In the Diocese of Toronto’s pre-budget submission to the province this January, we reiterated calls for investments and policies to address these crises.

Poverty reduction

A record one million Ontarians relied on food banks last year, 87 per cent more than in 2019-20, while the number of visits is up 13 per cent over the previous year and 165 per cent since 2019-20. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario found that nearly 85,000 Ontarians were homeless in 2025, up nearly 8 per cent since last year, while northern and rural communities saw homelessness increase by 37 per cent and 31 percent, respectively. Homelessness is also lasting longer, with 53 per cent of people experiencing homelessness in 2025 being chronically homeless.

Both Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) rates fall far below the poverty line, trapping recipients in poverty and driving them into homelessness. As of July 2025, more than 30,000 people on OW and ODSP were experiencing homelessness, up 72 per cent since July 2019. The situation is especially desperate for those on OW, whose rates have been frozen since September 2018, while the cost of living has increased by more than 23 per cent. While the minimum wage and other provincial income support programs are indexed to inflation, OW rates and earnings thresholds have remained stagnant, eroding the value of these benefits. A single person on OW cannot afford a bachelor apartment anywhere in Ontario, much less food, clothing and transportation. This causes greater demand on social housing and benefit programs. Moreover, social assistance recipients who become homeless lose the “housing” component of the benefit, making it more difficult for them to exit homelessness. These factors drive recipients into ever-deeper poverty, contributing to rising homelessness, hunger and demand for social and health services. We call for bringing OW and ODSP rates into alignment with the cost of living, indexing OW rates and earnings thresholds to inflation, and combining the basic needs and housing components of social assistance into one flat rate.

Having a job should keep one out of poverty, yet nearly one in four households using food banks in Ontario this past year cite employment as their main source of income, more than double the percentage in 2019-20. A recent University of Toronto study found that 89 per cent of food-insecure households in Canada have a main income earner in a permanent, full-time job. While the minimum wage is indexed to inflation, it still falls short of a living wage. Low-income workers saw a 14 per cent increase in earnings between 2019 and 2024, yet the cost of household essentials like food, housing and transportation increased by 22 per cent over the same period, leaving them in a widening affordability gap. We urge the government to gradually raise the minimum wage until it approximates the average living wage in Ontario and thereafter index it to inflation.

Ontario’s employment legislation still lacks paid sick leave, which can lead to financial hardship for low-wage and precariously employed workers. Workers must go to work sick or forfeit a day’s pay. Going to work sick has negative public health impacts and can worsen health conditions for employees, leading to potential medical complications, possible job loss and a greater burden on our healthcare system. We call for legislation requiring employers to provide employees with 10 paid sick days per year.

Housing & homelessness

Rent control loopholes, including the exemption on new units, vacancy decontrol and above-guideline rent increases, result in asking rents increasing faster than increases in tenants’ incomes, even above the rate of inflation. They give landlords an incentive to displace tenants and even to demolish existing rental units to build new units not subject to rent control. This results in an overall loss of affordable units, as well as increasing housing precarity among tenant households. Recent legislation exacerbates this precarity, restricting tenants’ ability to preserve their housing and reducing their right to compensation for no-fault evictions. Soaring rents not only require higher housing benefits to bridge the gap between rental costs and tenants’ incomes; they push people into homelessness, which ends up costing us all more. We recommend closing these rent control loopholes, which would stabilize costs not only for tenants but for Ontario taxpayers overall.

As the market cannot provide sufficient affordable housing for low-income tenants and people exiting homelessness, we also need investment in social housing. The waitlist for subsidized housing in Ontario now exceeds 300,000 households, with average wait times of more than five years and as long as 16 years. A proposed “pause” on inclusionary zoning requirements could mean 3,000 fewer affordable units created each year. Without sufficient affordable housing, people are more likely to become homeless and less able to exit homelessness. Emergency shelter cannot keep up – despite shelter bed capacity in Ontario growing by 34 per cent from 2019 to 2024, chronic homelessness grew by 138 per cent in that time.

Unsurprisingly, encampments have proliferated across the province. Yet without available housing, encampments will not disappear. Criminalizing people in encampments overrides their human rights, removes them from supports and does nothing to resolve the underlying issue. Moreover, the cost of jail is approximately three times the cost of supportive housing^.

Without significant intervention, homelessness in Ontario is projected to more than double in the next decade, and more than triple under an economic downturn, which could easily result from the impact of U.S. tariffs. The increase in the number and frequency of Ontarians using food banks is also a predictor of another surge in homelessness. We call for increased investments in homelessness prevention and transitional, supportive and rent-geared-to-income housing, to end chronic and unsheltered homelessness.

