We were proud this year to unveil our new vision, mission, and values. The Board of Directors and staff worked on these for months, trying to capture in writing our essence and why we exist.

Vision

An equitable, inclusive, and accessible Toronto — shaped by the diversity of its residents and rooted in social and economic justice.

Mission

Social Planning Toronto challenges inequity in our city — through knowledge generation, debate, civic engagement, advocacy, and collaboration — to spark social and policy change.

Values

• We are committed to equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism.
• We respect the rights, knowledge, protocols, and traditions of Indigenous peoples.
• We are independent and non-partisan.
• We are stronger through our work with partners.
• We are accountable to the community.
• We ground our work in the lived experiences and expertise of local communities.
• We are persistent and proactive, recognizing change is often a long process.
• We value evidence-based decision making.

These words must of course be translated into action. We will be using this new mission and vision to guide important decisions and will hold ourselves accountable to each of our eight values. As part of the membership renewal process this year, we asked our organizational members to indicate their support of our mission and vision and to commit to our values.

We hope these words resonate with you too.

Housing was a big newsmaker this year, and an area of great concern and focus for us. There were some big windows of opportunity for the City of Toronto to significantly advance affordable housing and meet its own commitments to treat housing as a human right. While some gains were made, we fell short in many ways. From encampment clearings led by police using excessive force to a generation-long wait for affordable housing to the lack of political will to legalize rooming houses across the city, our City Council has shown a lack of leadership and commitment to centering residents in addressing the immense housing crisis facing our City.

We made clear during budget season that while the City should continue to advocate for more support from higher levels of government to address pandemic-fuelled shortfalls, we continued to shed light on the fact that our city has had longstanding funding issues. It relies too heavily on status quo property taxes and user fees. Years of chronic under-investment in community infrastructure and social supports have left gaping needs — in crisis services, child care, and more. We've been advocating for a long time — and will continue to — that the City should expand its revenue sources.

In December 2020 Council approved a Vacant Home Tax, to come into effect January 1, 2022. A staff report submitted to Mayor Tory's Executive Committee estimated 9,000 to 27,000 vacant houses in the city — enough to house every person in a shelter and encampment.

A year later, the Executive Committee has recommended that Council allocate tax revenues towards affordable housing initiatives (Council will consider the item at its December 15 meeting).

Anyone who can afford to leave a home vacant while thousands are unhoused should pay a hefty price for that privilege. But despite pressure from community for a 3% tax — proven effective in Vancouver — Council approved only 1% of Current Value Assessment when it set the rate for the new tax at its July 2021 meeting. No one moved to increase the tax to a higher rate. Councillor Ana Bailão moved that staff report by the end of 2023 on how the tax is working and whether it should be increased. If 1% proves too low to pressure speculators to put vacant properties on the rental market — as was the case in Vancouver — let's hope that Council can be convinced to triple it to 3% by 2024.

But a Vacant Home Tax is just one tool in a toolbox of taxation powers defined in the City of Toronto Act (2006). In the lead-up to the 2021 budget, we continued to push for more City revenue opportunities — including a commercial parking levy that could earn the City of Toronto nearly $500 million per year, increasing property tax rates above the rate of inflation, restoring the vehicle registration Tax, and increasing the Municipal Land Transfer Tax (MLTT) on luxury homes.

Torontonians were depending on Council for investment in services, programs, and infrastructure to not only address their immediate health and survival needs during the pandemic, but also to begin our city’s recovery from it.

The draft 2021 budget failed to respond to the dire emergency impacting communities across our city as the pandemic ground on and threatened to set the city back a decade by gutting an already under-resourced capital budget to address shortfalls. In response, we organized 50+ community organizations to submit an open letter to Mayor John Tory and Council urging them to focus the budget on inequality, move resources to where they were most needed, and develop a budget that addressed the urgent, unmet needs of residents.

We reminded Council of the 10 principles for a bold, green, and just recovery that we submitted in April 2020, and of the vision articulated by thousands of residents and organizations who took part in the 2020 Toronto Office of Recovery and Rebuild’s consultation process. The 2021 budget summary all but ignored both.

