Toronto march aims to draw attention to profit-fuelled housing crisis
TORONTO, June 11, 2025 /CNW/ - Tenant-rights and anti-poverty activists from dozens of organizations will march through downtown Toronto on June 14th, 2025, to protest against the corporate greed and government inaction that has created an unprecedented housing crisis in the city.
The groups, which plan stops at the offices of major developers, argue safe and affordable housing is a basic right too important to be left to companies set on maximizing profits.
Governments must stem the increasing flow of tenants onto the streets by tightening regulations around renovictions, demovictions and rent controls.
It is essential governments fund social and non-profit housing. They must also stop developers, pushed from the flailing condo market, from moving into upscale purpose-built rentals that are unaffordable to most renters.
"Governments must stop throwing millions of dollars in subsidies and incentives at profit-making corporations," says John Clarke, of the group 230 Fightback. "The housing crisis playing out every day on our streets shows in tragic detail just how wrong-headed such policies are."
Diverting funding from for-profit developers to non-profits, co-operatives and social housing will dramatically improve housing affordability. It will also save governments millions of dollars now spent on stop-gap shelters, policing and criminalizing the poor, as well as on health-care costs that flow from being unhoused or precariously housed.
"We have seen so many long-term examples of greedy landlords using flimsy excuses to evict long-term tenants from affordable apartments so they can jack up rents," says Bruno Dobrusin, of the York South-Weston Tenants Union. "We have to make housing for the people, not the stock market or greedy landlords."
The June 14th march arose out of the People's Assembly for Housing Justice, which recently saw an unprecedented number of grassroots groups come together to discuss the terrible impact housing commodification has had on communities, and to brainstorm solutions.
The groups demand politicians stop scapegoating refugees and immigrants for the housing crisis. They want drastic funding cuts to, and tighter regulations for, for-profit developers to make room for government and non-profits to build meaningfully affordable housing.
When: June 14, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. March starts 2:00 p.m.
Where: 230 Sherbourne St.
SOURCE People's Assembly
For further information, please contact: Gaetan Heroux, 230 Fightback, 647-208-4290, [email protected], https://230fightback.com; Bruno Dobrusin, York South-Weston Tenants Union, 647-548-6770, [email protected], https://www.tenantunion.ca/
Share this article