Take Action: 214-230 Sherbourne Street

214-230 Sherbourne – Call for Expropriation Now!

Visit the SHJN Electronic Toolkit for social media images, and ongoing updates! 

We have been informed that the City’s bid for 214-230 Sherbourne was not successful. However, the City still has the power to expropriate the property and turn it into desperately needed rent geared to income housing.  The out of control real estate market and private profit should not take precedence over the lives and safety of human beings.

The property at 214-230 Sherbourne St. has sat vacant for over 10 years while the ravages of the housing and homelessness crisis decimate a community outside its doors. A 30 room mansion should not be left vacant while people freeze to death outside.  This land has now been sold to developers who will no doubt try to develop it into condos that will further displace disproportionately Black and Indigenous people from their neighbourhood. The municipal, provincial and federal governments should not be allowed to ignore this situation and turn their backs on the people who have a right to live and a right to basic shelter and housing.

Enough is enough.  Regardless of who owns the property at 214-230 Sherbourne – it is in the public’s best interest for the City to take action now to expropriate. Continue reading →

Media Release: Advocates Call for Expropriation of 214-230 Sherbourne St. After City Loses Bid

Regent Park Community Health Centre Advocacy Committee and the Shelter and Housing Justice Network are disappointed that, after nearly 10 years of organizing by many organizations and people in the community, the City of Toronto has failed to purchase the property at 214-230 Sherbourne Street. However, the City has the power to expropriate the site for social housing.

“We now call on Mayor John Tory, the members of the Planning and Housing Committee, the Executive Committee and all of Toronto City Council to expropriate this land and create 100% rent-geared-to-income social housing units,” says Josie Ricciardi, manager of community health programs at Regent Park Community Health Centre and spokesperson for Regent Park Community Health Centre Advocacy Committee.

A report on the “Revitalization for the downtown east” will be on the Toronto City Council Planning and Housing Committee agenda  on March 25th and on March 30 a report back from staff on the bid to purchase the property will be going to the Executive Committee. The community is mobilizing a call for the City to proceed with expropriation immediately. Continue reading →

214-230 Sherbourne St. Community Rally

update: tuesday march 8

the city is putting in an offer to purchase this property this week. getting the city to do this is an important victory after many years of organizing around this land.

Monday, March 7th at 12:30 pm

214-230 Sherbourne St. (south of Dundas St. E)

The vacant properties at 214-230 Sherbourne St. are for sale on the market. City Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam passed a motion at the last City Council meeting requesting staff to report back to Council Wednesday, March 9th on the feasibility of purchasing the property for affordable, including rent geared to income housing.  Bids are due by Friday, March 11th.

“Toronto and Canada are in the grips of a housing emergency, where families are forced to make unconscionable decisions between putting food on the table and housing. For years, I have joined the community’s call to have City Council to buy 214-230 Sherbourne Street to build housing and revitalize the Sherbourne and Dundas corridor. Without urgent government action to build more affordable housing, we will see the humanitarian crisis of homelessness worsen” states Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, Toronto Centre, Ward 13

This may be our last chance to purchase this site for social housing before it is lost to private condo developers! This site sits in the epicentre of the housing and homelessness crisis in Toronto. It is the site of the freezing death of Drina Joubert in 1985. It is less than 150 yards from the bus shelter where a man died of suspected hypothermia on February 4th of this year.  If this site is lost, it will have an enormously negative impact on the community and its services. Continue reading →

Letter to MP Marci Ien: Federal Housing Aid

Marci Ien, MP
Toronto Centre, Ontario
430 Parliament Street
Toronto ON M5A 3A2
March 7, 2022.

Dear MP Marci Ien,

The Shelter and Housing Justice Network (SHJN) is a network of homelessness and housing advocates, shelter providers, healthcare professionals, faith leaders, legal workers, and researchers who have come together to address the issue of homelessness in Canada on a local, provincial, and national level. Operating under the mantra of “shelter rights, housing rights, human rights” SHJN seeks immediate action and long-term sustainable solutions in the shelter and housing sectors.

We are writing you today because homelessness has reached catastrophic proportions in Toronto and across Canada. People have been left to freeze to death on the streets of Toronto, Montreal, Labrador, Winnipeg. It is the inhumane housing policy of this federal government that has led to this humanitarian emergency.

In the City of Toronto, the emergency shelter system has collapsed, and the situation is about to deteriorate further with the closure of the shelter-hotels. People have nowhere to go. In your own riding, the epicenter of the homelessness disaster, a homeless man was recently found dead in a bus shelter, suspected cause of death is hypothermia.

Continue reading →

Urgent Update: 214-230 Sherbourne for Housing!

The vacant properties at 214-230 Sherbourne St. are back up for sale on the market. City Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam passed a motion at last City Council meeting requesting staff to report back to Council Wednesday, March 9th on the feasibility of purchasing the property for rent geared to income housing.  Bids are due by Friday, March 11th.

This may be our last chance to win this site for social housing before it could be lost to private condo developers! This site sits in the epicentre of the housing and homelessness crisis in Toronto. It is the site of the freezing death of Drina Joubert in 1985. It is less than 150 yards from the bus shelter where a man died of suspected hypothermia on February 4th of this year. It is one of the last corners of the neighbourhood that is not a condo development. If this corner is lost, it will have an enormously negative impact on the community and its services. Continue reading →