When Council passed the 2021 City budget, it had made few changes to the original staff-recommended (draft) budget.

Besides our usual budget advocacy — including working with communities to increase understanding of the budget and publishing our City Budget Watch blog — we also tried something new for this first COVID budget: a People’s Budget Platform.

During the pandemic, the City’s deputation process only allowed residents to make verbal deputations using a digital device or phone. Council members couldn't even see the speakers.

As an alternative, we piloted a People’s Budget Platform on Zoom so residents could share their ideas and hopes for a bolder, more equitable 2021 City Budget face-to-face with each other.

We were thrilled that all but one of the participants made their first-ever deputations to the Budget Committee. A summary of participants' budget requests was also shared with the Budget Committee and Mayor John Tory’s office.

Learn More:

• Open letter to Mayor John Tory and Council
• "City Budget Matters 101" backgrounders on key issues the city was facing and what Council could do to make a difference:
  • municipal revenues
  • poverty reduction
  • affordable housing
  • nonprofit organizations
• Analysis: City Budget Watch blog
• MLTT Op-Ed: Higher tax on luxury home sales would ease housing crisis
• The People's Budget Platform and summary report

Sparked by the Toronto Transit Commission's development of a 5-Year Fare Policy and 10-Year Fare Collection Outlook in partnership with York Region Transit (YRT), SPT examined one of the fare options under consideration — distance-based transit fares within the city of Toronto.

Our equity analysis showed that implementing distance-based fares within Toronto would negatively impact working-age people in the inner suburbs, who are largely racialized and immigrant residents. We recommended that the TTC Board eliminate the fare-by-distance option from consideration and ensure that, if any regional zone system is implemented, only one fare is required to travel within the City of Toronto.

The TTC Board's debate on a staff report on fare options has been delayed until its February 2022 meeting. This is a great opportunity for residents and groups to speak up in support of building a more equitable transit system. We'll be deputing based on our analysis.

Learn More:

• Our research: Distance-based transit fares don’t measure up: A picture of inequity in five maps
• TTCriders’ research: “Transform the TTC! Pandemic recovery fare policies for a thriving transit system”

Take Action:

• Join TTCriders and Scarborough Transit Action
• Sign TTCriders’ "Transform the TTC!" petition

In February our senior researcher, Beth Wilson, and community planner Saroja Ponnambalam spoke to Global News about  the city's affordable housing crisis and fear of eviction among racialized communities.

Racialized communities disproportionately experience overcrowded housing, compared to non-racialized communities. That combined with fear of losing jobs and housing — both already precarious — has made these communities disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19.

Also in February, our 2018 report Talking Access & Equity: A Profile of City of Toronto Residents Who Speak Neither Official Language was used to call for greater language supports in Toronto's vaccine rollout. CTV news picked up on a tweet from University Health Network's Tai Huyhn about this, giving us a chance to advocate for more accessible and inclusive communication in order to increase vaccine trust in vulnerable communities.

And throughout the year, we coordinated a series of trainings and peer-to-peer support sessions for a few hundred Toronto Community Ambassadors conducting vaccination outreach in diverse neighbourhoods across Toronto as part of the City-supported Vaccine Engagement Teams initiative. The resident ambassadors played a critical role in supporting other residents to overcome barriers to getting vaccinated and in addressing vaccine hesitancy and have become an important element of our city’s public health infrastructure.

Each training session was attended by more than 100 ambassadors. As one participant stated about the trainings,

Watch the video below to hear more Community Ambassadors share why they got involved in this crucial part of the City of Toronto's vaccination outreach strategy.

Learn More:

• Global News article: ‘Tired of the word resilience’: Canada’s racialized communities navigate ongoing pandemic,
• CTV News video: COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
• Toronto Public Health's COVID-19 data on neighbourhoods

SPT has helped hundreds of residents strengthen their communities by hosting trainings and development workshops for recipients of Neighbourhood Grants. This City of Toronto program allows resident leaders, grassroots groups, and resident-led groups to make changes they want to see in their communities by planning events and taking action with their neighbours.

