Tell City Council: Fix What’s Broken
Let’s begin to invest in communities by passing the city budget
City Council will vote on the 2024 City Budget on February 14. For the first time in over a decade, the proposed budget includes significant investments in essential services that millions across our city depend on, including affordable housing, shelters, transit, and more.
But some City Councillors want to cut services and impose austerity. Use our petition to tell the Mayor and your local Councillor to protect services by voting yes to the budget.
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What’s in the 2024 budget?
The Mayor’s Budget was released on February 1. It announced significantly more funding for services that Torontonians rely on and an 8% property tax increase: which will cost homeowners an average of ~80 cents more per day. In the past, the budget was ineffectively balanced on the backs of transit riders, tenants, and other city service users, while property taxes were kept artificially low at the expense of our city.
Toronto is falling apart, and by paying slightly more we can begin to make critical investments. The proposed 2024 budget begins to do just that. There are historic investments in protecting affordable housing, supporting tenants, investing in shelter and respite services, transit, youth programming, frontline services, and more.
Why do you need to take action?
This budget is a welcome change from city budgets in the past. While we have a mayor who has demonstrated a keen desire to invest in our city, Mayor Chow has inherited the same City Council that passed previous Mayor John Tory’s budgets.
Conservative City Councillors are looking to cut services and impose austerity, or redirect the funds to the existing $1.3 billion police budget. That’s why we need to make sure this budget passes at City Council without any cuts and without increasing the already well-funded police budget.
City Council votes on February 14 and to win this budget, it means that a majority of councillors need to vote yes. Tell your City Councillor and Mayor Chow to support this budget.
Investments in affordable housing and renter support
Unlike the past, this proposed budget has responded to the demands and needs of renters. There is a historic investment in programs to keep tenants housed (like the rent bank), programs to support tenants facing evictions or unfair rent increases, and MURA (the multi-unit residential acquisition program) that protects existing affordable housing and prevents them from being converted to luxury condos.
Nearly half of all the residents in Toronto are renters, and with soaring rents and precarious housing, it’s time that a city budget addressed the needs of tenants. As Toronto Star columnist Matt Elliott shared in his article:
“This kind of emphasis on support for Toronto’s renter population is a clear shift from the Tory era, where homeowners tended to get most of the attention at budget time.”
But we still need to pass the budget to support tenants. Tell your City Councillor to support this budget’s investments in renters and affordable housing.
What does this budget do for shelters and drop-ins?
On February 2, after months of campaigning, together we won $163 million from the Federal Government to help shelter and support newly arrived refugees, with more money pledged for the rest of the year. This will help not only refugees who have been left out in the cold, but also increase capacity to help shelter anyone who needs it.
This federal money is on top of $200 million from the New Deal with the province, and the proposed budget will mean:
$31 million for the City’s Winter Warming Response Plan
$35 million for shelter services
$1.4 million for daytime drop-in services
Hundreds of millions of dollars in shelter funding doesn’t only mean better services but also will allow the City to acquire and build more shelter spaces to increase desperately needed capacity. While there’s more to be done, this is an important first step.
Conservative councillors are looking to impose austerity by cutting spending and that means they need to hear from you. Use our tool to send a message to your local councillor and the mayor to let them know you demand that they invest in shelters.
On Transit: Scarborough Busway, Fare Freeze, and Better Service
The 2024 proposed budget includes:
A fully funded Scarborough Busway
Fare freeze
Begins to restore TTC service
For decades TTC fares have increased faster than the rate of inflation, with either little to no improvement in services. Last year, then-Mayor John Tory increased transit fares, but cut service by 9%. This is unacceptable, and important work done by advocates like TTCriders means that the changes in this budget have been made possible.
To meet our climate goals and to effectively move people, we need much deeper investment in the TTC. The proposed 2024 budget offers a different way forward on transit which begins to invest in services, critical transit infrastructure, as well as freezing fares.
This is the first step that sets us up for bigger investments in the future. Now, City Council needs to vote in favour of the tax increase to fund critical services like transit.
More investments in libraries, recreation, Community Crisis response, and more!
There are a number of other important investments in the budget that will improve the lives of residents across our city. Including:
Long-term care to ensure that those using the services are safe and well supported
Library services will be expanded, meaning select branches will have Sunday hours
Toronto Community Crisis Service that will expand 24/7 service across the whole city and allow residents to call for help in mental health crises
Creation of youth hubs and spaces
Investment in the student nutritional program
Additional funds to hire more community recreation workers, improve leadership and employment training for youth and re-ignite hybrid registration to youth programming
Using funds saved from the Gardiner to fix potholes, community centres, parks, and more
You can learn more about what else is included in the 2024 budget by following Social Planning Toronto’s blog here.
The City’s budget also includes $59.7 million more for the police budget. While we support many things in the budget, we do not support this. The police are campaigning to increase their budget by an additional $12.5 million—this would push their 2024 increase to over $70 million. An amendment to this budget to accommodate the $12.5 million increase would mean that money would have to be taken from somewhere else in the budget. That’s why the Mayor and your Councillor need to hear from you to ensure they vote yes to the budget as is–without cuts to services or an additional increase to the police budget.
There’s a lot to celebrate in this budget and it comes on the heels of years of hard work from advocates. While there’s still much more to be done, this is the first step. Tell your City Councillor vote yes to the budget and invest in our city.