Harm reduction

The closure of 10 supervised consumption sites in 2025 has led to increased pressure on remaining sites, drop-ins and other community services, along with an increase in public overdoses and discarded needles. In December 2025, Toronto Public Health reported a sharp spike in overdoses, along with an increasingly contaminated street drug supply. While investments in addictions treatment and supportive housing are welcome, this government’s shift from supervised consumption sites to abstinence-based Homelessness and Addictions Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs is contrary to the advice of healthcare workers and drug policy experts. HART Hubs do not allow supervised consumption, drug-checking or needle exchange – vital services that save lives and promote public health by reducing public needle litter, reducing the transmission of blood-borne diseases and reducing the strain on our emergency services. We recommend reversing the closure of safe consumption sites, ending the ban on new sites and expanding harm reduction services across Ontario.

Climate change

Climate change is leading to more frequent and severe wildfires, floods, droughts and heatwaves. In 2025, wildfires in Ontario destroyed nearly seven times the area burned in 2024, while Toronto saw a record number of heatwaves, putting Ontarians’ health and productivity at risk. Yet this government has abolished the legislative requirement for emissions reduction targets, a climate change plan or reporting on progress to meet those targets. We urge the province to continue to set emissions reduction targets and track progress toward those targets.

Mega-highway projects like Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass will pave over some of Ontario’s best farmland, exacerbate urban sprawl and lead to higher levels of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, costing taxpayers billions without easing traffic congestion long-term. The province is also spending taxpayers’ money to appeal a court decision in favour of bike lanes, while adding new legislative obstacles to municipalities seeking to add this infrastructure. We recommend cancelling the development of the 413 mega-highway and the Bradford Bypass and investing those dollars in expanding and improving public and regional transit. We further recommend reversing plans to remove bike lanes and returning active transportation infrastructure decisions to municipalities.

The province’s energy production policies move us farther from our climate action goals, with gas-fired power projected to account for 25 per cent of Ontario’s electricity supply in 2030, up from 4 per cent in 2017. We call on the province to significantly expand investment in renewable energy sources and storage.

Most recently, this government plans to amalgamate Ontario’s 36 existing conservation authorities, which follow local watershed boundaries and play a vital role in protecting communities from flooding, into seven regional bodies. With climate change already leading to more frequent and severe weather events, consolidation risks disrupting protections for watersheds and downstream communities, reducing local knowledge and representation, and requiring a complex transition process that could cost as much as it saves, without clear evidence of benefit. We urge this government to reconsider the planned amalgamation of Ontario’s Conservation Authorities and instead pursue opportunities to enhance coordination between them.

Ontario needs targeted, coordinated, and sustained action to address these crises and put our province on a path to greater resilience as we face the challenges before us.

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Scientists have long warned that a warming climate exacerbates extreme weather events, contributes to wildfire risk and results in more frequent and intense heat waves. Over 80,000 peer-reviewed studies regarding the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate point to the same conclusion: our addiction to fossil fuels is causing Earth’s climate to heat up at a rate that is increasingly dangerous for human and other created life.

Despite the scientific studies, and even the real-world impacts, we are slow to act. Especially for Canada, the world’s fourth-highest producer of oil and gas, fossil fuel production and export is seen as essential to our economy, with oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines promoted as “nation-building projects” in the face of economic threats. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is not an easy proposition – practically or politically – when so much of our national economy, including people’s livelihoods, is tied up with the oil and gas industry.

Yet Canadians also face existential and economic risks from a changing climate. Warming across Canada has been about twice the global average, and three times higher than the global average in Canada’s Arctic. The climate impacts of worsening wildfires, reduced crop yields, loss of biodiversity, damaged infrastructure from severe weather events, lower labour productivity and negative health outcomes must be considered as well. At the very least, we as a nation must do our part to limit global warming, for the sake not only of people around the world but of those here at home as well.

As Christians, we worship a God who created our world and called it good. We follow a Christ through whom all things were created, in whom all creation is held together and through whom all creation is reconciled. Our General Synod has recognized this in adding to our baptismal vows the call to safeguard the integrity of creation and respect, sustain and renew the life of the earth. Called to love God and our neighbour, we must embody this faith commitment with actions that show our care for God’s creation and all who depend on it, including those who have most to lose from the climate crisis.

There are many ways for us to care for creation and reduce our own carbon footprint, from reducing excess consumption and ensuring that our homes (and parish buildings) are as energy efficient as we can make them, to protecting our local ecosystems and helping to foster biodiversity by planting native trees, shrubs and wildflowers. The global Anglican Communion Forest initiative has seen hundreds of thousands of trees planted worldwide since it was launched at Lambeth in 2022, and our diocese is starting to take part in those efforts.

All these are good and necessary things to do; but they alone are not enough. We must also call on our elected representatives to take leadership and action on a wider scale, to honour the commitments our governments have already made to reduce emissions and limit the rate of climate change. In 2015, 196 countries adopted the landmark Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change, with the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, relative to pre‑industrial levels. Yet, current global commitments fall far short of this, leading to projections of warming by 3 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

Canada is the worst performing of the G7 countries in terms of meeting its targets under the Paris Agreement. Although Prime Minister Carney reaffirmed his commitment to meeting Canada’s climate targets, recent actions by the federal government to jettison or delay many of the policy tools meant to achieve those targets have left open the question of how we as a nation will accomplish our goals.