Obviously, the pandemic meant that grant recipients had to cancel events planned for 2020. But since September 2020 and over the past several months, we've been working with grantees to support them in turning their in-real-life ideas into online events, and offering specialized training (e.g., Zoom, planning online events, and making online spaces engaging) to ensure their success.

In 2021 we offered 28 trainings to Neighbourhood Grants recipients on topics including rapid response to mental health crises, Zoom, anti-Black racism, City Hall, Indigenous cultural competency, and more. In the film below, participants talk about the impact the trainings had on their community work.

We also partnered this year with the City of Toronto's Community Crisis Response Program (CCRP) on a pilot to work with local safety networks to enhance supports for vulnerable Torontonians impacted by violent and traumatic incidents related to shootings, stabbings, community conflict, gun/gang related activity, and raids in their communities.

The Safety Network Development Pilot is focused on enhancing community capacity to support local leadership and mobilization around community violence. SPT's role has been to help build the capacity of CCRP-supported safety networks through a trauma-informed, culturally appropriate lens. These community-based networks — each comprising local agencies, residents, youth, and other stakeholders — not only support communities to heal after violent incidents but also proactively identify local safety and wellness priorities and develop responses to them.

Over the summer and fall of 2021, SPT delivered a series of workshops covering 10 topics, including resident leadership, media communications, conflict resolution and mediation, anti-oppression, and network sustainability. The pilot has engaged over 380 participants in the workshops and has provided funds for safety networks to develop local safety projects and support resident leadership roles.

The pilot wrapped up with a year-end event on December 8 that brought safety networks across the city together to collectively reflect on strengths, opportunities, and aspirations in building strong and sustainable safety networks.

Learn More:

• The Neighbourhood Grants Program
• Safety Network Development Project

The pandemic has highlighted how critical public spaces are to community wellbeing and should be available for use by residents. In Ontario, our schools are one of the most abundant sources of public space.

As school boards gradually allow communities use of their facilities again (while following provincial and local public health unit requirements), it is critical that we prioritize community use of schools in the re-opening and re-building process. In mid-November the SPACE Coalition released a briefing note and recommendations. SPT is an active member of the coalition and enthusiastically endorsed Maximizing Community Use of School Space: Preparing for A New Normal, along with partners at YMCA Ontario, GBC Canada, and the Community Sports Councils of Ontario.

Learn More:

• Brief: Maximizing Community Use of School Space: Preparing for A New Normal

In a complex environment like the Downtown East, communication between different sectors and stakeholders is vital to ensuring a common understanding of trends and community needs, and to enabling coordinated action. Through the Downtown East 2023 Action Plan, the City of Toronto set out to intentionally foster collaboration amongst diverse partners, including City Divisions, local service providers, institutions, businesses, residents, and other community members.

Throughout 2021, Social Planning Toronto worked with the City’s Social Development, Finance & Administration division to assess current levels of trust and collaboration and to identify how the Downtown East Action Plan can better support trust and collaboration going forward. This evaluation research, which will inform the City’s future work in this area, emphasized the time, resources, and commitment needed to build and maintain trusted relationships — a helpful reminder for all of us working in the nonprofit sector.

A new planning process is underway to develop hundreds of acres of lands in the Downsview area over the next 30 years. Led by the Canada Lands Company, Northcrest Developments, and CreateTO, the development project will see the Downsview Parklands transformed into a 520-acre, mixed-use neighbourhood featuring new housing, retail, commercial, institutional, and community uses (including a Netflix film studio). This massive development — roughly the size of Toronto’s downtown core — is likely the largest in North America.

The Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN) is leading a campaign for community benefits agreements (CBAs) in the development, ensuring the community benefits from these new infrastructure projects.

SPT is working with TCBN to host community information and engagement sessions to keep the people of Downsview Park and surrounding communities informed and to create a shared vision for a community benefits framework. We are also part of a Community Resource Group that is advising developers on equity considerations.

Take Action:

• Campaign: Join TCBN's CBA campaign

We were saddened to learn of the passing on June 6 of Liane Regendanz, former Executive Director of St. Stephen's Community House and 2012 Frances Lankin Award recipient.

