The provincial government’s drastic cut to funding for Legal Aid Ontario means Ontarians will have an even harder time finding and keeping their affordable homes. For legal clinics, these cuts will have a direct impact on their work and the communities they serve – including more than 1.5 million tenant households in Ontario.

For almost 50 years, legal clinics have helped low- and moderate-income people facing housing difficulties. Legal clinics have prevented countless families from becoming homeless by assisting them with their hearings or helping them access crucial financial supports. Legal clinics have strengthened the rights and protections of all renters across the province by pushing for restrictions on rent increases and challenging arbitrary evictions. Legal clinics, along with their coalition partners, were instrumental to the creation of the federal National Housing Strategy that includes commitments to building the affordable housing Ontarians desperately need. Most recently, legal clinics helped expand rent control, introduce a standard form lease, regulate short-term rentals like Airbnb and create programs that helped thousands of low-income people pay their electricity bills.

By ensuring people are adequately housed, legal clinics pay for themselves in the savings their work generates by keeping people out of the costlier health care, shelter and justice systems.

Despite Ontario’s legal clinic system being regarded as one of the best in the world, the Minister of Finance slashed Legal Aid Ontario’s funding by a third ($133 million in 2019-2020) – retroactive to April 1 – with additional cuts over the next three years. For legal clinics already operating on the margins after years of justice sector cuts and audits, and experiencing an increasing demand for their services, these budget cuts will have a devastating impact on their work in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.

The bleak outlook for Ontario renters does not end with this budget. The government is set to release amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 in the fall as part of their Housing Supply Action Plan. Following the province’s termination of rent control for units first rented after November 2018, the government consultations on the plan suggest that additional tenant protections could be weakened or eliminated to entice landlords into the market. Destabilizing legal clinics will make it more difficult to challenge any upcoming attacks on tenant rights, and in effect quashes any dissent.

Once again, it is vulnerable Ontarians who bear the brunt of the budget cuts. Deep government cuts to refugee legal services, social assistance and public health services would only be made worse by the loss of a robust legal clinic system.

We call on the government to reverse the cuts to Legal Aid Ontario funding and ensure that stable funding is re-committed to programs and initiatives directed at affordable housing.

This call has been endorsed by the following organizations and/or people:

ACORN Canada

Alliance for Healthier Communities/Alliance pour des communautés en santé

Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa

Amnesty International

Canada Without Poverty

Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (Homeless Hub)

Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness

The Canadian Federation of Students Ontario

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA)

Chinese Canadian National Council – Toronto

The Church of the Holy Trinity

Community and Legal Aid Services Program

CRC I Regent Park Community Food Centre

David Hulchanski, Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto

Elizabeth Fry Toronto

Emily Paradis, Housing and Homelessness Researcher and Advocate

The Empowerment Council

Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter

Fairbnb Canada

Greenpeace Canada

Health Providers Against Poverty

Homelessness and Housing Umbrella Group (HHUG)

Homeless Connect Toronto

Jane Finch Housing Coalition

Justicia for Migrant Workers

Dr. Kaitlin Schwan, Senior Researcher, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness

Matt Gardner from Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP

Neighbourhood Information Post

Nellie’s

No One Is Illegal – Toronto

North York Community House

ODSP ActionCoalition

Older Women’s Network

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)

Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) – Toronto

Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC)

Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre

Peter Rosenthal, recently-retired lawyer and Adjunct Professor of Law and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Toronto

Poverty Action Working Group, First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa

Poverty Free Thunder Bay

The Right to Housing Coalition

Scadding Court Community Centre

Sistering

Social Planning Toronto

Street Health

Tenant Network Toronto

The Stop Community Food Centre

The 519

The Dream Team

Toronto and York Region Labour Council

Toronto Drop In Network

Toronto Environmental Alliance

Toronto Neighbourhood Centres

Toronto St. Paul’s Tenant Associations Network

YWCA Toronto

Bernice Einstein

Don Collymore, Tenant Advocate

Karen Goldenberg, C.M.

Judith Simon

Akelius Tenants Network