With Gentrificaton Tax Action.

This panel will be presented as part of Long Winter's November 26th show at St. Anne's Anglican Church (Dundas and Dufferin). It will also be streamed virtually!

"In the conclusion of his 2021 book On Property, Rinaldo Walcott quotes James Baldwin’s essential prioritization of people over the speculative potential of land, in order to argue for the necessity of abolishing the racist, sexist and classist inequity of capitalist property. Walcott points out that abolition is fundamentally a creative project, of developing caring relations to the world, and especially to land as the foundation of all forms of life.

Toronto needs to implement a gentrification tax, as one step toward building this world. This city is suffering a deep crisis of homelessness–from the erasure of tent encampments to overflowing shelters, to under-housing, precarious housing, and the psychic stress of paying too much rent, or living in mortgage debt. Real estate speculation is extractive. It takes value that is created collectively by a community, and privatizes it.

A gentrification tax would take a percentage of this profit and keep it in common, by directing it toward the production of locally managed deeply affordable housing, in the form of land trusts and housing cooperatives. If the tax declined sharply from the first year after purchase over a number of years, it would have a number of effects on the property market: funding non-commodifed housing, slowing speculation, and lowering rents, as owners rent in lieu of selling.

This roundtable brings together experts in the housing crisis, urban planning, land trusts and property to discuss a tax to fight gentrification in Toronto."

PANELISTS:
Rinaldo Walcott (Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto)
Rinaldo Walcott is Professor of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies in the Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto. He is the author of The Long emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom (Duke, 2021) and On Property (Biblioasis, 2021).

Martine August (School of Planning, University of Waterloo)
Martine August is an Assistant Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on the political economy of housing and the pursuit of urban social justice, exploring themes related to gentrification, displacement, community organizing, public housing redevelopment, and the politics of social mix. Her current research focuses on the financialization of real estate in Canada, including multi-family apartments, student housing, and seniors housing. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University, and worked as a housing policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in the Housing Policy Branch and Homelessness Secretariat.

Joshua Barndt (Executive Director, Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust)
Joshua Barndt is a Community Land Trust specialist and has acted as the Executive Director of Parkdale’s Neighborhood Land Trust since 2015. Parkdale’s Neighborhood Land Trust is a community controlled organization that removes land from the speculative real estate market and stewards it in a community ownership model. The Land Trust currently stewards 3 properties with 51 units of affordable housing. In 2022 the Land Trust plans to bring an additional 82 homes and small buildings into community ownership through a planned transfer from Toronto Community Housing. Learn more at pnlt.ca

Cheryll Case (Principal Urban Planner, CP Planning)
Cheryll Case, founder, and principal urban planner of CP Planning nurtures relationships between the government, charity, private, and community sectors to develop programs that reflect housing as a human right. She was an advisor to Toronto's 2020-2030 Affordable Housing Action Plan, and is a co-chair of the knowledge mobilization committee of the UBC Balanced Supply of Housing program. In partnership with community, she implemented the Black Futures on Eglinton community research project that is now living through the Tenant Solidarity Program (TSP) where she and community organize for affordable housing in Little Jamaica, Toronto.

Gentrification Tax Action (GTA) is a collective of artists and designers formed to campaign for a Gentrification Tax. Current members of GTA: Jane Mah Hutton teaches landscape architecture at the University of Waterloo; Sameer Farooq is an artist and documentary filmmaker; Kika Thorne is an artist; Adrian Blackwell is an artist and urbanist, teaching at the University of Waterloo.

Toronto - St. Anne's Parish Hall (Main Space)

We regret that St. Anne’s Parish Hall is not a barrier-free location, but attendees will have ongoing access to fully accessible bathrooms in the church. There are several steps from the street to the front door and interior steps leading to the Main Hall, upstairs, and downstairs. There is ample seating available, and washrooms between Skey Room and the Chapel (main floor) and outside Roseneath (upstairs) are gender neutral. St. Anne’s is a fragrance-free space (please don't wear perfumes or scented products). If you have any questions about accessibility needs, please reach out to us at torontolongwinter@gmail.com.