This winter, as part of your annual vestry meeting, the Social Justice & Advocacy Committee, with the support of the College of Bishops, invites you and your parish to recommit to our vow to safeguard God’s creation and to call on the federal government to enact and implement policies that enable us to meet Canada’s climate commitments. Parishes’ support of this motion will be tallied and included in our diocesan advocacy efforts, but parishes and individuals may also wish to contact their local MPs to express their concerns. We also hope that discussing and considering this motion sparks a conversation in your parish about how you can live out your local commitment to respect, sustain and renew the life of God’s earth, especially in the face of a warming climate. This motion, and our response to it, forms part of our diocesan response to Cast the Net Call #8: “Intensify advocacy and action in response to the climate crisis.”

You can find this year’s social justice vestry motion and related materials at www.toronto.anglican.ca/vestry-motion. The Social Justice & Advocacy Committee also invites you to submit questions on this year’s motion to egoulden@toronto.anglican.ca by Jan. 16, which we will do our best to address in our annual video Q&A.

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The conference was held virtually on Oct. 18 and attracted about 100 Anglicans from across the diocese who learned from a keynote speaker who addressed participants from his homeland, Brazil. Workshops included education and action strategies about reconciliation with First Nations, welcoming homeless people, the basic income movement, community land trusts, and the Communion Forest movement.

The Rev. Dr. Rodrigo Espiuca from our companion diocese of Brasilia wove together a powerful keynote address around the theme of hope, rooting the Church’s social justice ministry in scripture. Dr. Espiuca is a lawyer working in human rights law, as well as overseeing the Brazilian church’s advocacy work and its Communion Forest efforts.

Hope often seems like a luxury, he noted, especially at a time when we face various crises. We are all invited to live in a hope that transcends the circumstances, he said. We are not alone, and we are called to act as agents of hope in our communities.

He cited the example of Abraham, whose faith enabled God’s promise to be fulfilled (Romans 4). “We as Christian people cannot forget the great work Christ makes in our lives through his resurrection,” he said. “We are, brothers and sisters, those who give birth to the resurrection. Resurrection is a school of the Lord, a continuous learning that educates us and reorders us to new life in Christ.”

The companion relationship between the Diocese of Toronto and the Diocese of Brasilia is a sign of resurrection, he said. Other Anglicans from the Diocese of Brasilia joined Dr. Espiuca at the conference, including Bishop Mauricio Andrade.

Dr. Espiuca outlined various ways of making hope real in our lives, and the lives of people in our communities. Hope is an act of resistance that enables us to fight for a more just world, he said. He cited a feminist theologian who said that “to hope is to make space for silenced voices,” such as those of women, gay and lesbian people, and others.

Hope is very much a communal activity, he said, referencing Abraham’s hope as not only involving him personally, but also his family and descendants (Romans 4:18). He cited a Brazilian program to assist people with HIV/AIDS as an example of how the Church works to sustain hope and create safe spaces for people who feel marginalized.

“Jesus shapes our spirituality” he said, and is the model we should strive to follow, in his suffering and resurrection.

Conference participants lauded Dr. Espiuca for his address. Josephine Irving was “thrilled and challenged” by his remarks. The Rev. Canon Andrea Budgey appreciated the range of ways in which we can pursue resurrection.

The Rev. Leigh Kern, the diocese’s Right Relations Officer, led a workshop on reconciliation in which she urged participants to think about how they could work to achieve the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, a decade after their release. She noted that 80 per cent of people living on the streets of Toronto identify as Indigenous. “People who were displaced (by settlers) continue to be homeless. What a crime.” Ms. Kern presented a wealth of resources for learning about progress on the Calls to Action, including calls directed at churches.

The key role of community was highlighted in a workshop about encampment theology, led by the Rev. Canon Maggie Helwig, incumbent of St. Stephen in-the-Fields, Toronto, where a long-time encampment of homeless people was broken up by the City of Toronto. As Genesis says, it’s not good for people to be alone – yet the shelter system isolates people by not allowing them to have visitors and in other ways, she said. She gained so much from the homeless community at her church, who became her friends, she said. “The church is really lonely now.”

The concept of a basic income in Canada has gained support, but as Sheila Regehr, facilitator of a workshop on this topic acknowledged, we’re in a “tough political moment” in terms of gaining government support for it. Ms. Regehr is the chair of the Basic Income Canada Network.

She noted how the need for income support is greater than ever. A recent survey of homeless people revealed that 80 per cent said lack of income was the main reason they were unhoused. Participants at the conference affirmed the desperate conditions many are in. The Rev. Susan Spicer said her parish, St. Luke, Peterborough, began a foodbank program to benefit 25 households, but now more than 80 households take part.

