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DRAFT COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS & ADVOCACY MOTIONS

Derived from MAIN-POLICY-001 (50 Recommendations)

The Campaign for a Regenerative Ontario | Regenerative Toronto | By The Unknown Soldier

Document ID: MAIN-POLICY-002

⚠️ STATUS: DRAFT — NOT YET MOVED AT COUNCIL

This document is a discussion draft only. It has no legal or procedural standing. It is intended for: - Citizen assembly deliberation and amendment - Public comment and refinement before any approach to a sitting councillor - A starting template that a sponsoring councillor's office would still need to redraft into the City Clerk's required format before introduction

What's still needed before this could be formally tabled: a sponsoring (and ideally seconding) councillor; City Legal and Financial Planning review of fiscal estimates; confirmation of which Standing Committee has jurisdiction for first reading; and formatting to the City Clerk's current motion template (which changes periodically — do not assume the structure below matches the live template exactly).

How to use this for citizen assembly deliberation: Each numbered operative clause below is written to stand alone. A citizen assembly can discuss, amend, endorse, or strike any single clause without needing to accept or reject the whole resolution — this mirrors how Council itself can "sever" a clause from an omnibus motion for separate vote.

RESOLUTION 1 — DIRECT MUNICIPAL ACTION

Matters within City Council's existing authority — no provincial or federal action required

Moved by: [councillor name — TBD] Seconded by: [councillor name — TBD]

WHEREAS the City of Toronto's 2025 budget for shelter and homelessness services totals $897.957M (Toronto Budget Committee, January 2025), and the system housed only 4,344 people from shelter to permanent housing in 2024, a 26.7% decline from 5,927 in 2023 (TSSS 2026 Budget Notes); and

WHEREAS the Toronto Auditor General's 2022 audit of emergency shelters found that 770 chronically homeless shelter clients had previously been successfully discharged to housing and subsequently returned to the shelter system, indicating a structural failure in post-housing support rather than a failure of housing placement itself; and

WHEREAS the City's own 2025 Strategic Plan stakeholder consultation found that only 6% of 176 surveyed stakeholders believe homelessness services have improved over the past five years, with 66% reporting services have worsened (What We Heard, April 2025); and

WHEREAS the matters below are within the City of Toronto's existing legal authority and require no action by the Province of Ontario or the Government of Canada to implement;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT City Council direct the General Manager, Toronto Shelter and Support Services, and the President and CEO, Toronto Community Housing Corporation, to report back within [90 days] on implementation plans for each of the following:

  1. Fix TCHC Vacancies. Develop and report a plan to reduce the TCHC unit vacancy backlog (reported at approximately 2,200 units) to a defined target within 24 months, using existing capital reserves before requesting new funding. (REC M-01)

  2. Outcome-Based Purchase-of-Service Contracts. Amend the City's standard POS shelter contract template to tie a portion of contract renewal and any performance bonus to documented 12-month housing-stability outcomes, with risk-adjustment for client acuity at intake, beginning with the next RFP cycle. (REC M-02; extended further by Resolution 4, Clause 4 below)

  3. Centralized Coordinated Access. Direct TSSS to complete integration of all City-funded shelter and outreach intake into a single Coordinated Access system with one client file followed across every touchpoint, eliminating duplicate intake processes across operators. (REC M-03)

  4. Quality By-Name List for All Chronic Homeless. Direct TSSS to extend "Quality By-Name List" status (currently achieved only for veteran homelessness under Built for Zero Canada) to the full chronically homeless population within 18 months. (REC M-04)

  5. Scale the Rent Bank. Increase the Toronto Rent Bank's annual budget from $10.8M to a minimum of $25M, and activate an automatic outreach trigger upon receipt of a Landlord and Tenant Board N4 (rent arrears) eviction filing, subject to data-sharing agreement with Tribunals Ontario. (REC M-05)

  6. No-Discharge-to-Homelessness Protocol — City-Operated Facilities. Adopt a binding policy that no person shall be discharged from a City-operated health, corrections-adjacent, or care facility without a documented housing plan, effective immediately for facilities under direct City authority. (REC M-06)

  7. Open-Book Accounting and Sunset Clauses. Require all shelter and homelessness-service POS contracts above $1M annually to publish quarterly financial reports (revenue, overhead, reserves) and include a maximum 5-year sunset clause triggering outcome-based renewal review. (REC M-07)

