crisis. I add my voice to theirs.  The dangerous addition of COVID and its damaging economic impact on people’s incomes and ability to pay rent, coupled with the loss of eviction protection, will hike homelessness in Toronto and heighten health and safety risks to everyone in the city.

I am writing to express my expectation that you, my member of parliament, will begin the push immediately to invest in housing to protect those experiencing homelessness and ensure they are provided with permanent, affordable and, where needed, supportive housing. We need a serious infusion of funds immediately to support the acquisition of buildings before frigid temperatures cause preventable deaths in Toronto encampments and streets.

You may be aware that on September 15th, the city released two reports on housing and homelessness: the COVID-19 Interim Shelter Recovery Strategy and the Housing and People Plan. Both reports were created through collaborations of housing, homelessness and health advocates representing a broad spectrum of interests and perspectives. Both reports emphasize that COVID has accelerated and deepened this city’s housing crisis. They also both arrived at the same conclusion: the urgent need for an acquisition fund to create permanent, affordable housing in Toronto.

While I applaud the recent funding announcement for the Rapid Housing Initiative, it is simply not enough and not soon enough to avert the impending, deeper crisis here in Toronto as we enter a second wave of COVID with hundreds of people in encampments in this city, insufficient regulation of the rental market and an economy on its knees. Greater investment, and immediately, is needed if we are to begin to put the words of the Speech into action. 
To end the housing/health crisis in Toronto will undoubtedly take the commitment of all orders of government.  This was apparent in the city reports which also recommended other components that will be required to respond fully and finally to the housing crisis. That cannot happen without all levels of government using an array of levers that are aligned around a common public good.  The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) has put forward a comprehensive plan for federal action on housing that, if adopted by your government, can achieve the long-overdue goal of ending homelessness across Canada.  The CAEH plan, Recovery For All, will deliver on Canada’s longstanding commitment to health equity and your government’s commitment to housing as a human right and the elimination of homelessness.

The consequences of failing to act now on the pledge to eliminate homelessness are dire. Housing is a most basic human need and right and intimately tied up with health and life expectancy. I am urging you to act now to ensure that housing is at the forefront of the government’s recovery plan. We will be a better, healthier country for it.

Sincerely,
[your name will go here]
[your email address will go here] [your location will go here]

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