Ms. Regehr countered arguments often given against basic income – specifically, that it will encourage laziness and is unaffordable. She noted that Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot project, held from 2017-2019, supported entrepreneurship, child-raising and volunteer work. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit enacted to provide ongoing incomes to Canadians during COVID-19 affirmed that government can act, if the political will and public support are there.

A workshop on the theology and practice of planting trees, led by members of the Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care, attracted people from across the GTA and beyond. Tree planting efforts have already begun at St. John, Ida and St. Hilary, Cooksville. Planting trees connects us to our primal vocation, which is to care for creation, participants heard. One of the facilitators, the Rev. Paige Souter, emphasized how Jesus said to Nicodemus that God loves the cosmos, so that all of creation is being redeemed, not just humans. (John 3:16-17)

Other workshops focused on community land trusts and on how churches can support housing and shelter in their neighbourhoods, despite community opposition.

Think twice before taking a bite

What’s it actually like to be a temporary foreign worker in Canada, doing the hard labour that most Canadians shy away from?

Outreach and advocacy conference participants got a taste of that through an interactive theatrical presentation called Harvest Justice: Twice the Speed of Lightning. Presented by Mixed Company Theatre, which uses theatre as a tool for social change, the drama depicted the plight of migrant workers from Mexico and Jamaica who are packed into cramped and unsanitary bunkhouses, often enduring unsafe working conditions, abusive treatment and loneliness. Threats of deportation make it hard for workers to stand up for their rights. Meanwhile, workers must pay into Canada’s employment insurance system but can’t collect benefits.

In the play, a Guatemalan arrives in Canada, eager to work and earn what he thinks will be a healthy wage, only to discover that various charges take a big bite out of his paycheque, while he encounters harsh treatment from his boss. Disillusionment sets in. “They give us the jobs Canadians won’t or more likely can’t do,” he says bitterly.

After seeing the play, participants were invited to discuss the issues or play out how they might bring about positive change. Post-play discussion buzzed with comments and action suggestions. The current program “is like indentured labour, right in our midst,” said Tina Conlon, whose first job in Canada involved working as a domestic. “You are exploited because you are desperate,” added the Rev. Claudette Taylor, a deacon.

Elin Goulden, the diocese’s Social Justice and Advocacy consultant, said the situation challenges us to raise our voices through advocacy. “Migrant workers should have the same rights as any worker in Canada,” she said. Our faith calls on us to respond, she added, referring to Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born.”

Ms. Goulden noted that General Synod last summer adopted a resolution on advocacy for migrant workers.

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In 2022, the congregation embarked on a consultation with other local churches and groups to discern how they could respond to needs in the local community. “We wanted to be mission-minded, but we weren’t sure what direction we should be going in, so we invited our partners in the surrounding community into conversation with us,” says the Rev. Helena-Rose Houldcroft, priest-in-charge.

At the same time, Habitat for Humanity Northumberland was working on plans to create seven net-zero emissions townhomes in the village of Baltimore, north of Cobourg. It would be the largest single development of Habitat for Humanity Northumberland, and the largest net-zero project for Habitat for Humanity in all of Canada. The townhomes, now completed, feature heat pumps for heating and cooling, as well as solar panels that feed electricity back into the grid. The build also incorporates Universal Design, making the units more accessible to people with different abilities.

Inspired by the project and its focus on building not just housing but relationships, parishioners at St. George’s looked for ways to help support the build. “We’re a little church that doesn’t say ‘it can’t happen,’ but rather, ‘how can we make it happen?’” says parishioner Sharon O’Connor-Watters. “We are a congregation of seniors, so we might not be much good on ladders, but we’re known for our food! So, we decided to contribute meals for the volunteers on team-build days.”

St. George’s provided lunches and snacks for the building teams on 14 build days. Deacon Barbara Russell invited other parishes, including St. Peter, Cobourg, St. John the Evangelist, Port Hope and St. Andrew United, Grafton, to participate as well, contributing an additional six days of food.

Cathy Borowec, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Northumberland, estimates that St. George’s saved the teams over $5,000 in meals. “It was great food and a real boost for the volunteer build teams,” she said.

St. George’s also raised funds for the build. The church bought decorated shortbread cookies as part of Habitat’s Thanksgiving cookie drive and handed them out at its Christmas bazaar to help promote the project. In December 2023, Deacon Russell’s husband, Gary Russell, built a scale model of the townhomes in gingerbread, taking first prize at Habitat Northumberland’s Gingerbread Festival fundraiser that year. Part of the prize was a gift certificate for food preparation, which Mr. Russell donated back to Habitat to provide meals for volunteer teams. St. George’s Men’s Breakfast group also ran three pancake brunches. Through these fundraising efforts, the parish raised more than $10,000, in addition to the value of the meals provided. Individual parishioners also made contributions to the project.

