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Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

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Michael Shapcott

Toronto affordable housing sets yet another all-time record

Toronto’s affordable housing wait list hit another new record in August with 86,604 households on the full list – up 27% from the 68,369 households in August of 2011. Toronto’s affordable housing wait list includes 159,965 women, men and children with low incomes who are lining up for a space in the 10% of city housing that is neither private ownership nor private rental housing. This includes Toronto Community Housing Company homes, plus co-op and non-profit housing. The city’s wait list has set a new record every month since the recession of 2008 and the big shortage of affordable housing underlines the urgent need to preserve and enhance every available affordable home. Councillor Ana Bailao’s special TCHC working grouphas recommended a financially sustainable plan to save almost all the 619 affordable TCHC homes that have been targeted for sell-off to the private markets.

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Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott is Director, Affordable Housing and Social Innovation at Wellesley Institute. Michael has worked extensively in Toronto, in many parts of Canada, nationally and internationally on social innovation, the non-profit sector, civic engagement, housing and housing rights, poverty, social exclusion, urban health and health equity. He is recognized as one of Canada’s leading community-based housing and homelessness experts. He is currently on secondment to the Princes' Charities Canada.

Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Revised by the Ceremonial Committee at the University of Toronto Office of Indigenous Initiatives in April 2021.