Applications Rise For Social Housing By Families Fleeing Violence In Toronto

a poster advertising October as domestic violence month

Victoria Gibson, who reports on affordable housing for the Toronto Star, has been watching the numbers of applications for social housing during 2020. The number of new households that applied actually went down in 2020, compared to 2019. As Gibson points out, this doesn’t hold true for people who fleeing domestic violence. In this group, the number of new applicants rose for the fourth straight year.

The sources Gibson interviews attribute the rise in the number of applications to the economic effects of the COVID safety measures as well as stay at home directives. Rising housing costs mean that families seeking new housing simply cannot find private rental housing that is affordable, so they add their names to the public housing   waiting list that is pushing 90,000 households.

There is one glimmer of good news in this story. People experiencing domestic violence get priority consideration on the waiting list. In 2020, the number of families waiting in this category and who moved into social housing was actually higher than previous years. The policy preference given to families experiencing domestic violence is actually happening. It’s nowhere near enough to meet the need, but at least the word is being honoured in the deed.

Since domestic violence received a lot of attention at the beginning of the pandemic, Gibson’s investigation ought to be of interest in other jurisdictions.

You can probably read Gibson’s coverage in full here1: Torontonians applying for social housing to escape domestic violence soar during COVID-19

Footnotes

  1. The Star has not been applying its paywall to articles about COVID.