Housing Matters was founded to remind our elected representatives that, if we want more people to have housing in Toronto, we’re going to need to build more housing.

As simple as this truism might appear to be, its logic has obviously been lost on those in government who decry our housing affordability crisis while refusing to engage in any meaningful reform of those land use rules that lie at its root.

Consider that in ~60% of the city, it is illegal to build anything other than a single family detached house. Consider also that the average resale price for a detached house in Toronto has hit $1,134,000 as of this past summer.

It should come as no surprise that this state of affairs is pricing a lot of people out of the city, and forcing those who remain to make a lot of difficult choices with regard to their standard of living.

It’s needless and unacceptable.

Again, if we want more people to have housing in Toronto, we’re going to need to build more housing.

In a city with very little greenfield land left, building more housing necessarily means adding density — additional units — to our neighbourhoods. For our City and Province, it means land use rule reform to allow for that added density.

In short, it means legalizing housing.

And that basically sums up our call to action. To ensure that Toronto remains a city for all, and not merely a playground for the rich and the lucky, we’re calling on the City and the Province to legalize housing.

To make that happen, we want you to join us in asking (or demanding!) that they legalize housing. We have two big elections coming up in 2018, and we need to make it clear that this will be a voting issue.

To get the ball rolling, we’ve designed a poster that we’d like you to join us in plastering throughout the city.

We’ll be printing a bunch of these and getting them up on our neighbourhood lamp posts, mailboxes, and construction hoarding. We hope that you will too. You can download printable .pdfs in 8 1/2 * 11 here and 11 * 17 here.

Together, let’s make it abundantly clear, through this unambiguous and soon to be ubiquitous reminder, that housing matters.