  8. Redirect HSCIS Capital to Modular Housing — Conditional on Sustained Oversight Fixes. Direct staff to report on redirecting a minimum of 25% of remaining unallocated Homelessness Services Capital Infrastructure Strategy (HSCIS) capital toward modular permanent supportive housing units, where consistent with existing site commitments and contingent on TSSS/CreateTO publicly confirming completion of the Auditor General's outstanding 2023 Modular Housing Initiative recommendations before any new modular contracts are signed — the City's own June 2023 audit found that program 63% ($33M) over its adjusted budget due to insufficient pre-construction planning. (REC M-08)

  9. Annual Functional Zero Progress Report. Amend the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan, prior to its adoption, to include: a numeric chronic-homelessness reduction target; annual independent third-party assessment; and a public quarterly dashboard benchmarked against Built for Zero Canada communities. (REC M-09)

  10. Implement the Auditor General's Own Already-Accepted Warming Centre Recommendations. Direct the General Manager, TSSS, to report publicly, by name, on implementation status against all 15 recommendations from the Auditor General's February 2025 Warming Centres and Winter Respite Sites audit before winter 2026/27, and direct that the Auditor General's Recommendation 15 (system-wide financial review beyond winter programs) be completed and reported back within one budget cycle. Note: TSSS management has already formally accepted all 15 recommendations — this clause requires reporting and enforcement, not new policy. (REC M-10)

  11. Extend the New-Contract Wage Floor to Existing Shelter Operators. Direct TSSS to report on extending the $53,000/year minimum front-line staff wage requirement — currently applied only to new Purchase-of-Service shelter contracts — to all existing POS contracts at next renewal, indexed annually. (REC M-11)

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the General Manager, TSSS, report to the Economic and Community Development Committee on the financial impact of each clause above prior to implementation, noting that Clauses 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10 are estimated to require no new operating funding beyond existing budget envelopes (Clause 10 potentially recovers funds per the Auditor General's own findings), based on prior staff reporting.

Financial impact: No new funding requested for most clauses in this resolution. Clauses 5 and 8 involve reallocation of existing capital/operating budget lines, subject to confirmation by Financial Planning. Clause 11 (wage floor extension) cost is not yet quantified — scale depends on how many existing operator contracts currently pay below the $53,000 floor — and should not be assumed cost-neutral.

RESOLUTION 2 — PROVINCIAL ADVOCACY

Requests to the Government of Ontario — Council cannot compel these, but may formally request them

Moved by: [councillor name — TBD] Seconded by: [councillor name — TBD]

WHEREAS the Ontario Auditor General's 2021 Value-for-Money Audit found that "Ontario does not have a comprehensive, coordinated provincial strategy to prevent and reduce homelessness," and the AG's 2023 follow-up found 40% of the resulting recommendations showed "little or no progress"; and

WHEREAS Ontario Works has been frozen at $733/month for a single adult since 2018, now representing approximately a quarter of full-time minimum-wage income, down from approximately 70% in 1990 (Ontario Regulation 134/98; Feed Ontario, 2019); and

WHEREAS the Province reduced the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit allocation to Toronto from $38M (2024) to $19.75M (2025) to $7.95M (2026) — a 79% reduction in two years — despite Mayor Olivia Chow's September 26, 2025 letter describing COHB as "the single most effective tool we have for freeing up beds in our shelter system" (City of Toronto correspondence); and

WHEREAS Bill 28, the Homelessness Ends with Housing Act, a private member's bill requiring a 10-year provincial homelessness strategy with targets and timelines — substantially similar to AG Recommendation 1 — was defeated by the governing party in the Legislative Assembly in late 2025;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT City Council formally request that the Government of Ontario:

  1. Raise OW to Housing-Adequate Levels. Increase the Ontario Works single-adult rate to a minimum of $1,500/month, indexed annually to inflation. (REC P-01)

  2. Raise ODSP. Increase the Ontario Disability Support Program rate to a minimum of $2,000/month, indexed annually. (REC P-02)

  3. Restore and Protect COHB. Restore the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit allocation to Toronto to no less than its 2024 level, remove any policy linkage between COHB funding and encampment-clearance conditions, and commit to multi-year funding stability. (REC P-03)

  4. Implement a Provincial Homelessness Strategy. Adopt and publish a provincial homelessness strategy with specific actions, measurable targets, and defined timelines, fulfilling Ontario Auditor General Recommendation 1 (2021), five years overdue as of this resolution. (REC P-04)

  5. Legislate No-Discharge-to-Homelessness. Enact legislation prohibiting discharge from any provincial correctional, health, or child welfare facility without a documented housing plan, with corresponding implementation funding. (REC P-05; see also Resolution 4, Clauses 1–3)

  6. Repeal or Reform the Safer Municipalities Act. Repeal or substantially reform the Safer Municipalities Act (S.O. 2025, c.5) to remove provisions criminalizing encampment residence absent a guaranteed housing alternative, noting the Act was passed without invoking the Charter's notwithstanding clause and remains open to constitutional challenge. (REC P-06)

  7. Reverse Bill 23 Damage. Restore municipal authority over inclusionary zoning and rental-replacement policy weakened by the More Homes Built Faster Act (Bill 23, 2022), and compensate municipalities for documented development-charge revenue losses. (REC P-07, consolidated with REC S-08)

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the City Clerk forward this resolution to the Premier of Ontario, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, and all Members of Provincial Parliament representing a Toronto riding.

