Renovictions by-law
By Roman Kowalczuk, 25 Problems administrator. Last minor updates were made here on Tuesday October 1st
Recap: the city's consultations around a renovictions by-law... apparently continued with a Zoom meeting on Sept. 9. The FMTA had sent a terse e-mail with a link to the city's pages at toronto.ca/community-people/housing-shelter/rental-housing-tenant-information/.. - this link may no longer work.
Muddling things a bit, one of the councillors (who does not sit on the housing sub-committee) then sent out an official-looking e-mail "update" on that skipped a lot of key information like the Sept. 9 event, and a thing that the city put on at Metro Hall on Friday Sept. 13
The Sept. 9, "Zoom" part of the process started with some technical glitches. In my own case I had several devices going, and I managed to make some recordings and screen shots - to be posted.
The Friday Sept. 13 event was a bit more straight forward: you went to Metro Hall and staff interviewed you for your priorities and how you felt about the situation.
The city hired a consultant to "chair" or guide the Zoom event; he was at Metro Hall on Sept. 13 and I talked to him for a few minutes.
One problem I've noticed with the city's "virtual" activities (and also some partisan meetings that councillors have going) is that the Rules of Order is the first thing that goes flying out the window. Because...? And the "controls" and records and processes for the participants and what they see and hear are never the same, and too many times they don't make any sense.
So as sort of workaround during the Zoom thing I had several devices running and wouldn't you know it... for me the various screens were not exactly the same!
Just as an example during the early glitches one person began serving as a temporary "guide" to help people understand what was going on; my cell phone screen flashed the long "new meeting number" faster than I could type it in and for several minutes the "guide person" read the new number out *faster than I could record it* onto a piece of paper. Meanwhile the "main event" was rolling along with pretty much zero mention of the troubles that would-be participants were experiencing. When I spoke to the consultant at Metro Hall he was categorical - no records of their talk were kept or would be made available, but he directed me to a movie of the slides that they were projecting on a screen... so from this we can infer that someone, somewhere *does* have a Powerpoint or similar file saved.
Here is a quick, very raw recording that begins about 32 minutes into the event: https://25problems.com/video/20240909-1st-recorded-clip-1932h.mp4
At least one caller told a sad story of falling through cracks in the city's safety net.
The final slide was a bit cryptic. Too bad the information was not prepared in English!
I don't remember seeing the phrase "Open House" during the discussion, but I could be wrong. And there was a visible effort made by staff to not mention the "D" words - demolition and demoviction.
After everyone had left (!) the final screen for Monday's event encouraged particpants to "keep the discussion going" (sic) but there were zero links to suggest how this might be done.
The city's pages also contained a link to survey that was not hosted at Toronto dot C A. At Metro Hall, staff had this survey (which is not very comprehensive, not by a long shot) running on tablets and they gave me some hard copies. They also had some other stuff, NONE of which had been referenced by the FMTA or (as far as I know) the city councillors.
So that is where things stand. I'm still working on my various recordings, audio and video.
The report by city staff is to go to city council later this month. The housing sub-committee meets on October 30th. - Roman
Other notes:
Summer 2024 council agenda item (Planning and Housing sub-committee of Toronto City Council)
June 2024 letter from Geordie Dent to the city's housing committee (PDF)
Spring 2023 Letter from Michael Whitehead to the city's housing committee (PDF)
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/202 ... 169766.pdf
Recap: the city's consultations around a renovictions by-law... apparently continued with a Zoom meeting on Sept. 9. The FMTA had sent a terse e-mail with a link to the city's pages at toronto.ca/community-people/housing-shelter/rental-housing-tenant-information/.. - this link may no longer work.
Muddling things a bit, one of the councillors (who does not sit on the housing sub-committee) then sent out an official-looking e-mail "update" on that skipped a lot of key information like the Sept. 9 event, and a thing that the city put on at Metro Hall on Friday Sept. 13
The Sept. 9, "Zoom" part of the process started with some technical glitches. In my own case I had several devices going, and I managed to make some recordings and screen shots - to be posted.
The Friday Sept. 13 event was a bit more straight forward: you went to Metro Hall and staff interviewed you for your priorities and how you felt about the situation.
The city hired a consultant to "chair" or guide the Zoom event; he was at Metro Hall on Sept. 13 and I talked to him for a few minutes.
One problem I've noticed with the city's "virtual" activities (and also some partisan meetings that councillors have going) is that the Rules of Order is the first thing that goes flying out the window. Because...? And the "controls" and records and processes for the participants and what they see and hear are never the same, and too many times they don't make any sense.
So as sort of workaround during the Zoom thing I had several devices running and wouldn't you know it... for me the various screens were not exactly the same!
Just as an example during the early glitches one person began serving as a temporary "guide" to help people understand what was going on; my cell phone screen flashed the long "new meeting number" faster than I could type it in and for several minutes the "guide person" read the new number out *faster than I could record it* onto a piece of paper. Meanwhile the "main event" was rolling along with pretty much zero mention of the troubles that would-be participants were experiencing. When I spoke to the consultant at Metro Hall he was categorical - no records of their talk were kept or would be made available, but he directed me to a movie of the slides that they were projecting on a screen... so from this we can infer that someone, somewhere *does* have a Powerpoint or similar file saved.
Here is a quick, very raw recording that begins about 32 minutes into the event: https://25problems.com/video/20240909-1st-recorded-clip-1932h.mp4
At least one caller told a sad story of falling through cracks in the city's safety net.
The final slide was a bit cryptic. Too bad the information was not prepared in English!
I don't remember seeing the phrase "Open House" during the discussion, but I could be wrong. And there was a visible effort made by staff to not mention the "D" words - demolition and demoviction.
After everyone had left (!) the final screen for Monday's event encouraged particpants to "keep the discussion going" (sic) but there were zero links to suggest how this might be done.
The city's pages also contained a link to survey that was not hosted at Toronto dot C A. At Metro Hall, staff had this survey (which is not very comprehensive, not by a long shot) running on tablets and they gave me some hard copies. They also had some other stuff, NONE of which had been referenced by the FMTA or (as far as I know) the city councillors.
So that is where things stand. I'm still working on my various recordings, audio and video.
The report by city staff is to go to city council later this month. The housing sub-committee meets on October 30th. - Roman
Other notes:
Summer 2024 council agenda item (Planning and Housing sub-committee of Toronto City Council)
June 2024 letter from Geordie Dent to the city's housing committee (PDF)
Spring 2023 Letter from Michael Whitehead to the city's housing committee (PDF)
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/202 ... 169766.pdf