Item - 2026.HS9.7

The Housing Rights Advisory Committee:

Requested the Executive Director, Housing Secretariat to invite Nellie’s to provide a presentation at a meeting of the Housing Rights Advisory Committee in the second quarter of 2026 to share key findings and recommendations from its recent paper, Breaking Barriers: Centering the Voices of Women and Gender-Diverse People in Accessing the Affordable Housing System, with particular focus on opportunities to improve access to housing within the municipal context.

A central topic of discussion and advocacy within our Working Group meetings and Housing Rights Advisory Committee meetings has been around the administrative barriers placed on women, gender-diverse people, and survivors of gender-based violence in accessing safe, culturally appropriate, affordable housing.

In alignment with these discussions, I wanted to share a position paper recently published by Nellie’s through the Toronto Women in Action Project, community-based work developed with their community partners, including the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto, and The 519: Breaking Barriers: Centering the Voices of Women and Gender-Diverse People in Accessing the Affordable Housing System.  

Given that part of our mandate is to support the City's engagement with equity-deserving communities to help identify systemic barriers to housing, I would recommend that Nellie’s be invited to present the findings and recommendations identified in the report at an upcoming Housing Rights Advisory Committee meeting.