As of June 15, apartment buildings in Toronto are required to display colour-coded RentSafe signs at their entrances, backed by stronger financial penalties and remedial action if landlords don't maintain safe and healthy homes.
Modelled after the city's DineSafe program, the signs display green, yellow, or red based on a building's RentSafeTO evaluation score. Green means satisfactory (85-100%), yellow means the building needs improvement (70-84%), and red means it needs significant improvement (0-69%). This gives prospective renters vital information and holds the worst landlords to account.
The policy is the result of motions that I've moved at City Council and years of advocacy alongside tenant organizations including ACORN, the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations, and the Toronto Tenant Union. I'm proud we finally got it done.
Signs have been mailed to all landlords in the RentSafeTO program. City staff will take an escalating enforcement approach for any landlord that doesn't comply. Tenants who notice a missing or incorrect sign at their building should call 311.
Both of our local neighbourhood grocers that closed last year, Fruit Baskets and Fresh Buy Market, are returning to the neighbourhood and will continue serving the affordable fruit and veggies that so many of us rely on.
When notified of the upcoming demolition, my office and I immediately reached out to the business owners directly to offer our support. We contacted nearby property owners to identify new space opportunities and advocating to ensure that these businesses were able to remain.
We are grateful to everyone who worked together to ensure that these businesses were able to find nearby retail space in the neighbourhood - and in both cases - to secure even larger space, which allows more people to access more affordable food.