We promote the rights of people with mental
illness to live in the neighbourhood of their choice.
Every person has an equal right to accommodation, free from discrimination on the basis of mental illness, another disability, source of income or any other personal characteristic.
What's New
Toronto City Council passed its amalgamated zoning by-law on August 27th –but the Ontario Human Rights Commission calls for changes.
Tell the City’s Planning and Growth Committee to uphold the human rights code and drop distancing requirements.
The City of Sarnia throws out regulations that restrict the location of group homes.
“Using by-laws to keep some people out of neighbourhoods is wrong,” said Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall.
A landmark OMB decision says the City of Kitchener’s Cedar Hill By-law did not give due consideration to the human rights of vulnerable people.
ACT (Affordability and Choice Today) has just published Housing In My Backyard: A Municipal Guide for Responding to NIMBY. The guide offers practical advice and case studies from across Canada, including Ontario’s groundbreaking human rights work.
The City has committed itself to a Housing Charter. The City’s new amalgamated zoning by-law is one place to put that commitment into action. Read the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s comments.
The OHRC affirms that “people or groups identified under the Code should not have to ask permission form prospective neighbours before moving into a neighbourhood.”
Toronto Housing Charter says all residents should “be able to live in the neighbourhood of choice without discrimination.”
Studies from the University of Calgary and the City of Calgary show affordable and non-market housing has “little or no” impact on surrounding property values.
Columnist Carol Goar reports “barriers are toppling. Attitudes are changing. NIMBYISM appears to have met its match.”
Furman Centre for Real Estate and Urban Policy 2008 study of 123 supportive housing developments.
Ontario Human Rights Commission names discriminatory NIMBY as a human rights concern. Get the link to the full report.
Don Weitz writes: “Congratulations to urban planner-researcher Lilith Finkler for criticizing housing discrimination against psychiatric survivors and the homeless. Unfortunately, NIMBYism is still widespread in Toronto and other major cities in Canada.”
Joey Slinger writes: “Neither liberals nor conservatives have the slightest hesitation about saying the most utterly despicable things imaginable.”
Ontario municipalities are discriminating against the mentally ill, the homeless, and other disadvantaged groups through their zoning by-laws, says a Toronto urban planner.
Get a link to the article and read letters to the editor.
“A group of mentally ill Torontonians has launched a human rights case against a Liberal MPP who opposed a supportive housing development because his community had enough “crazed individuals” already.” Link to the full article and letters to the editor from HomeComing supporters.
Council resoundingly approved funding to convert a vacant banquet hall into 29 supportive housing apartments.
ONPHA releases research on new inclusionary zoning policy.
The Dream Team and University of Toronto release a new study on the impacts of supportive housing in Toronto.
CAMH’s Crosscurrents produces a special edition on housing and homelessness.
