Dear friends,

The City of Toronto's Executive Committee will be meeting on April 20 to decide the fate of a number of working committees. One of the committees being recommended for cuts is the City's Tenant Defence Fund.

The FMTA is very concerned about the elimination of this committee.

The Tenant Defence Fund subcommittee is the primary resource for councillors to learn about the trends uncovered by FMTA activity. Councillors will no longer hear from people in the field who deal with tenant issues directly.

The TDF subcommittee was also the committee to go to for ‘special grant requests'. Such requests will now have to go directly to council without the proper background, input and debate from the committee. This debate will now occur at council and can often be lengthy.

Most importantly, the aim of the TDF sub-committee is supposed to be ensuring tenant defence. In a time when several reports are being released (3 Cities; Vertical Poverty; Tower Renewal in Golden Horseshoe) the City is dropping an opportunity to expand the mandate of tenant defence and is instead eliminating it as an area of interest. In a City with a 50% tenant population, we think many people would challenge the priorities of council if this were to occur.

If you would like to depute at the Executive Committee to promote keeping the TDF subcommittee, you can contact:

Frances Pritchard
10th floor, West Tower, City Hall
100 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5H 2N2
email: [email protected]
phone: 416-392-6627
fax: 416-392-1879

Requests to depute should be made by 4:30pm the day before the committee meets.

The full report can be found here:

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2011.EX5.3

Here's the link to the City's website about what the Tenant Defence Fund provides for tenants.

http://www.toronto.ca/housing/about-tenant-defense.htm

Sincerely,

Geordie Dent
Executive Director
Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations