This is the fourth in a series of opinion columns on Ontario’s 2022 municipal elections, written by Josh Lieblein for The CJN.
Jacob Loo Dawang is walking me through how to use CensusMapper to make a map of Canada using census data that shows the distribution of Jewish families.
(You can also do it. Go to censusmapper.ca and click “Make a map” at the top, then go Start new 2016 map >> 25% data >> Minority/origin >> European origins >> Other European origins >> Jewish.)
It’s just one of the many tools he employs to make the case that Toronto needs to build more homes—and fast.
More Neighbours Toronto is the name of the organization he’s a part of, which is hoping to leverage their small-yet-vocal online presence to jumpstart a YIMBY movement during this election. Which stands for the opposite of NIMBY: Yes in My Backyard.
The 25-year old data scientist—who was born in the Westmount area of Montreal but now lives in Toronto’s downtown Liberty Village—tells me that he joined the group after being stuck at home during the lockdowns, watching the conversation on housing develop from his fledgling Twitter account.
More Neighbours quickly embraced him, even though he knew very little about politics and only volunteered in one federal election before.
“It’s a very flat organization,” he says. “We have no formal definition of members. We have no formal hierarchy. Anyone who wants to work on policy writing, or interact with people at city council, can get involved.”
More Neighbours is avowedly non-partisan, with hardcore Tories working alongside staunch New Democrats, and with a typical biweekly meeting drawing over 30 supporters to an online space. They have a list of about 1,000 members. And while they may shift to raising money from donors in the future, their one operating expense is $10 a month to keep their website running.
“The housing crisis is making it difficult for families to stay together, to see one another,” he says, contrasting how easy it was for his grandparents to visit his family every Friday night for dinner when he grew up in Montreal—and how hard it is to get to his girlfriend’s family’s house for Shabbat today.
“I know so many Jewish families where their children have moved two hours away because they cannot afford to live in Toronto.”
It’s an uphill climb for More Neighbours. When you survey voters and ask if they want more housing, they enthusiastically agree—so long as the homes are built somewhere else.
Jacob would like nothing more than to move past knee-jerk opposition to the culture of NIMBYism, but he’s encountered a lot of fear coming from those who already own their homes and coordinate opposition to growth from their positions on neighbourhood associations.
But they have multiple strategies for countering the culture of NIMBYism. There’s their municipal platform, with five pillars ranging from maximizing the affordable housing on government lands to reforming public consultations so that they aren’t restricted to 7 p.m. on weeknights.
Then there’s their list of “pro-housing municipal champions” that they will be releasing in the coming days, and the on-the-ground volunteering they intend to do in key races. (Jacob wasn’t able to share the details of who’d they’d be endorsing just yet.)
They’ve had successes on the policy front, too. Jacob told me that his group was involved in the development of the housing platforms for the Ontario Liberals and NDP in the most recent election. Their signature idea was the creation of a public housing builder specifically for government lands.
Unfortunately, the provincial government has thus far refused to act on recommendations put forward to their Housing Affordability Task Force.
“There’s a lot of pressure to keep things the way they are,” Jacob says. “But it hasn’t been great for those who have been left out.”
If something isn’t done soon, those CensusMapper results will be telling the tale of a Jewish community spreading even thinner.
Josh Lieblein can be reached at [email protected] for your response to Doorstep Postings.
