Social Justice Advocacy

Our Mission Statement guides all of the activities and outreach that we do both within the church and in our community around us.

As part of this mission we attempt to fulfill this point:

• Care and advocate for the lonely and marginalized

Through our Social Justice Advocacy efforts, we work to raise awareness of the issues that face our community.

Homelessness in South Etobicoke

One of our current projects is looking at housing in the neighbourhood.
To this end, Sandra and Helen gave a presentation to Eculinks churches in the area at All Saints Kingsway. Here’s the link to that presentation: https://youtube.com/live/3BGROvSUBFk

Other actions include:

• Active support and engagement with the fledgling South Etobicoke Land Trust.
• Sending out regular updates on the housing crisis along with templates for letters to elected representatives at all three levels of government to parishioners and others who have asked to be so informed.
• Budget 2024 – a deputation to the City’s Budget Committee pointing out that those facing homelessness must travel to other parts of the city or into Mississauga for assistance. There is a lack of shelter space and warming centres in Etobicoke. The deputation requests that a portion of the budget line for these services be allocated to finding and establishing a warming centre and shelter space for men within Etobicoke.

As part of our 2024 Vestry motion this spring, we passed the motion calling on both the province and federal governments to take concrete steps to address housing in Canada. To assist in this we have arranged these downloadable templates for you to fill out and mail in to your provincial and federal representatives:

• Federal letter
• Provincial letter

Refugee Crisis Response

Helen Gill and Sandra Fawcett would like to bring to your attention the urgent need for co-ordinated action on the crisis in City shelter space.

Many have seen the media coverage concerning refugees and asylum seekers sleeping on the street outside the shelter intake office, through smoke, heat waves and monsoon-like rain because there is no room in shelters. This problem exists in addition to the ongoing lack of shelter for homeless people in the GTA and beyond.

While in a joint statement issued Wednesday morning, July 19, 2023, Mayor Chow and Premier Ford said that Ontario and Toronto are each providing $6.67 million as a one-time funding top up to the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit to get more people into permanent housing and quickly free up spaces in the shelter system and the federal government announced $97 million would be given to Toronto, these are just stopgap measures. As of December 2023 only one third of the federal monies promised have been delivered. An additional $60 million is needed to address the needs of the 2023 refugees. A comprehensive plan to address growing shelter needs of both refugees and homeless people in our province is required.

You can act by:

• Speaking Up to your federal, provincial and municipal representatives to say you expect better coordinated care of refugees coming to Canada, including housing.
• Standing Up by offering space to refugees in your home through Romero House, which runs a matching program.