FINDING HOME

"It must lead to more futures and fewer young funerals. It must embrace Dr. King's last dream, a poor people's campaign, where all could come together with a job, income, education, and health care. A bridge that leads us from racial battleground to economic common ground. It leads us to healing."

Jesse Jackson (2008)

This month marks the 100 year anniversary of Black History Month. As a holiday practiced across several countries, including the U.S. and Canada, it honors the struggles and beauty of Black history, culture and life, both past and present. It continues to highlight and promote the contributions of Black people as well as their efforts to seek radical change. In its inception, it was said that Carter G. Woodson chose the month to coincide with the February birthdays of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass – two notable figures in the fight for racial justice. It also served a way to commemorate and incorporate Black history into the public imaginary.

In the year of 2026, we find ourselves in what some scholars and pundits frame as a polycrisis – a situation involving multiple crises with increasing solidarity, interaction and impact. Risings living costs and debt burdens, discriminatory and outright racist state practices, increasingly severe weather events, and geopolitical instability ignore geographic boundaries. In the case of housing, affordability and insecurity concerns are affecting households and communities of all types. Property owners and renters facing significant, yet distinct challenges, while growing interest in underutilized models like land trusts, co-ops, and social housing operates alongside more general calls for affordable housing.

As February comes to an end, I wanted to bring your attention to recent work here at the Housing Justice Lab. For many, this will serve as an introduction and hopefully the start of a longer discussion. For others, it should serve as a long overdue “check-in” as life and time moves by quickly.

For some background, the Housing Justice Lab was launched under the School of Cities during the summer of 2024. As the Founding Director, the idea was to engage more directly with local residents, community groups and policymakers about the causes and effects of housing insecurity. Currently focused on three initiatives, the Lab provides research and technical support to different stakeholders across the housing system. From the racialized nature of evictions across Toronto to understanding the priorities of community residents in Moss Park, the Lab has provided support for groups across a large domain of projects.

The nature of our work is service-oriented with community questions and concerns driving our practices. We’ve benefitted significantly from generous support from many of you. Upon my arrival to Canada back in 2021, many individuals and organizations shared advice while helping me navigate the landscape. With our location in the City of Toronto, I personally have benefitted from engagement with several groups including, but not limited to, Toronto Chinatown Land Trust, Kensington Market Land Trust, Little Jamaica Community Land Trust, Moss Park Community Coalition, Untitled Planning, Monumental Projects, Black Planning Project, CP Planning, the Canadian Urban Institute, and Toronto Community Housing. From quick check-ins to deeper collaborations, your time and generosity have been greatly appreciated and generative to the Lab’s ongoing work.

Housing is deeply political and any work in this space acknowledges that such work has to be grounded in questions surrounding power with the goal of imagining different structures of opportunity for us all. Looking ahead, I hope we can continue to expand this work - deepening our partnerships, broadening the reach of our research and technical support, and building an even stronger foundation for collective action toward housing justice.

To start off of in the right direction, we are holding our first event of the year. Come join us for a hybrid event on Thursday, March 26, 2026 from 6 – 8 PM EST. Holding Space: Investing in Black Social Infrastructure will provide an overview of the recent release of our Holding Space report in collaboration with the Somali Centre for Culture and Recreation as well as the Foundation for Black Communities. The report and the event will explore how displacement and chronic underinvestment threaten Toronto's Black-led community institutions. Upon review of the report, there will be a panel of local voices in this space to draw out the need for connecting housing with community infrastructure followed by a light reception by Chester’s Kitchen. You can find more information and register here.

In the months ahead, you’ll hear more about our ongoing research including exploring how landlords threaten displacement through filing strategies, how transit-oriented development impacts building intensification and housing turnover, and unequal housing outcomes within Toronto’s shelter system, where certain groups face greater barriers to securing permanent housing. In addition, with the goal of training the next generation of applied researchers, we are eager to continue to assist community groups, organizations and policymakers on sponsored projects. The interdisciplinary nature of our research team allows for the integration of diverse perspectives, methodologies, and forms of expertise in addressing complex housing inequities.

But none of this work would be possible without the engagement of the broader community. Thank you for your continued support, and please feel free to reach out if you would like to learn more or explore ways to work together.