Financial impact: None to the City directly — this resolution is an advocacy request to another order of government.

RESOLUTION 3 — FEDERAL ADVOCACY

Requests to the Government of Canada

Moved by: [councillor name — TBD] Seconded by: [councillor name — TBD]

WHEREAS the federal Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP), which reimburses Toronto for sheltering refugee claimants, fell from $261.87M (2024 actual) to a budgeted $97M (2026) — a reduction of approximately $165M in two years (TSSS 2024 Annual Report; TSSS 2026 Budget Notes); and

WHEREAS the City of Toronto formally requested $674.5M in federal capital funding for the Homelessness Services Capital Infrastructure Strategy (HSCIS) in November 2023, of which a portion remains uncommitted by the federal government as of this resolution; and

WHEREAS Toronto's allocation from the national Reaching Home program (approximately $58M/year) represents roughly 6.5% of the City's total annual homelessness spending despite Toronto housing a disproportionate share of Canada's visible homeless population;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT City Council formally request that the Government of Canada:

  1. Make IHAP Permanent at Full Cost Reimbursement. Fund refugee claimant shelter costs through a permanent, predictable mechanism at full cost reimbursement, rather than ad hoc annual allocation. (REC F-01)

  2. Commit Full HSCIS Capital Funding. Commit the remaining balance of the $674.5M HSCIS capital request through the National Housing Strategy bilateral agreement. (REC F-02)

  3. Increase Reaching Home Allocation. Increase Toronto's Reaching Home allocation proportionate to documented need. (REC F-03)

  4. Make COHB Permanent with Protected Municipal Access. Negotiate a direct federal-municipal Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit funding mechanism that is not subject to unilateral provincial reduction. (REC F-04)

  5. Expedite Work-Permit Issuance for Asylum Claimants. Urge the Government of Canada to audit actual work-permit processing times for asylum claimants against its own stated 6-8 day turnaround, and resource Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada sufficiently to close the gap between that stated timeline and the 3-4 month to 1-year waits reported in practice by Toronto's front-line settlement agencies. (REC F-05)

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the City Clerk forward this resolution to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and all Members of Parliament representing a Toronto riding.

Financial impact: None to the City directly — this resolution is an advocacy request to another order of government.

RESOLUTION 4 — SYSTEMIC & STRUCTURAL REFORM

Mixed authority — municipal action items and provincial advocacy items combined, reflecting that systemic failures span both orders of government

Moved by: [councillor name — TBD] Seconded by: [councillor name — TBD]

WHEREAS the John Howard Society of Ontario's July 2025 report documented 7,455 releases from Ontario provincial correctional facilities with no fixed address in a single year, with the share of releases into homelessness nearly doubling from 8.8% (2016) to 17.3% (2021/22); and

WHEREAS Ontario closed or divested nine provincial psychiatric hospitals and reduced psychiatric bed capacity by 50% on the explicit premise that community-based mental health services would replace institutional care, an investment that did not keep pace, as documented by Ontario's own Ministry of Health as early as 1998; and

WHEREAS the Landlord and Tenant Board's average wait time for an arrears eviction order increased from 32 days (2018) to 342 days (2023) — an eleven-fold increase — despite the adjudicator complement growing 2.6× (51 in 2018-19 to 133 by March 2025), indicating the core problem is collapsed per-adjudicator productivity, not headcount alone; and

WHEREAS Toronto's Shelter Management Information System does not integrate with provincial OW, ODSP, hospital discharge, or corrections data systems, making coordinated prevention and outcome measurement structurally impossible;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT City Council:

  1. (Provincial advocacy) Formally request the Province of Ontario require a documented housing plan and up to 3 months' continuation of OW/ODSP benefits for any person released from provincial correctional custody, particularly given that 80% of those held in Ontario jails are on remand and not convicted of any offence. (REC S-01)

  2. (Provincial advocacy) Formally request the Province of Ontario make a documented pre-discharge housing plan a binding condition of hospital discharge for any patient identified as homeless or precariously housed at admission. (REC S-02)