Ten years ago, John Campey, SPT's Executive Director at the time, founded the annual Frances Lankin Award to honour Frances Lankin on her retirement from United Way Toronto. Over the past decade the Award has recognized nonprofit leaders, both long-time and emerging.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Frances Lankin Award, we created a website looking back at all of the remarkable recipients and recognized new award recipients for 2021.

On October 5, we supported the Toronto Nonprofit Network in celebrating our sector's critical role in responding to the pandemic on Toronto's second Not-for-Profit Recognition Day.

While many nonprofit organizations have provided necessary and life-saving support to residents across our city throughout the pandemic, this year's Not-for-Profit Recognition Day included special recognition of grassroots (volunteer-led) organizations, collectives, and community groups, who have been at the forefront, serving their communities and supporting clients.

Learn More:

• The 2021 Frances Lankin Award
• About Toronto Nonprofit Recognition Day
• Impact stories and profiles from grassroots organizations, collectives, and community groups 

Early in the year we joined Toronto Neighbourhood Centres, Black Lives Matter Toronto, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and 19 other anti-racist and civil liberty groups to call for a better response model for 911 calls dealing with homelessness, mental health, gender-based violence, and youth crime.

In a report titled “Rethinking Community Safety: A way forward for Toronto,” our coalition suggested that community-driven interventions in such cases would lead to better outcomes for marginalized communities and reduce police spending by 25%.

Learn More:

• Report: Rethinking Community Safety: A way forward for Toronto
• News article: Community Groups Want The TPS To Reallocate $340 Million & Change Who Responds To 911
• News article: Adding civilian services could defund Toronto police by 25 per cent, report finds
• News article: Up to $340M could be diverted from Toronto police with civilian services to handle calls instead: report
• News article: Civil rights group urges Toronto to reallocate more than $250M spent on police

We also released a statement condemning anti-Asian hate, gender-based violence, and the marginalization of migrant sex workers after the Atlanta, Georgia, spa murders on March 26, 2021. Sadly, Anti-Asian hate crimes have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and our own city accounted for about a quarter of the more than 600 incidents reported nationally between March 10 and December 31, 2020.

Learn More:

• Our statement: SPT stands in solidarity to #StopAsianHate and demand #MigrantSexWorkerJustice

We all know that many of the people most at risk of COVID-19 are working in jobs without paid sick leave and basic employment supports. As part of the Faith in the City coalition, SPT helped prepare a letter to the Premier demanding paid sick leave for Ontario workers and gathered signatures from 120 multi-faith leaders. Although the Province introduced a three-day paid sick leave program in late April, the program is set to expire on Dec. 31.

Learn More:

• Letter: Multi-faith leaders demand paid sick leave for Ontario workers

The Canadian House of Commons by Scazon, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. 

Although our focus is the City of Toronto, Federal and Provincial decisions have very local implications.

In April, we analyzed the 2021 federal budget to break down what its investments in nine issue areas (childcare, seniors and long-term care, affordable housing, wages, income supports, nonprofits and charities, Black and Indigenous communities, and youth) meant for local residents and community organizations.

Canada’s 44th Federal Election took place in September. To support voters' decision-making we took a look at parties' commitments around affordable housing, child care, income security and decent work, truth and reconciliation, and racial justice.

We also joined the Canadian Vote Coalition, the only non-partisan voter engagement campaign in Canadian history, and endorsed the Vote Housing campaign, a national non-partisan campaign to end homelessness and make housing safe and affordable in Canada.

Learn More:

• Blog post: What does the 2021 Federal Budget include for communities and nonprofits? Investments in nine important issues
• Blog post: Local implications of the federal election: Some highlights
• Campaign: Canadian Vote Coalition
• Campaign: Vote Housing

In a pre-budget submission we called on the Province to address the disparities exacerbated by the pandemic and to prioritize communities and nonprofits. When the Province released its 2021 budget in March, we took a look at the good news and the bad for Toronto residents, communities, and nonprofits from this second provincial pandemic budget.

Learn More:

• Blog post: Ontario needs a budget that invests in people and public services
• Blog post: 2021 Ontario Budget: Provincial Government Once Again Fails Communities and Nonprofits