While $15,000 is already a significant contribution from a small rural parish, the value of St. George’s contribution went far beyond money. “It wasn’t just about the food or the money, but about building relationships – with volunteers, with Habitat, with other churches, with local representatives, with our neighbourhood,” says Rev. Houldcroft. “When we were serving the food, we were also sitting down with the volunteers and having conversations. We got to meet some of the future residents, and it was such a privilege to hear them talk about what the project meant to them.” The seven families moved into the townhomes this May.

While discussion of Canada’s housing crisis often focuses on urban settings, Deacon Russell stresses that the need is great in rural areas as well. “The price of housing has really gone up. We have family homes being bought up for use as short-term rentals, creating a real shortage of affordable family housing. What’s nice about the Baltimore build is that it’s not some sprawling subdivision taking up arable land, but a compact and family-friendly community.”

Eva Leca, another volunteer from St. George’s, drives by the townhomes regularly. “Each time, it brings me a sense of joy that we helped make it happen,” she says. “Talking about ‘the housing crisis’ or ‘charitable giving’ can be abstract, but this build is local and tangible. For me, and for our parish, it’s important that we direct what we have to needs in our community.”

Rev. Houldcroft says the parish is committed to being involved again, especially if there is another rural build. The project drew together not only those who regularly attend church but the wider community in support of Habitat for Humanity Northumberland, and the parish knows it can build on that wider support.

Asked for advice for other parishes, Deacon Russell says, “Know your strengths, and apply them to your passion.” Rev. Houldcroft agreed, noting that churches can offer gathering places for people to come together and address the needs of the community. “We don’t always use our spaces to their full potential in a way that strengthens communication and interrelatedness. But when you have a space, you can build conversations.”

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After many years of advocacy, we were pleased to see the launch of a national housing strategy in 2017, enshrined in the National Housing Strategy Act of 2019. The act recognizes the importance of housing to the social, economic, health and environmental wellbeing of Canadians, and affirms Canada’s commitment to housing as a human right. At the same time, however, the act follows three decades of lack of public investment in housing, especially in “social” or subsidized housing geared to those living on low and moderate incomes. During that time, the rise of short-term rentals and investment vehicles created to maximize profits from residential housing put additional pressures on the housing market. Meanwhile, public policies that exacerbate housing unaffordability persist at all levels of government.

In fall of 2023, the diocese’s Social Justice and Advocacy Committee presented a motion in support of the human right to housing for parishes to consider at their 2024 vestry meetings. The motion called on the federal government to target subsidies and incentives to projects that met clear conditions on affordability and eviction prevention, as well as to end the favourable tax treatment of real estate investment trusts. It called on the provincial government to extend rent controls and vacancy controls on all rental housing, to restrict above-guideline rent increases, and it urged the province to work with municipalities to enact and enforce restrictions on short-term rentals.

Despite the complexity of this vestry motion, it was widely supported across the diocese. Of the individual calls, the one that attracted the most support was that of closing provincial rent control loopholes, including the exemption on units first occupied as rental housing after 2018, vacancy decontrol, and the lack of restriction on above-guideline rent increases. Seventy per cent of the parishes in the diocese supported the need to close these loopholes.

The strong response to the vestry motion led to further housing advocacy, both by the diocese as a whole and by individual parishes. Several parishes wrote to their local MPPs, outlining their support for stronger rent controls and limitations on short-term rentals. As the Social Justice and Advocacy consultant, I raised these issues in an interfaith conversation between faith group representatives and staff of (then) provincial Housing Minister Paul Calandra, as well as in our response to the 2024 provincial budget. Our diocese joined the non-partisan Fair Rent Ontario campaign (https://fairrentontario.ca/) last fall and was featured as a public endorser of the campaign on its social media on Christmas Eve. We raised housing issues in both of our provincial and federal election resources earlier this year and sent a letter to the Prime Minister and new federal housing minister that outlined our support for greater investment in public and non-profit housing.

Despite sustained advocacy, efforts to shift housing policies have met with limited success. Combined supports from federal and provincial governments have helped create new affordable and supportive housing, and the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit helps tens of thousands of households across the province maintain a roof over their heads. But Ontario tenants continue to face lack of rent controls in newer units, as well as vacancy decontrol and back-to-back rent increases. Housing starts are well below the province’s own targets, and few of the new units are affordable to low or moderate-income residents.

With static social assistance rates and wages failing to keep pace with rising rents, it is hardly surprising that homelessness has skyrocketed in recent years. A report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in January found that homelessness in Ontario had risen 25 per cent from 2022 to 2024 and will get much worse without significant intervention. It is thus discouraging to see the rise of a punitive approach to homelessness, from Barrie City Council’s attempt to criminalize outreach to unhoused people in 2023, to neighbourhood backlash against shelters and supportive housing in Toronto, to the province’s Bill 6, which imposes heavy fines or jail time on people forced to seek shelter out of doors.

