Getting Noticed and Getting Results

Our Community Action Group only started in 2025, but we sure are a force to be reckoned with! Thanks to everyday people just like you coming together, the NYH Community Action Group was able to achieve so much in 2025! 

Here are just some of the highlights: 

Real wins at the City 

We all know we need more than words if we are going to see real change.  If you want to see what someone really values, you need to look at their budget. Which is why one of the first things we did as a Community Action Group was get involved in the municipal budget process. 

Leading up to the municipal budget in February, we collected hundreds of petition signatures, sent dozens of letters, gave deputations and rallied over 60 people from our community food banks in front of city hall to urge every City Councillor to fund a city for all of us - and it worked! 

Here's what we won in the 2025 city budget last year: 

• Increased funding for Drop-In meal programs
• Increased funding for Tenant Supports
• TTC Fare Freeze
• Expanding the School Food Program

Getting our voices heard at the ballot box

After paying rent and utilities, on average people using food banks only have a little over $8/day to spend on food, transportation, medication and all other expenses. It's not easy getting to the polls to vote when getting there eats into your food budget. 

The number one reason people walk through our doors is the high cost of rent, and far too many don't even have a permanent place to call home. It's not easy exercising your right to vote when you don't have a permanent address. 

So it’s no wonder that as the need for food banks is reaching record highs, voter turnout in our community was reaching record lows.

That’s why we organized a free Get-Out-the-Vote Community BBQ in April and it was a huge success! 

• 600 people attended the BBQ
• 100 people were brought to the polls to vote
• 30 people voted for the first time
• 200 people voted over the course of the Get-Out-The-Vote campaign

Queens Park on Notice

Every year we release reports about record levels of food insecurity with clear policy recommendations, but every year they're ignored. So this year we decided to try something different, something that wouldn’t go unnoticed.  This year we mobilized our community to bring our demands directly to the doorstep of Queen's Park. For the first time food bank communities from around the GTA came together to put Queen's Park on Notice to raise the rates and freeze the rent. 

This historic rally mobilized hundreds of people from our food banks including: 

• 400 people who joined shuttle buses from our programs to Queen's Park
• Over 500 people who attended the rally
• More than 1500 people who signed petitions 

Defending tenant rights 

Unfortunately on the same day of our historic rally at Queen’s Park when food banks came together to demand relief on the high cost of rent, the provincial government did the opposite and announced Bill 60, which would introduce fixed-term leases (take away rent control and housing security) and make it easier and faster to evict tenants.

Luckily we had already spent the whole year mobilizing, so we were ready to fight back and take quick action. In just a few days we were able to: 

• Send over 200 letters to MPPs against Bill 60
• Collect over 250 petitions that MPP Tom Rakocevic officially presented in the Ontario Legislature
• Get 80 food banks from across the province to sign onto our open letter against Bill 60 

While we weren’t able to completely defeat Bill 60, we were able to make the provincial government walk back their attempt to bring in fixed-term leases, which is a massive victory in protecting tenants’ rights and housing security. 

But the best thing about 2025 was that we were just getting started! Join our Community Action Group and let’s continue to fight for change together in 2026!