Resident Summit

Join us for the highly participatory 2025 Resident Summit — a powerful gathering where you can share ideas and workshop solutions with community leaders, urban planners, funders, and policymakers working to scale community-driven solutions to protect and build affordable neighbourhoods.

Collaborative workshop 1: Map the system of relationships required to unlock funding for the development of affordable housing. The outcome will be a visual map that brings to light the relational barriers, opportunities, and pathways that shape our economy, but may not receive enough attention or exploration.
Collaborative workshop 2: Summarize the policy gap and solution to the problem of the land use planning and development economy's lack of total labour supply and essential skills deficit resulting in the current and unacceptable levels of displacement and inequitable wealth building. In addition to the workshop design advisory committee, the design of the workshop has been informed by the first 100 responses RSVP'ing to the Resident Summit.
Solidarity boost: Share knowledge and deepen connections with other community leaders, decision-makers, funders, planners, and government leaders who can help make your vision a reality.
Solidarity boost: Community groups will have the chance to win pro-bono hours from industry professionals.

Your voice matters! Take 2 minutes to RSVP & fill out this quick survey — let us know what challenges and opportunities should be front and center at the Summit.

📩 Interested in joining in as a sponsor, or have other questions? Contact Cheryll.Case@CPplanning.ca

Hope to see you at the Summit!

The 2024 Resident Summit was held at the Centre for Social Innovation on May 27, 2024, bringing together over 60 community organizers, non-profit leaders, and housing advocates to share knowledge and begin ecosystem mapping to strengthen solutions for affordable housing and anti-displacement efforts.

Objectives:

Gather community residents, organizations, and leaders from across Ontario cities with recent major investments in transit.
Showcase successful housing strategies and how they can be replicated and scaled •
Advance ecosystem mapping, to build a community strategy to secure short and long term wins

Highlights

Fireside Chat: Featuring Mercedes Zayas Sharpe (former community planner, PARC) on cross-sectoral collaboration for equitable housing.
Voices of Progress Panel: featured leaders Kumsa Baker (TCBN), Anna-Kay Brown (Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre), Dr. Menna Agha (Carleton University), and Mohammed Shalalfeh (Hamilton Community Benefits Network) sharing success stories in affordable housing policy and partnership advancement.
Financing Affordable Housing Panel: explored funding strategies with Garth Brown (resident, housing advocate), S. Mwarigha (WoodGreen), Krystal Valencia (Rental Rescue), and moderator Matti Siemiatycki (University of Toronto).
Community Action Plan Workshop: Identified power matrix of key stakeholder groups and organizations named and evaluated by attendees. The Workshop's results highlight the critical role of funding and financial partnerships in advancing affordable housing.

Your Next Step Directions to Us

CP Planning will expand capacity-building for community-led housing, advocate for stronger government policy alignment, develop cross-sectoral financial partnerships, engage high-power industry leaders, and enhance participatory planning for the 2025 Resident Summit to drive sustainable and equitable housing solutions.

The 2023 Resident Summit, was hosted in CP Planning's office in Little Jamaica, Toronto, on April 26, 2023. The Summit brought together over 40 community residents, non-profit leaders, and government officials from across Toronto, Peel, Hamilton, and Ottawa to address pressing housing issues and develop actionable solutions.

Discussions focused on:

Gathering feedback on the emergent strategies in the recently laucnhed Roadmap for Redevelopment Plans to Confront Systemic Racism
Attendees sharing knowledge and stories on their successes, and opportunities to replicate wins

Highlights

Open forum discussion included words of wisdom shared by invited guests Adam Vaughan (former MP and City Councilor), Kumsa Baker (TCBN), Hannia Cheng (Toronto Chinatown Land Trust), Katie King (Hamilton Community Benefits Network), Erella Ganon (Build a Better Bloor Dufferin) and more
Dotmocracy activity identified that the ongoing displacement, lack of affordable housing supply, and limited staff capacity were the top barriers experienced by communities working to protect and increase affordable housing supply.

Your Next Step Directions to Us

Prioritize addressing funding gaps to fuel grassroots housing initiatives
Support knowledge building on securing wins through planning processes and government engagementIncreased government engagement
Get a bigger venue for the 2024 Summit

2025 Resident Summit

Partners

Workshop Design Advisory Committee Members

Community Building Sponsor

Contributing Sponsor

2024

2023