Still, Anglicans across the diocese continue to advocate for shelter and housing: speaking out at town halls, sending letters to local council meetings, and contributing funds and volunteer hours to local land trusts that help preserve and maintain affordable housing in their neighbourhoods. Some have created programs to welcome new shelter and supportive housing residents in their communities. Others such as St. George, Grafton (see related article) have partnered with local organizations to support the building of new affordable housing.

Responding to the housing crisis is not a quick fix. It will take every sector of society to contribute to creating communities where no one goes without the dignity and security of a home. But in advocacy efforts from federal to local, in supporting initiatives and organizations that create housing, and in fostering a public conversation supportive of housing for all, each of us can play a part.

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Meanwhile, four other safe consumption sites in Toronto have been closed, along with five more across Ontario, and the funding, scope and nature of the government’s much-touted HART Hubs remains obscure. As far as we know, some are beginning to operate, but our only experience with them so far is having one person who had asked for rehab services refused because he didn’t have ID, a bar that is likely to exclude most unhoused people.

The Toronto Drop-In Network, an umbrella group for drop-ins for unhoused and marginally housed people, asked us, before the sites were closed, to begin collecting statistics on the number of overdoses at our sites. Based on the data from the drop-ins that submitted information most consistently, they recorded a 288 per cent increase in overdoses during June 2025 as compared to March 2025, before the sites closed.

Most of these numbers represent people who survived thanks to intervention by drop-in staff and others, but staff and volunteers, often unprepared and sometimes inadequately trained, are more and more traumatized, and because many drop-ins are not allowed or able to have oxygen tanks on site, people who overdose are sometimes hypoxic for periods long enough that they are likely to suffer permanent brain damage.

I don’t want to make this a story about myself, but it is hard for all of us to remember times we’ve been in the church’s yard, leaning over someone whose lips have turned blue, wondering if we can get them back, while people shout and cry in the background and someone is checking the time and calling, “Two minutes… two and a half minutes…” as we try to decide whether to give another dose. It is a world away from the calm, supportive atmosphere I’ve seen at the overdose prevention sites. And while our neighbourhood’s site is still operating (at least as I write this in August), there are fewer sites, and more people. They cannot be open around the clock, and they cannot be funded for the expansions of their operations that are really needed.

I mention St. Stephen’s yard because, inevitably, the encampment there has grown again, as others are cleared and many people are pushed into more remote, hidden locations as the city continues to try to make suffering as invisible as it can – because people with homes complain about being required to witness suffering, and people with homes are the people whose voices are heard. Some people have lived in our yard for years because there is no indoor space that will accept them. Others come for days, or weeks, or months, and sometimes if they wait long enough, they get a shelter space – never housing. But since human beings cannot wait nowhere, it has been a space, a place where they can rest, something like a stable point. Our outreach worker cleans wounds and changes dressings, walks people to the hospital, and tries to navigate the bizarre maze of city bureaucracy required for someone to be considered “housing ready.” This week, we learned of three deaths, one of them a sweet and troubled soul who had been part of our community for more than a decade, who had wept in the arms of one of our lay anointers once at Pentecost, whose last words to me had been, “I don’t go out much anymore. People just aren’t nice anymore.”

Some of our neighbours blame us because people are still sleeping outside, because people use drugs, because people have no options, as if this were a state of affairs the church actively desired and was striving to maintain. It is hard to be the focus of discontent for people who may have been friends, and who need to blame someone for a disintegration of our society that seems to be beyond anyone’s control.

Across Canada, and in the United States and the UK, various pieces of legislation are bringing us ever closer to waves of forcible confinement of all those who don’t fit neatly into the economic engine that is our society – sometimes under the guise of “treatment” without consent and of indefinite duration.

I am finding myself more and more often quoting Lawrence, the third century deacon in Rome, who, when bidden by the Imperial prefect to hand over the treasures of the church, gathered up the poor and ill and homeless people in his community and declared, “These are the treasures of the church!” (Adding, according to some accounts, “You see, the church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor.”)

We need to retrain ourselves to see this. We have been taught that they are frightening, dangerous; we have been taught that they are bad and dirty and making wrong choices. Sometimes things are noisy. People are suffering, people are not well, they do not have the space or safety or health they deserve, and they wear that lack on their bodies. And certainly, human beings make wrong choices on a very regular basis. But I have been welcomed in this space for years now, and I can only say that whatever it may cost us, these are the treasures of the Church. And we are here to cherish them. For if there is no one else in the world to care, then we – and our colleagues at the Overdose Prevention Site, and all the other people still struggling on – must be the ones. And far richer, in that, than Trump or Musk or anyone else can ever be.

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The keynote speaker will be the Rev. Dr. Rodrigo Espicua – Anglican priest, environmental and human rights lawyer, coordinator of advocacy strategies for the Diocese of Brasilia and the Communion Forest facilitator for the Americas.

“The idea for this collaboration with our companion diocese, the Diocese of Brasilia, came out of two things,” says Elin Goulden, the Diocese of Toronto’s Social Justice and Advocacy consultant. “The first was a conversation I had with Fr. Rodrigo as part of the companion diocese meetings last December. I was struck by how similar the ecological and social justice challenges we faced in our two dioceses were, despite our very different contexts. The second was the successful joint theology day seminar held by the two dioceses last March. The online format and simultaneous translation made it possible for Brazilians and Canadians to listen and learn from each other.”

Ms. Goulden hopes that translation can be offered for at least some of the sessions so that members of the Diocese of Brasilia can join in the event, though at the time of writing these details were yet to be confirmed.

The middle part of the day will feature a range of workshops on current justice issues. The diocese’s Right Relations coordinator, the Rev. Leigh Kern, will lead a session on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action a decade after its report. Where are we today, and what is still needed to make reconciliation a reality? The Rev. Canon Maggie Helwig, whose book Encampment: Grace, Resistance and an Unhoused Community was published this spring, will speak on the theological implications of coming alongside people living in encampments.

As more and more people face homelessness, it seems as if fewer neighbourhoods are willing to accept the shelters and supportive housing needed. A panel of three – a United Church minister and two laypeople, one United and one Anglican – will speak from their own experiences of helping to create welcoming communities, starting at the parish level. Meanwhile, as tariff wars and the rise of AI send shockwaves through the economy, the idea of a basic income is gaining traction, a proposal that will be explored by Sheila Regehr, founding member of the Basic Income Canada Network.

The reformer Martin Luther is believed to have said, “Even if I knew the world would go to pieces tomorrow, I would still plant a tree.” The Anglican Communion Forest movement invites dioceses and parishes around the world to do the same, as a practical and symbolic act of hope, helping to preserve biodiversity, provide habitat and help to address climate change. Members of the diocese’s Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care will explore the theology and practice of growing trees at the conference.

In other workshops, community activist Kevin Barrett will speak on the work of Community Land Trusts as a vehicle for economic and housing justice, drawing on his own experience as a founding member of the Kensington Market Community Land Trust. Another afternoon session, “Harvest Justice,” invites participants to engage with a theatrical depiction of the injustices and challenges faced by migrant agricultural workers in Canada, and to imagine a different way, one that would treat these essential workers with dignity. The Mixed Company Theatre will put on this performance.

At the end of the day, there will be an opportunity for participants to come together, share what they have learned and lift up each other and their respective ministries in prayer.

This exciting online day of learning is offered free of charge to participants. Plan to attend; perhaps you can join as a group for a parish “watch party.” For more information and to register, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/outreachconference

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While the Sunday nearest June 20 is often observed as National Indigenous Day of Prayer, for several years our diocese has encouraged parishes to choose another Sunday in the month before World Refugee Day to highlight the important work of refugee resettlement. Our first Refugee Sunday was proclaimed by Bishop Asbil in 2021. Since 2024, Refugee Sunday has gone nation-wide, with the invitation now coming from the Primate’s office. Alongside Hope (formerly PWRDF), which provides support to the 15 Canadian dioceses that are Sponsorship Agreement Holders with the federal government, has compiled resources for parishes that wish to observe a Refugee Sunday at www.alongsidehope.org/refugee-sunday.

For more than three decades, our diocese has partnered with the Anglican United Refugee Alliance (AURA) to resettle refugees. AURA and the diocese are joint signatories of a sponsorship agreement with the federal government, allowing us to sponsor some 80 or so persons per year, providing them with practical and emotional support during their first 12 months in Canada. AURA staff work tirelessly to match parishes with refugee cases and to prepare parishes and volunteers for the work involved in welcoming and supporting refugees in that first year, all while navigating the labyrinth of federal regulations and paperwork on our behalf. AURA staff also represent us in meetings with other Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAHs) and in the network of Anglican SAHs supported by Alongside Hope.

Even parishes that have limited financial or volunteer capacity can play an important role in refugee sponsorship as “support parishes.” In such cases, AURA staff connect parishes with local community groups and/or family members of the refugees to be sponsored, who contribute all or much of the financial and practical support. The parish holds and disburses the funds for the sponsorship and can get involved in other ways as it’s able. With the current federal government “pause” on all private refugee sponsorships except those done by Sponsorship Agreement Holders, this is an important way our parishes can step up to help welcome people who are fleeing for their lives.

The numbers of people worldwide forcibly displaced due to conflict, violence and persecution have increased rapidly every year since 2012, to a record high of 122.6 million in 2024. This figure includes more than 43 million refugees. More than two-thirds of them are hosted in neighbouring countries, many of which are also low- and middle-income countries. For many of these refugees, resettlement in another country is their only long-term hope to survive and thrive. Sadly, this increase in need has coincided with a rise in xenophobic rhetoric that blames immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers for social issues such as a lack of housing – which owes more to decades of domestic policy decisions than to incoming refugees.

Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people are reminded to treat strangers and foreigners as the native-born among them. As followers of Jesus, who himself was a refugee as a child in Egypt, we are called to welcome the stranger as if welcoming Christ himself. This includes rejecting language that dehumanizes anyone, especially those fleeing from horrors most of us here in Canada can only imagine. Rather, we can recognize the gifts and talents refugees bring to our communities and find ways to support them. As we help them rebuild their lives, they in turn help build up our communities.

Please consider setting aside a Sunday this month to pray for and celebrate refugees. If your parish is not already involved, consider reaching out to our ministry partners at AURA to find out how you can be part of the ministry of refugee resettlement in the Diocese of Toronto.

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The results of the motion are heartening, considering that this year’s motion was somewhat more controversial than many past social justice motions. In the lead-up to the vestry motion campaign, some clergy and lay people expressed concern that the motion might be seen as “enabling” substance abuse. However, as parishes engaged with the motion and the materials provided by the Social Justice and Advocacy Committee, most came to see supporting harm reduction not as opposing treatment, but as offering a full continuum of care – indeed, providing an on-ramp for people who use drugs to access all sorts of health and other supports, including treatment. Several parishes made this connection explicit by adding language urging the province to increase access to addictions treatment along with protecting and expanding harm reduction services.

Another concern expressed early on was that this motion wouldn’t gain traction outside Toronto, since the only sites in the diocese slated to be closed by the province’s new legislation were in Toronto. In fact, over half of the parishes supporting the motion were located outside Toronto, and more parishes voted in favour of the motion in the Oshawa and Peterborough deaneries than in any other deanery. Anglicans clearly recognize that the overdose crisis affects people in communities of all sizes across Ontario, and that the ban on new supervised consumption sites means that people in communities without those life-saving services will continue to go without them.

One of the things that helped many parishes come to grips with the issues behind the motion was inviting a speaker on the topic. I made presentations at St. Martin, Bay Ridges, St. Martin in-the-Fields, Toronto, and St. Peter, Erindale. The Rev. Barbara Russell, a member of the Social Justice and Advocacy Committee, spoke at her home parish of St. George, Grafton and at St. John, Bowmanville. Andrew Neelands, a parishioner and volunteer at St. Stephen in-the-Fields, was invited to speak at Grace Church on-the-Hill, while Keren Elumir, a parishioner of Church of the Resurrection and a nurse at the Moss Park consumption and treatment site, made a presentation at St. James Cathedral. All those parishes ended up passing the motion. Several other parishes, including All Saints, Collingwood, expressed thanks for the video Q&A and other resources provided by the Social Justice and Advocacy Committee.

Not all parishes embraced the motion, of course. Some clergy admitted that they hadn’t presented it this year, as they anticipated enough difficult discussions at vestry without adding the topic of harm reduction. A few parishes indicated that they had opened the topic for discussion but had decided not to put it to a vote.

That doesn’t mean that the conversation stops. On March 6, about 50 people from different church denominations attended a discussion hosted by Little Trinity called “Faith With Substance,” billed as a “theological and practical conversation about drug use and supervised consumption sites.” The Rev. Angie Hocking, one of the event’s organizers and presenters, described it as a success, saying it helped provide a safe space for people with concerns to have a theologically informed conversation about these issues.

“People said they learned a whole lot – new perspectives and things to consider that they had not known about before our evening together,” she said. “There was an optional naloxone training at the end of the event, which most people stayed for and were eager to learn how to help save a life worthy of saving.” Other parishes that have not passed the motion are also looking at ways to learn more about the issues.

On March 28, Justice John Callaghan of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted an interim injunction allowing the 10 supervised consumption sites set to be closed by provincial legislation to remain open, pending his review of the Charter challenge to that legislation. In his decision, Justice Callaghan said the harm to users of the sites that could result from closures outweighed the harm to the public on a time-limited basis while he considers the Charter challenge. “It is foreseeable that many more will overdose, and some of those will die,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said the ruling will not change the province’s plans. Nine of the 10 sites had applied for funding to continue some of their operations under the province’s new HART (Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment) hub model, and the province has made it clear that HART hub funding is contingent on the sites not seeking to continue offering supervised consumption services. In practice, those sites may not be able to continue functioning without provincial funding. The Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site (KMOPS) will continue to operate on donations, as it has done since 2018.

The diocese continues to press for the reinstatement of harm reduction services as part of a comprehensive approach to public health. A template letter that can be used to advocate with the premier, the health minister and your local MPP can be found on the diocesan website at www.toronto.anglican.ca/vestry-motion.

While we are grateful for every parish that passed the motion, the success of the social justice vestry motion is not about how many parishes vote for it, but whether we as a diocese can have informed and faithful conversations about difficult issues facing our society. The opioid crisis is not something that happens to “those people over there.” Many of us, our friends and family have been touched by this crisis in one way or another. Knowing that each person has inherent value and dignity in the eyes of God, may we seek together how we can bring life, not harm, for each of our neighbours.

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