  3. (Provincial advocacy) Formally request the Province of Ontario extend transitional housing and income-support eligibility for youth aging out of provincial care from age 18 to age 21, with a mandatory housing plan as a condition of care exit. (REC S-03)

  4. (Municipal action) Direct TSSS to design risk-adjusted, outcome-based shelter contracting (extending Resolution 1, Clause 2), with quarterly public reporting of housing-exit and return-to-shelter rates by individual operator. (REC S-04)

  5. (Municipal action, requiring provincial data-sharing cooperation) Direct TSSS to develop a business case and implementation roadmap for a unified client information system integrating shelter, OW/ODSP, TCHC waitlist, and (subject to provincial agreement) hospital discharge and corrections data, modelled on the Homeless Management Information System standard used in U.S. jurisdictions receiving federal homelessness funding. (REC S-05)

  6. (Municipal action) Direct the City Manager to develop a "Peer Navigator Corps" pilot program of no fewer than 50 full-time, living-wage positions for people with lived experience of homelessness, addiction, or mental health crisis, deployed across shelters, hospitals, courts, and welfare offices, with a report back on outcomes after 12 months before any decision to scale to the full 200-position model. (REC S-06)

  7. (Municipal action, in partnership with post-secondary institutions) Direct staff to negotiate a funded student co-op pipeline of paid placements with Toronto's major post-secondary institutions, structured around Housing First casework with mentored outcome tracking. (REC S-07)

  8. (Provincial advocacy — consolidated with Resolution 2, Clause 7) Formally request the Province repeal or substantially amend Bill 23 to restore municipal inclusionary zoning and rental-replacement authority. (REC S-08)

  9. (Provincial advocacy) Formally request the Province restore Landlord and Tenant Board adjudicator capacity to at least pre-2018 service levels, and adopt a statutory duty — modelled on the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 — requiring reasonable steps to prevent homelessness at the point of eviction threat, not merely adjudicate after the fact. (REC S-09)

  10. (Provincial advocacy) Formally request the Province fund community mental health services to the level originally committed at the time of psychiatric hospital deinstitutionalization, indexed to current population need. (REC S-10)

  11. (Federal/municipal/Indigenous governance) Direct the General Manager, Toronto Shelter and Support Services, in partnership with the Toronto Indigenous Community Advisory Board and the Aboriginal Labour Force Development Circle, to increase the Indigenous Funding Stream beyond its current 20% floor as part of any new homelessness investment, expand the existing $13M Rental Housing Supply Program Indigenous allocation, and formally request the Government of Canada deliver the National Indigenous Housing Strategy already promised but not yet realized. (REC S-11)
  12. (Provincial/federal employment funding) Direct the General Manager, Toronto Shelter and Support Services, to pursue funding for Individual Placement and Support (IPS) positions as a standard pairing with new permanent supportive housing units and Peer Navigator Corps roles, with fidelity monitoring against the established IPS Fidelity Scale built in as a funding condition. (REC S-12)
  13. (Municipal transparency) Direct the City Manager to produce an annual consolidated report combining Toronto Shelter and Support Services' budget with the Toronto Transit Commission's and Toronto Public Library's homelessness-specific spending, so Council and the public see the true total public cost of homelessness response, not TSSS's budget alone. (REC PS-01)
  14. (Municipal inter-divisional funding) Direct the City Manager to establish a formal inter-divisional funding agreement so that Toronto Shelter and Support Services' budget contributes directly to the Toronto Transit Commission's and Toronto Public Library's homelessness-specific programming. (REC PS-02)
  15. (Municipal — Toronto Public Library) Direct the Toronto Public Library Board to fund expansion of the Social and Crisis Support Services program to all branches with demonstrated need, on multi-year committed funding. (REC PS-03)
  16. (Municipal — Toronto Transit Commission) Direct the Toronto Transit Commission Board to report homelessness-specific spending as its own distinct budget line in future public budget documents. (REC PS-04)
  17. (Advocacy framing, no budget action required) Direct campaign and advocacy materials to cite the Toronto Transit Commission's own documented "mission creep" finding and its spokesperson's on-record acknowledgment as independent corroboration of the structural funding-mismatch argument underlying this platform. (REC PS-05)
  18. (Municipal — new program) Direct the General Manager, Toronto Shelter and Support Services, to fund 3-5 pilot daytime engagement hub sites offering structured programming distinct from crisis drop-in services, staffed in part through the Peer Navigator Corps. (REC DT-01)
  19. (Municipal — Parks, Forestry and Recreation) Direct Parks, Forestry and Recreation to extend free or deeply subsidized access to City recreation centres, pools, and gyms for people experiencing homelessness. (REC DT-02)
  20. (Municipal — program design) Direct that any daytime engagement investment under REC DT-01/DT-02 include a low-barrier, harm-reduction-consistent track from initial design, given documented rates of shelter service restriction. (REC DT-03)
  21. (Municipal — Toronto Public Health partnership) Direct Toronto Public Health to partner with Toronto Shelter and Support Services on a Toronto-specific physical activity and health outcomes pilot with formal pre/post evaluation. (REC DT-04)
  22. (Municipal — inter-divisional coordination) Direct Toronto Shelter and Support Services and the Toronto Public Library Board to build an explicit referral pathway between daytime engagement hubs and library-based Social and Crisis Support Services. (REC DT-05)
  23. (Municipal — accountability and human rights) Direct the City Manager to implement all 14 recommendations from Ombudsman Toronto's December 2024 report on the City's 2022-2023 decision to restrict refugee claimants' access to base shelter system beds, previously received by Council without adoption of any recommendation. (REC M-12)
  24. (Municipal — addictions capacity) Direct Toronto Shelter and Support Services to complete a capacity-needs assessment for Managed Alcohol Programs against the documented 30-50% alcohol use disorder prevalence rate among people experiencing homelessness, and bring forward a capital and operating plan to scale capacity accordingly. (REC M-13)

