ACORN Tenant Union Waterloo Region

ACORN Town Hall at 2:30pm on Saturday 25 January 2025 at Kitchener Public Library

What: ACORN Region-Wide Town Hall meeting
When: 2:30pm on Saturday 25 January 2025
Where: Kitchener Public Library Main Branch, Room E
Location: 85 Queen Street North, Kitchener Map
Contact: Vonica Flear +1‑226‑545‑4359
E-mail: kw@acorncanada.org
Online: https://acorncanada.org/locations/waterloo-acorn/

ACORN is Holding a Region-Wide Town Hall to Identify Community Issues and Launch New Survey for Low-Income Residents

(Kitchener, ON) – ACORN is organizing a Town Hall on Saturday, 25 January 1025 at 2:30pm at the Kitchener Public Library for all residents of Waterloo Region to meet and discuss issues they’re struggling with, how the community can organize against these issues, and what they think ACORN should prioritize in 2025.

At the town hall, ACORN leaders will review ACORN’s campaign work on the local, provincial, and national level, and how ACORN members organize on various community issues like bad faith evictions, skyrocketing grocery prices, low social assistance rates, and more. We will also be joined by guest speakers including a Hamilton ACORN Organizer who will be sharing how ACORN members fought for and WON a strong anti-renoviction bylaw in Hamilton, and the importance of perseverance when fighting for change. To close the meeting, ACORN members will be launching our new tenant survey to shed light on the sheer scale of struggles low-income residents face across the Region.

We welcome all tenants and other low-income residents across Waterloo Region to join us and share their experiences during our break out discussion sections, following which ACORN leaders will hold an exercise to illustrate how to organize for change.

To speak with an ACORN leader about this event or discuss ACORN’s campaigns, please contact ACORN staff Organizer Vonica Flear at kw@acorncanada.org or +1‑226‑545‑4359.

March for Renoviction Protections, 5pm on Monday 6 January 2025 at KPL

What: Protest for Renoviction Protections!
When: 5:00pm on Monday 6 January 2025
Where: Meeting outside Kitchener Central Library, marching to Kitchener City Hall
Location: 85 Queen Street North, Kitchener, Ontario Map
Contact: Phone Number: +1‑519‑670‑1859, Email: kw@acorncanada.org

Waterloo Region ACORN March for Renoviction Protections in Kitchener!

ACORN Waterloo is organizing a march calling out the City of Kitchener for refusing to take action against renovictions on Monday January 6th at 5:00PM starting at Kitchener Central Library.

(Kitchener, ON) – In the wake of a housing crisis, low-income tenants are losing their affordable homes faster than new affordable units can be built, while landlords are profiting from mass evicting vulnerable tenants. Cities like Hamilton, Toronto, and London have taken steps to pass anti-renoviction bylaws to curb this issue, and other cities and even small towns like Kawartha Lakes are taking steps towards similar bylaws. Meanwhile, the City of Kitchener insists it’s not in their jurisdiction to regulate renovictions.

Countless stories have surfaced across the Region of low-income tenants being uprooted from their rent controlled units for so-called “renovations”, a practice becoming all too common among landlords seeking to make bigger profits. 267 Traynor, 250 Frederick, 141 & 149 Borden are all just some examples of a systemic problem destroying our affordable housing stock in Kitchener: Renovictions.

ACORN members and tenants of various buildings facing renovictions across the city are furious that Kitchener City Council is refusing to take the necessary steps to curb this crisis, despite other cities passing renoviction bylaws, and despite legal opinions from ACTO and Raven Law highlighting how it is fully within Cities’ powers to pass these laws.

This is why Waterloo Region ACORN members are leading a march to City Hall on Monday, 6 January 2025. ACORN members are demanding the City pass a renoviction bylaw similar to Toronto or Hamilton, where landlords must apply for a license to renovate units, and provide tenants with temporary accommodation while renovations are taking place, at the same rental rate the tenant paid before renovations began.

We invite you to join us on Monday to speak with ACORN members facing renoviction and to learn more about ACORN’s anti-displacement campaigns.

Background:

ACORN Canada is a national independent organization of low-and-moderate income families with 180,000+ members in 21+ neighbourhood chapters across 10 cities.

Waterloo Region ACORN Day of Action for Anti-Renoviction Bylaws, 1:00pm on Tuesday 27 August 2024

What: Region-Wide Day of Action for Municipal Anti-Renoviction Bylaws
When: Tuesday 27 August 2024 at 1:00pm
Where: Register on Zoom
Contact: Vonica Flear, kw@acorncanada.org Phone: +1‑226‑545‑4359
Website: https://acorncanada.org
Waterloo Region ACORN: https://acorncanada.org/locations/waterloo-acorn/

ACORN members and tenants across Waterloo region are banding together to fight for better protections from bad-faith evictions.

On Tuesday August 27th, Waterloo Region ACORN will be holding a Region-Wide action calling on Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge city councils to enact anti-renoviction bylaws similar to the one passed in Hamilton earlier this year.

On January 17th, Hamilton City Council voted unanimously in favour of the city passing a strong anti-renoviction bylaw called the “Renovations License and Relocation Bylaw.” This happened after a 5 year effort by Hamilton ACORN and several motions passed to direct the creation of a bylaw based on the success of policy from New Westminster, BC. The original bylaw in New Westminster eliminated renovictions since passing in 2019, reducing the total number of renovictions from 333 to zero. The new Hamilton bylaw will require landlords to:

Apply for a licence within 7 days of issuing a tenant a N13.
Provide tenants with a Tenant’s Rights and Entitlements Package
Provide tenants wishing to exercise their right to return to their unit (at the same rent!) with temporary accommodation OR a rental top up for the duration of the renovations.

ACORN members across the Region are ecstatic to see Hamilton pass STRONG tenant protections that will significantly reduce the number of affordable units being systematically removed by landlords taking advantage of the loopholes in Ontario’s rent control measures. Waterloo Region ACORN members will be meeting on Zoom on August 27th to review ACORN’s renoviction bylaw campaign and facilitate phone blitzes to Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge city council offices to call for similar bylaws to be passed in each city.

Maribel Jagorin, Co-Chair of the Waterloo Region chapter of ACORN and currently facing renoviction from her own apartment, says, “There is a big disconnect between the cost of living and income. There is a housing crisis out there. How am I supposed to live? I can’t afford somewhere else, and there’s nothing out there for me. I am fighting for my affordable housing and my rights because everywhere I look I can only see greed and lack of balance. Landlords are privileged!”

Kitchener Centre By-Election Housing Forum, 6:30pm, Thursday 23 November 2023 at St. John The Evangelist Church

What: Kitchener Centre By-Election Housing Forum
When: Doors open 6:30pm, Forum 7:00pm, Thursday 23 November 2023
Where: St. John The Evangelist Church
Location: 23 Water Street North, Kitchener, Ontario Map
Contact: Text message 519-635-8951

Come ask the candidates how they will tackle housing issues.