Recently, the real estate firm Graywood Group has begun exploring potential development opportunities at 506-516 Church Street, currently occupied by the adjacent surface parking lot and the popular local businesses, Boutique Bar and Crews and Tangos.
As we receive confirmation of the second presumptive case of the novel coronavirus in Toronto, I want to thank Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, and the full Toronto Public Health (TPH) team for their rapid and comprehensive response. I have full confidence in TPH’s ability to manage the spread of infectious diseases like this one and keep our residents safe and healthy.
My confidence is not misplaced. The City of Toronto learned a lot about infectious disease management in the aftermath of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003. I am hoping that we have also learned how uninformed fears can perpetuate racist stereotypes and other anti-Chinese discrimination.
Rooming house tenants, residing at 295 Jarvis Street, are facing pressure to move out of their homes.
While the City of Toronto staff and I are not aware of any formal eviction notices having been filed, there is an ongoing dispute regarding the tenants' right to protection under the Residential Tenancies Act.
This issue will ultimately be decided in March by the Province of Ontario, via the Landlord Tenant Board.
Residents of 650 Parliament Street have finally been given a timeline to return home.
It has been over 18 months since residents of 650 Parliament were forced to evacuate their homes after a catastrophic electrical failure set fire to their building.
This has been a long and emotional process for the residents who have had to contend with over a year of uncertainty and growing frustration.
And so, it is with sincere relief that today, we learned residents have been given a firm re-occupation date starting March 02, 2020.
I applaud yesterdays’s Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) decision to uphold the City of Toronto’s short-term rental rules. This is a big step forward in addressing the impact that these so-called “home-sharing” companies have had on the availability of Toronto’s housing stock. While services such as AirBnB and Expedia allow homeowners to supplement their income, they have also allowed aggressive landlords and private companies to effectively evict long-term tenants and turn their homes into “ghost hotels” in the middle of Toronto’s affordable housing crisis.
This Saturday several groups are coordinating to march up Church Street from The Esplanade to Davenport Road, right through the heart of the Village, Canada’s largest LGBTQ2S+ community. Expected participants include radical right provocateurs, Islamophobic organizations, white supremacists, and self-proclaimed Christian activists who have disrupted past Pride events.
Toronto Police have been monitoring activities closely and are certain that all possible precautions are being taken to prevent violence anywhere on Church Street and to keep the Village and St Lawrence neighbourhood safe.
This Saturday several groups are coordinating to march up Church Street from The Esplanade to Davenport Road, right through the heart of the Village, Canada’s largest LGBTQ2S+ community. Participants expected include radical right provocateurs, Islamophobic organizations, white supremacists, and self-proclaimed Christian activists who have disrupted past Pride events. The planned march will be traumatic for those who have faced homophobia, transphobia, racism, and other forms of discrimination. I condemn this in the strongest possible terms. The LGBTQ2S+ community and our allies are not going back into the closet. Nor will we stand to be erased and belittled for who we choose to love and how we chose to define family. We will not concede the inclusion and progress we have fought so hard for.
There is a group of homophobic and transphobic self-proclaimed "Christians" organizing a march and rally on September 28. They have published their intentions to march on Church Street from The Esplanade to Davenport Road, right through The Village. More recently, anti-Islamic organizations have found common cause with this group and plan to join them in their march.
The month of August has left two young women sexually assaulted in McGill Parkette. Residents should know that the Toronto Police and Parks Ambassador staff are patrolling McGill Parkette several times a day, making frequent arrests, issuing tickets and responding quickly to calls for service. Community Crisis Response and Streets to Homes staff are engaging with homeless youth in and around the parkette to alert them to the danger, and to steer them towards services and helping programs.
A year ago, 1,500 tenants found themselves displaced from their homes at 650 Parliament Street due to a fire. Since then 650 Parliament tenants have lived with instability, uncertainty and frustration as they have moved between temporary housing, seen promised move-in dates get pushed further and further back and have been often left with more questions than answers about how they remain in this situation more than a year later.
Despite this, 650 Parliament residents have also shown themselves to be incredibly resilient, patient and thoughtful, using this tragedy to build new relationships both within their building and in the wider St. James Town Community. 650 Parliament is a microcosm of both Toronto's diversity and the strength of its communities, and I am proud to represent such an incredible neighbourhood.
