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Homes & Homelessness

A standalone candidate question bank — every figure sourced and checkable, every question identical for every candidate. Also part of the full twelve-category bank.

How to use this bank

Homes & Homelessness

1.1 [CITY] In Toronto, average development-application approval timelines improved from 32 months (2022) to 25 months (2024). What further change to approval timelines, if any, would you pursue — and what safeguards or review steps would you refuse to trade away for speed?

1.2 [CITY] Municipal fees on a new low-rise home in Toronto — development charges, parkland dedication, and community benefit charges combined — totalled $195,832 per unit as of August 2024, second-highest of 16 GTA municipalities studied. These fees fund infrastructure but also add to the cost of new homes. How would you set that balance, and what would you change first?

1.3 [CITY] A 2025 Auditor General audit of Toronto’s winter shelter system found 625 beds at the winter peak, an average of 174 unmatched callers per day at Central Intake, and 4,331 bed nights left vacant as Warming Centres were deactivating. What would you change about how winter capacity is planned, and what single number should residents watch next winter to know whether it worked?

1.4 [CITY] What standard should guide the city’s response when an encampment forms in a park — and how would you measure whether that response worked, both for the people living in the encampment and for the neighbours who share the park?

1.5 [CITY→PROVINCE] [CITY→FEDERAL] In Ontario, municipal governments fund on average 77% of social housing expenditures, versus 14% provincial and 9% federal. What specifically would you ask the provincial and federal governments to take on, and what would the city do — or stop doing — if the answer is no?

1.6 [CITY→PROVINCE] Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board resolved about half of cases within its 90-day target in fiscal 2025-26 (51-53% against an 80% target). While those delays persist, what should the city itself do for tenants and small landlords caught in the queue — and what would you press the province for?

1.7 [CITY] Toronto is the most expensive city in Canada to buy a home, and in June 2025 City Council allowed small multi-unit buildings — sixplexes — as-of-right in only part of the city (Toronto and East York, plus Ward 23). Would you extend as-of-right multiplexes citywide, and what one number would tell residents the city is building enough homes to make a real dent in price?

1.8 [CITY→PROVINCE] Ontario caps most landlords’ annual rent increase at 1.9% for 2027 (2.1% for 2026) — but any unit first occupied after November 15, 2018 is exempt from that cap entirely, and its landlord can raise the rent by any amount. Toronto’s own Rental Renovation Licence Bylaw, in force since July 2025, requires landlords to hold a City licence before evicting a tenant for renovations. Would you press the province to close the 2018 exemption, and how would you strengthen or expand the city’s own renoviction licence?

1.9 [CITY] Toronto requires short-term rental hosts to register their principal residence and caps entire-home rentals at 180 nights a year — but the City’s own 2024 Auditor General audit estimated about 10% of operators may have exceeded that cap, and the program’s own fee revenue has been reported as falling short of covering its enforcement costs. What would you change about how short-term rentals are licensed or enforced, and should the program be made to pay for its own enforcement?

Universal set — for any candidate, any office

U.1 How will residents know if you succeeded? Name two or three public, checkable measures you are willing to be judged on at the end of the term — and where residents will find them.

U.2 What is one thing you would copy for Toronto from another city — anywhere in the world — and what makes you confident it would work here?

U.3 Name one thing the city currently does or funds that you would stop or shrink — and what you would say, face to face, to the residents who value it.

U.4 When the evidence in front of you and the residents you represent disagree, how do you decide? Give a real example of a position you changed, and why.

U.5 Name one problem residents raise constantly that the office you seek cannot fix directly. What do you tell them honestly — and what would you still do about it?

Sources & receipts

  1. Toronto development-application approval timelines: 32 months (2022) to 25 months (2024) — municipal development-approvals reporting (1.1).
  2. Municipal fees on a new low-rise home in Toronto totalling $195,832 per unit as of August 2024, second-highest of 16 GTA municipalities studied — GTA municipal fee-comparison study (1.2).
  3. 2025 Auditor General audit of Toronto’s winter shelter system: 625 beds at winter peak, 174 average daily unmatched Central Intake callers, 4,331 vacant Warming Centre bed nights — City of Toronto Auditor General reporting (1.3).
  4. Ontario municipal governments fund an average 77% of social housing expenditures, versus 14% provincial and 9% federal — municipal social-housing finance data (1.5).
  5. Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board resolved 51-53% of cases within its 90-day target against an 80% target, fiscal 2025-26 — Landlord and Tenant Board reporting (1.6).
  6. Toronto is the most expensive city in Canada to buy a home (2022 data); June 2025 Council vote allowing sixplexes as-of-right only in Toronto and East York plus Ward 23 — housing affordability and City Council reporting (1.7).
  7. Ontario rent-increase guideline: 1.9% for 2027, 2.1% for 2026; units first occupied after November 15, 2018 exempt from the guideline entirely — Government of Ontario, residential rent-increase guideline (1.8).
  8. City of Toronto Rental Renovation Licence Bylaw, adopted November 13-14, 2024, in force July 31, 2025, requiring a City licence before an N13 renovation eviction — City of Toronto news release (1.8).
  9. Toronto short-term rental rules: principal-residence registration requirement, 180-night entire-home cap; 2024 Auditor General audit estimating about 10% of operators may have exceeded the cap; enforcement cost recovery reported as uncertain — City of Toronto Municipal Licensing & Standards and Auditor General reporting (1.9).

This page went through an independent verification pass before publication (fact-check against primary sources, claim by claim, including a live re-fetch of the newer figures against their original sources). The internal verification record has been removed from this public page; the sourced facts and figures above are unchanged by that removal.