By Nadine Alsaghir

The Toronto Centre Tenants Union (TCTU) gathered at The 519 Community Centre on Jan. 28 to host a tenant organizing and training session,  highlighting the importance of combining multiple tactics for success in tenant campaigns.

The meeting outlined several step-by-step processes to advocate for better housing rights. It begins with talking to neighbours and hosting social events, then following up with a tenant survey. 

Cost of living was the dominant issue among Canadian voters in the 2025 federal election, with housing affordability being one of the top issues as well, according to the Spring 2025 Focus Canada survey by the Environics Institute.

Founded in November 2023 and inspired by the York South–Weston Tenants Union, TCTU organizes tenants across Toronto. 

Benjamin Deans, founder and leader of the union, said the focus of the training was practical action. “The first thing is we want people to just keep fighting for better housing,” Deans said.

The “grace period” of 14 days when a landlord cannot file to evict you was shortened to seven days on Nov. 24, 2025, when Bill 60 passed in Ontario. As it raised a huge concern for renters, Deans adds that it is particularly a concern around own-use evictions. 

“If there’s an own-use eviction, so like your landlord moves into your apartment and they evict you for that, or their family moves in, like before they basically had to pay you some money and now they could sort of get out of that if they give you more notice,” Deans said.

For Lenny Devereux, a Toronto Community Housing Corporation tenant, the training taught them the importance of community. 

“I liked the sort of escalation of tactics, obviously starting with community building, because without community and trust, you can’t really have solidarity,” Devereux said, noting that there are people on their floor they didn’t get the opportunity to speak to. 

Haley O’Halloran, another attendee at the training, shared a concern about the stress of the rental crisis. “I think there’s an extra anxiety and I think it also makes you more nervous about your employment and anything along those lines,” she said. 

Devereux emphasized that tenant unions mobilize people who aren’t part of a more traditional union, such as a workplace union. 

“It’s kind of like a self-strengthening sort of process, you get involved and maybe you have a loss, but you’re still angry and that energy has to go somewhere,” Devereux said. 

Zain Fayaz, a first-year engineering student, is renting an apartment just off the University of Toronto campus. 

“I’m on the tail end of using the last of my savings from jobs I worked throughout the summers for the City of Mississauga,” he said. 

Fayaz mentions his family support has been essential and significantly helped towards his payment. According to a  recent report by consumer insights group Studenthaus, Toronto students pay almost $500 more in rent than the national average.

Fayaz added that he will need parental assistance in future years. Without that support, he said, continuing his education would have meant “financial suicide.”

Fayaz said he is already considering leaving Toronto after graduation for cities like Montreal, where housing costs are significantly lower.