  25. (Municipal — gender equity and harm reduction) Direct Toronto Shelter and Support Services to conduct a gender-capacity gap analysis comparing current women-only and gender-affirming shelter bed capacity against the documented population share, and to mandate harm reduction service availability at women-only shelters at parity with the mixed-adult shelter rate as a condition of purchase-of-service funding renewal. (REC M-14)

  26. (Municipal — record amnesty) Direct the City Solicitor, in consultation with the Toronto Police Service Board, to establish a municipal amnesty program allowing individuals who are or have been experiencing homelessness to apply to have outstanding Safe Streets Act-related fines and associated records cleared. (REC M-15)

  27. (Municipal — police directive request) Direct the City Manager to request that the Toronto Police Service Board develop and adopt a formal operational directive stating that enforcement of minor public-space bylaws against visibly homeless individuals should not substitute for encampment or public-space clearance, and that homelessness status alone is not grounds for a police stop absent an independent, articulable basis. (REC M-16)

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT Clauses 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, and 10 be forwarded to the Premier of Ontario and relevant ministries as formal requests, consistent with Resolution 2.

Financial impact: Clauses 4, 5, 7 require staff time within existing budgets to develop business cases. Clause 6 (pilot) requires new operating funding, estimated at $2.75M annually for 50 positions at $55,000/year plus benefits — subject to Financial Planning confirmation before any vote. Clause 26 (REC M-15) requires staff time only, comparable in scale to existing municipal fine-forgiveness programs — no new capital or ongoing operating budget identified. Clause 27 (REC M-16) requires staff time only and, if the Board adopts the requested directive, officer training time comparable to other periodic TPS policy rollouts — no capital cost identified.

NOTES FOR CITIZEN ASSEMBLY FACILITATION

Suggested deliberation structure: - Each Resolution above (1 through 4) can be discussed as a unit, or each numbered clause can be discussed individually - Recommend assemblies vote clause-by-clause where there is disagreement, and as a bloc where there is consensus, to produce a clear "endorsed / amended / rejected" record per item - The "Financial impact" line under each resolution is a good first checkpoint for assemblies wanting to prioritize low-cost, high-impact items first (Resolution 1, Clauses 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10 are presented as requiring no new funding; Clause 11 explicitly is not, and should not be bundled with the others on cost grounds)

Known overlap to resolve before formal tabling: REC P-07 and REC S-08 both address Bill 23 and have been consolidated into a single clause (Resolution 2, Clause 7 / Resolution 4, Clause 8) rather than duplicated — flagging here since they originate from two different source documents (HMK-011 and HMK-015) that were not cross-referenced against each other when first drafted.

What happens after assembly deliberation: A revised version reflecting assembly input would need a sponsoring councillor's office to redraft into the City Clerk's live motion template, confirm correct Standing Committee routing, and obtain Legal/Financial Planning sign-off — none of which has happened with this draft.

MAIN_POLICY_002_Council_Resolutions_Draft.md | Version 1.0 | June 30, 2026 | Regenerative Toronto Source: All 50 recommendations in MAIN_POLICY_001_Master_Recommendations.md | Full evidence chain: MAIN_DATA_001_Claim_Ledger.csv ⚠️ DRAFT STATUS — see banner at top of document

Frozen v1 edition (July 2026) · published 2026-08-17 · corrections to the living library are welcome — tell us where we’re wrong.