The Budget Committee Needs to Hear From YOU

We are often asked if deputing or speaking to the City of Toronto’s Budget Committee makes a difference. Our answer to that is a resounding “Yes!” Over the past few years, we’ve seen significant and historic investments in urgently needed areas to support tenants, make transit more affordable and accessible, and enhance vital community services. This would not have been possible without us all raising our collective voices.

Each year, the Budget Committee hosts public meetings where community members are invited to share their feedback, concerns and thoughts on the staff proposed city budget. This year, these meetings are taking place in-person and online on Tuesday, January 20th (City Hall & North York Civic Centre) and Wednesday, January 21 (Scarborough Civic Centre & Etobicoke Civic Centre).

In the fall, Social Planning Toronto met with our budget coalition—a group of over 150 community and grassroots organizations to identify key and urgent priorities. Based on input from the coalition, we sent a letter to Mayor Chow asking her to prioritize urgently needed investments and prevent any cuts to services.

We are pleased to see this year's budget delivers funding for many key services that support vulnerable Toronto residents:

Increased Tenant Supports & Eviction Prevention

Additional funding of $2.6 Million for the Toronto Rent Bank to support a total of 2,800 households in 2026 to maintain their housing.

An additional $996,500 in funding (fully funded by user fees paid by landlords) to increase staffing and the roll-out of colour-coded RentSafeTO ratings to 3,600 buildings to increase accountability and keep buildings clean, safe and well-maintained.

Support & Equity for Unhoused Residents

New capital funding of $209.4 million, to prioritize design and construction of eleven new shelter sites that were acquired in 2024 and 2025
Continued city funding to ensure water bottle distribution to unhoused residents living outside in the summer time, after a private donation ended this program
$7 Million to harmonize wages for workers in city-funded nonprofit shelters

Strengthening Community Services

2.5% inflationary increase to the Community Partnership and Investment Program (CPIP)
An additional $2.6032 million to expand local community arts and culture programs and support existing programs through an inflationary increase
Expansion of school and camp food programs to 155 new school communities supporting approximately 62,000 students and 96 new camp nutrition locations with snacks for approximately 60,000 campers
Toronto Public Library’s third year and final phase of Open Hours Plan to 17 more libraries, with all 100 branches operating 7 days a week by Summer 2026
Expansion of the Social and Crisis Support Service to 4 more libraries to provide short-term counseling, mental health supports, and other crisis interventions.

Climate & Transit Equity

TTC fare capping (where riders stop being charged after a certain number of rides have been reached each month) providing 2.1 million net new free rides and a significantly lower monthly cost for the Fair Pass transit program for low-income residents
Third year of TTC fare freezes (no increase)
Enhanced Toronto Community Crisis Service, responding to incidents of people experiencing a mental health crisis on the TTC
$1M to expand the air conditioner pilot program to more seniors and families with infants
New Green Infrastructure Incentives and Rain Barrel Programs

What’s Missing?

While the other orders of government need to step up significantly to support renters, the unhoused, and other residents struggling with the affordability and climate crises, Toronto has made significant strides in these areas recently. Given the level of multiple crises, there is always more that needs to be done. Building on SPT’s and our partners’ analysis from our Housing Advocacy Workshop and Budget Town Hall (recording to come), here are our collective calls for additional investments needed.

Increased Funding & a Sustained Capital Commitment for MURA

The City’s Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition Fund (MURA) is a city-funded program where nonprofits can access funding to purchase rental units that are at-risk of market rent increases, converting units into permanently affordable rental housing. The City has committed $46.8M in the 2026 City Budget. Additional investments could ensure that all qualifying MURA applications can be funded in order to protect more affordable housing stock. This investment could be funded through a further increase in the Vacant Home Tax, for which Toronto ACORN has been advocating (as well as additional funding secured from the federal government).

