Housing crisis brings community organizations together

On November 29, within the backdrop of the increasing housing crisis that affects both Canada and the city of London, a collection of leftists organizations in the city, volunteers and community members, all came together to find concrete solutions to a problem that has been affecting the city of London for several years. With the passing of the controversial Bill 60 by the Ontario Provincial Government led by Premier Doug Ford; that housing crisis has expanded in scope and complexity in the last few years. 

The Democratic Socialists of Canada, Forest City Solidarity, Spring Socialist Network, the East of Adelaide chapter of ACORN and the London chapter of the International Socialists came together at Reimagine Co., for “Housing for All”: an open forum that presented not only the individual efforts of these organizations, but also provided an opportunity for other individuals and community members that, through their dedication and hard work, try to engage the problem at all levels locally. 

The Panel

The organizers opened the event with a welcome and introduction to the five organizing groups. This was followed by a panel with a representative of each of the groups. Zack Ramsay, for the London chapter for the Democratic Socialists of Canada (DSC) and prospective candidate for Ward 2 in the upcoming 2026 municipal election, opened the first section of the event. He described the DSC membership as “regular, everyday people who really just want to help their fellow working class. They see the issues we’re facing and they volunteer their time to help one another”. He then spoke of some of the programs the DSC conducts, such as free tenant union organizing courses and the DSC’s “Really, Really Free Market”, where attendees could take anything for free and bring items to be taken for free by others. He focused on the benefits of and process for tenant organization, and the importance of expansion, connection and communication with other organizations at the local, regional or even national levels. Finally, he made a call to understand that the root cause of the problem lies in the profit maximization inherent to capitalism and how although collective organization may be a slow process, it is fundamental for solving the housing crisis problem. 

Ramsay’s speech was followed by Preston Lobzun, for Forest City Solidarity. A community-based mutual defence organization, Lobzun is a Youth Housing Worker and spoke of the challenges of securing housing in the city and made observations on how this has affected the youth in the city. “I won’t say there’s never any success stories, because there are,” he said to the audience with sober optimism, “but what we see a lot right now, is just a lot of young people today are feeling a lot of cynicism that’s pervasive right now in society”. He spoke of their demoralization and the negative impact traditional media and social media narrative has on their understanding of the problem. He then spoke of the failures of the current political parties in addressing the problem and he closed with the importance of unity between organizations and inclusion of different individuals and workers.

After him, came Tabatha for the Spring Socialist Network. The Spring Socialist network aims to focus on learning from past struggles and applying the lessons in socialist politics to build movements and strong socialist organization. Tabatha explained the journey behind starting a London chapter for the Spring Socialist Network noting that the effects of the housing crisis served as a springboard for taking action and organizing. She also highlighted the importance of education and organizing  to bring about true change, and how the recent passing of Bill 60 by the provincial government was a pivotal moment that demands such organization.

Next up were Jordan Smith and Sky McFarlane representing the East of Adelaide chapter of ACORN; a multi-issue, membership-based community union of low- and moderate-income people, ACORN focuses on tenants facing disrepair and bad faith evictions, with over 190,000 members across Canada. The duo had the opportunity to recount the hard and swift work ACORN had to carry out following the original announcement of the Bill 60 and the results of that campaign. “ACORN members sprung into action” Smith described, “Toronto members crashed Ford’s announcement of the bill. Ontario ACORN held a 560 people emergency meeting to educate and mobilize tenants on Bill 60. We launched an online action, generating emails to Ford, the Housing Minister and Conservative MPs, demanding they keep their hands off rent control. We sent 23,000 emails in 3 days”. The end result? In only 3 days after Bill 60 was announced, the Housing Minister removed the provision that would’ve killed rent control. 

McFarlane focused on the situation on the local level, explaining how the refusal by London City Hall to implement landlord licensing, allows for rampant neglect of housing infrastructure in the city and puts tenants in a position where they have to make a choice between their own housing and their own health and safety. This situation only fuels the current housing crisis. McFarlane believes that power lies within the people to see change: “The people who experience these issues are the ones who have to lead this fight. Because we are the experts. We are the stakeholders, not some big-wig consultants who’ve never rented an apartment in their lives”. Their turn was closed by relating a story of absolute success ACORN had with helping the residents of the 1270 and 1280 Webster St in London, and in other apartment buildings across the province of Ontario, to connect and to fight “renoviction” threats by Michael Kline, commercial landlord, and how the collective power of the tenants made that success possible. 

The first section of the event was closed by Aniso Aden, representing the “Mary Ann Shadd Cary Housing Cooperative”, a unified, multi-stakeholder cooperative. Aden started saluting the efforts carried out by the previous organizations and talking about their journey into studying and understanding the housing situation, with an emphasis on community housing, and as a fraction of the London International Socialists. As described by Aden: “A big issue when it comes to developing affordable housing has been capital, which has to be publicly instigated and subsidized and, for co-ops that have the capital to expand, the lack the bandwidth in terms of personnel, to develop further.” She then explained how the unified co-operative model solves this by providing support for issues like funding, capital and institutional support. Finally, Aden spoke of the need for grassroots efforts and providing community viability to be able to develop housing solutions independently.  

Following the presentations by the organizing groups, came a brief recess for community engagement and mingling, casual conversation and the forming of bonds among the people present, where one could feel the energy and interest of the present. “It’s an assembly of several organizations doing this kind of work in London” expressed Monica Joy, a volunteer for Forest City Solidarity, “to try and come up with a way forward of the housing crisis”.

Open Floor Conversations

With the break concluded, the floor was opened for community participation of the attendants to share their experiences, points of view and experiences on the problem; with the goal of starting a process of galvanization of efforts into one cohesive push towards a solution that benefits the city of London. Throughout the discussion, three topics came up repeatedly. Firstly, were the impacts of the housing crisis on people who are struggling financially, who face impossible decisions like having to decide between food and housing. The challenges disabled people have to face presently in terms of the time frame for finding housing, the quality of housing options available to them, the denial of proper financial resources and supports by the provincial government; how these challenges can put the people in them in impossible situations, some as extreme as euthanasia, and the mental impact the housing crisis can have not only on the people experiencing homelessness first hand, but on the people who work with these marginalized communities. Even the people who have just been able to secure housing and need the support to successfully navigate the challenges associated with the secured housing.

Secondly, was the role and impact of the government and the financial capital in the problem. From pointing out the negligence of all levels of government to address the problem in a way that truly supports the common populace, to the insidious influence of real estate developers, who leverage their financial resources into political influence. The discussion highlighted how these powers create a structure that maximizes profits at the expense of the countless people who are affected by the problem. Among the strategies proposed were landlord licensing where landlords pay a per-unit fee in order to operate in the housing market in the city. Also proposed were vacancy taxes to force either affordable rent or to release buildings that can be converted for public housing. Landlord databases can help people have a better understanding of individuals and organizations involved in land-lording and real estate development in the city. Lastly, attendees proposed putting pressure on all government levels to ensure a real solution could be brought forward, while applying that same pressure on corporate landlords so they are exposed for their role in the crisis aggravation: from their funding of entire municipal political campaigns to their speculation on real estate at the expense of local needs.

To conclude there was discussion of various community-oriented methods to tackle the crisis, such as housing co-ops, community land trusts, intentional communities. Attendees highlighted the necessity to separate housing from being a main source of economic development and to recognize and enforce housing as a human right and emphasized the importance of community connection, of unified efforts to bring the presence of unrepresented actors into conversations about the crisis and the vital need of being present for one’s community for the goal of crafting a solution that fits the needs and possibilities of the city of London.