ACORN Canada 2010 Year End Executive Report

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Organizing Communities, Changing Lives

ACORN Canada Year

End Report

January 2011



Organizing Communities, Changing Lives: ACORN Canada Year End Report

January 15th, 2010

Executive Summary

In 2010 ACORN Canada engaged 560 new full members

and 4709 associate and provisional members.

To date we have built a membership of 35,000

members across the country. These are low and

moderate income people committed to transformingcommunities and impacting positive social, economic

and ecological justice in their community.

Across the country we held 206 events with 1501

ACORN members. That’s 4 events every single week,

52 weeks a year. These events have focused on

building community leaders and strengthening

community capacity to create change on the issues

that matter to our constituency.




January 15th, 2010

Table of Contents

Campaign Highlights & Victories

Living Wages

National Affordable Housing Strategy

Inclusionary Housing for Ontario

Toronto Tenant Organizing

Other Housing Campaigns

Disability Rights Group

Free Tax Sites Report




January 15th, 2010

Campaign Highlights

Living Wages

On April 26th ACORN Canada made history by helping secure

Canada’s first Municipal Living Wage Policy. Thanks in part to

the hard work and organizing efforts of ACORN Canada

members in Metro Vancouver, and the work of our coalitionpartners, New Westminster Council voted unanimously to

pass this groundbreaking record. The policy will guarantee

direct city workers, and private contractors doing work on

municipal grounds, a wage of at least $16.74 per hour. Below

are some highlights from that campaign along with an

ongoing campaign for municipal living wage in Ottawa.

Throughout the start of 2010 BC ACORN focused on holding a Living Wage Forum in New

Westminster. Over 80 people came out to hear speakers from ACORN Canada, Councillor Jamie

McEvoy, the CCPA, and Living Wage for Families.

In January, Ottawa ACORN members and other community allies held delegations at the city’s

Community and Protective Services committee which passed a vote to send our living wage

campaign as part of the city’s proposed Poverty Reduction Strategy to council in February. Over

30 members attended.

In September, Ottawa ACORN members held a Living Wage Forum at City Hall, with over 100

people in attendance.

Mechanicsville members and members from across Ottawa hosted a press event at Cycle Logik

in December, asking business owners to sign onto the living wage campaign. Owner Ian Fraser

signed onto the campaign and encouraged other business owners, regardless of how big or

small, to support the campaign and hang our sign that says “I Pay a Living Wage”.




January 15th, 2010

National Affordable Housing Strategy

In 2010, ACORN Canada worked closely with a number of

allied organizations and coalitions to support Bill C-304, a

private members bill that would call on the Federal

Government to create a National Affordable Housing Strategy

in consultation with the Provinces and Municipalities. Below

are highlights from this campaign.

On July 8th BC ACORN held a successful action with 40

members and allies outside the office North Surrey MP Dona

Cadman.

Also on July 8th Ottawa ACORN held a press conference at MP

John Baird’s office in support of Bill C-304 for a National Housing Strategy, receiving city wide

press coverage.

On Oct 20th Ottawa ACORN members joined several allies marched from Ottawa City Hall to

Parliament Hill as part of the Day of Action for a National Housing Strategy. We were joined by

Canada without Poverty, The Red Tents Campaign and others. We received excellent media

coverage and build strong partnerships with other national organizations.

Inclusionary Housing for Ontario

Inclusionary housing policies are municipal ordinances that

give developers of new housing stock trade-offs in exchange

for the creation of new affordable housing units. This year,

with support for the Wellesley Institute, ACORN Canada held

a number of leadership trainings and events aimed at

educating out membership about the advantages of these

policies.

On March 20th as part of a forum on housing in Toronto,

ACORN members called on the provincial government to bring in changes to the planning act to

allow municipalities to enact inclusionary housing policies.

On May 6th, ACORN Canada members from Ottawa, Toronto, and Hamilton met at Queen’s Park

in Toronto for a provincial lobby day. Throughout the day the members went to meetings withtheir elected representatives, and urged MPPs to support measures to build affordable housing.




January 15th, 2010

Toronto Tenant Organizing

Throughout the year Toronto ACORN has held a steadfast

approach of challenging and winning incremental changes

and improvement to Toronto’s Multi-Unit Residential

Apartment Building Audit and Enforcement Program (MRAB-

AEP). This program was won following a multi-year landlord

licensing campaign that exposed the dramatic shortcomings

of the city’s old reactive inspection program.

Toronto ACORN members took on the MRAB-AEP and won a number of victories, including $100

million worth of improvements to Toronto’s low-income rental housing stock, and restructuring

the program to prioritize building inspections in high priority areas.

On August 12th, Toronto ACORN members held a large ‘Tenants Vote’ assembly in St.

Jamestown, to bring housing concerns (including changes to the MRAB-AEP) to the attention of

the Toronto mayoral candidates. There were 80 participants as well as several Mayoral and

Council candidates.

Other Housing Campaigns

The March 20th Housing Forum in Toronto involved both

municipal and provincial politicians and attracted 100

participants; it produced two recommendations: for the

provincial government to amend sections of the Residential

Tenancy Act to include stronger enforcement on landlords,

amendments to the Planning Act to allow for mandatoryinclusionary zoning; and for municipal improvements to the

MRAB-AEP program.

On September 10th ACORN in New Westminster (BC) held an action to stop the ‘reno-viction’ of

some ACORN members. The main demands were calling on the Provincial Government to

change the Residential Tenancy Act to prevent landlords from doing this form of eviction and

demanding the primary target stop all evictions.

Guildford ACORN Tenants Association held a rally on Nov 30th outside of Wall Financial

Corporations Maple Place Apartments where many ACORN members live. The rally was

demanding repairs be made inside of units and in common areas of the complex as well as an

immediate stop to all harassment by management.

In June, Ottawa ACORN won a tenant hotline for the community to escalate calls to by-law

infringements in the area, ensuring faster enforcement from the city. Our members received

national press coverage on the victory.




January 15th, 2010

Disability Rights Group

The DRG is a member-driven initiative, founded by BC ACORN on February 18 th. This year they

have gained headway on the Community Volunteer Supplement campaign, which won the

support of the provincial NDP.

Free Income Tax Sites

The FITS Project is not simply a tax preparation program, but

a strategy to create a storefront and a community presence

for ACORN's economic justice efforts. We prepare taxes for

low and moderate income families and link them with

unrealized benefits and underutilized services such as the

GST credit, CCTB, the Canadian Employment Credit, and

financial literacy classes.

The cornerstone of this work is our targeted outreach campaign. ACORN Canada outreach staff and trained community leaders go door-to-door talking with families and asking a series of

questions to determine whether families filed taxes, meet the criteria for other benefits

eligibility, and/or used a commercial tax preparation service or a rapid refund loan, and at what

cost.

City Taxes

Prepared

Back Years

Taxes Prepared

Estimated Savings versus

Corporate Tax Preparers

Total Returns Plus

Savings

Metro

Vancouver

1800 666 $162,000.00 $2,533,152.00

Ottawa 663 140 $59,670.00 $923,681.00

Toronto 100 28 $8,800.00 $1,498,406.00

Total 2563 834 230,470.00 $4,955,239.00

Documents

ACORN Canada 2010 Year End Executive Report