Increased Funding for the Toronto Tenant Support Program and EPIC

In addition to the announced increase in funding for the Rent Bank, more funding is needed for programs that help tenants to negotiate with their landlords or navigate the Landlord and Tenant Board (such as the Toronto Tenant Support Program and Eviction Prevention in the Community). They are tremendously successful city programs that have grown over the last 3 years. With the rollout of the Multi-Tenant Home policy (rooming houses), and the Rental Renovation program, tenants need even more support to negotiate through these complex systems and access housing benefits.

Accessibility in the Emergency Shelter System & New Affordable Housing

Toronto’s disability community has raised concerns about the inaccessibility of the current shelter system. The City’s Capital Plan indicates that projects to bring shelters in line with AODA standards are behind schedule. The City also has made commitments to ensure that new affordable housing units meet the needs of people with disabilities, but they have made no clear targets in their housing strategy on the number of units that will be fully accessible or include universal design.

Ongoing Support for Youth, Childcare, and Community Safety

Approximately $6.9M in federal funding that supports violence and community safety is set to expire by the end of 2026, putting at risk vital community programs that have been supporting youth violence prevention, community safety, and youth employment. The City needs to have a plan in place to continue the programming that this funding paid for and invest further in youth employment. In 2023, the City committed to increasing youth jobs in the city, the loss of this funding could worsen the outcomes for youth in our city.

Achieving Transit & Climate Equity

City Council has made incredible investments in transit recently and is well on the path to addressing transit equity by initiating fare capping and continuing to freeze fares. These investments need to continue, with an accelerated timeline, and be made available to seniors and students.

The City of Toronto has committed to establishing a Maximum Temperature by-law to protect tenants from extreme heat. This is an important step to protecting vulnerable residents, such as seniors, young children and people with disabilities, but it will require the city to continue to invest in programs like the air conditioner pilot and move faster towards implementation and scaling up programs. Toronto ACORN and the Toronto Environmental Alliance have done extensive advocacy to move this policy forward.

Drop-ins & Supports for Unhoused Residents

Investments in drop-in services have increased by $679,000, which is welcome news for staff and organizations dealing with significant increases in service demand and complexity. It is not yet clear what these specific investments are intended to support. As the Toronto Drop-in Network shared, ideally the increased funding will go to support increased wages for workers, who have some of the lowest wages in the homelessness sector, and to meet the ongoing requests from the sector for more staffing roles that meet the complex care needs of drop-in users (i.e. nursing, personal care, overdose response, etc.).

The Toronto Shelter and Support Services budget is facing a decrease in funding, in large part due to the decrease in the number of refugees in the shelter system and the planned closure of the hotel shelters, which are costly to operate. While there is a decrease in the demand for shelters, the City continues to turn away at least 125 people from shelters every night and this budget has no plans to reduce these numbers. Provincial decisions, such as decreased protection for renters, rising rents, closures of supervised consumption sites, the increased financialization of housing, and criminalization of homelessness will undoubtedly have an impact on the shelter and drop-in sectors. While the City has stepped up to address these challenges created by the provincial government, the homelessness crisis continues and City Council must commit to ensuring that every single person needing a shelter bed can access one every night of the year.

High rents, weakened tenant protections, youth unemployment, and growing poverty are affecting all of us

Across our city, we know that our communities are struggling. We’ve included some links below that highlight some of the recent stats on the challenges facing vulnerable Toronto residents:

This year’s City Budget makes important investments to address some of these challenges, but it will not be enough to respond to the struggles that many families and individuals are experiencing. The provincial and federal governments need to step up. The City of Toronto could reallocate funds from the police budget to increase investments in vital community programs and services.The 2026 increase to the Toronto Police Services budget is $93 million, one of the highest in recent years, bringing their total net operating budget to just over $1.4 billion. Crime rates continue to decrease. 2025 saw the lowest homicide rate in fifty years. As other needs in the city grow, City Council must be accountable to this rapid growth in spending and consider how these funds might be better spent investing further in community infrastructure, safety, and wellbeing, and addressing the affordability and climate crises.