No. 1: Beginnings

Fresh perspective. Dreary weather. A Green New Deal for Housing. Toronto City Council by-election, budget, and defunding the police.

Jan 13, 2021

Welcome to Dwell & Drizzle! I’m Diana Yoon. This newsletter intersects housing, climate, activism, Toronto life and politics.

Hello eager beavers,

We’re here! No.1: Beginnings.

The new year (despite the chaos that’s already happened in the first 12 days) feels hopeful in a way that I can’t quite describe. Clarity. Anticipation. Fresh perspective. I’m eager to look, think, and write about things in a new light.

So I started this newsletter a little bit impulsively, uncertain what kind of information it would include or how it would feel. What I did and do know is that there is a clear gap of people talking about the intersection of climate and housing justice. Let’s fix that.

Each newsletter will showcase the excellent work happening in local housing or climate-related social movements, policy advocacy and intervention opportunities, or news that brings to light these issues. I’m an optimist and I like solutions; this newsletter should feel light, despite the heaviness of capitalism and the local and global issues that plague our communities. We have to find joy and excitement (or catharsis) to stay in this for the long haul.

I also want this small piece of digital space to reflect, to discuss, to explore, to live. It’ll be a little messy, since life is messy. I may try to doodle on my phone or share photos (like of my tiny cat Oyster) when it feels relevant. Feel free to skip over my long form ramblings if you’re in a rush. The latter half of the newsletter will be more structured. That’s enough context for now. Here we go!

When I came up with the title, my partner Mat said “Dwell feels like the right word for think-pieces”. “Drizzle” seeped into my consciousness as I looked through lists of climate or weather related words.

Our Alexa annoyingly started telling us that the weather was “dreary” a few months ago; it feels like a bad omen for the day, but I’m trying to reduce the impact of external circumstances on my mood and well-being. Did I take high school english class’ emphasis on pathetic fallacy too literally?

But more seriously, I feel like going outside is one of my few daily joys. I crave the sun and the fresh air. It’s disappointing when the skies are grey and the temperature frosty (and not even any snow to make us believe in the magic of winter). Toronto (and Ontario) is unfortunately going into a further stage of lockdown this week, but we’re still allowed “exercise walks”. I hope we can continue skating. The mental toll of the pandemic is challenging, for sure.

Weather is not climate. That’s climate science 101.

But I worry about 2020 being tied (with 2016) as the hottest year on record.

Heat and cold, at either extreme, impact the most vulnerable and marginalized folks. This is true in cities like Toronto too, especially for those who are under or unhoused. That’s one reason why housing feels so urgently important for me.

HOUSING & CLIMATE JUSTICE

either or both or taxing the rich

I’m obsessed with The Tyee’s “A Green New Deal for Housing” series by Geoff Dembicki.

The first in this series, "How Rethinking Affordable Homes Connects with the Climate Fight” (The Tyee, November 2020) is an excellent introduction to the overlap of housing and climate justice. Similarly, Hamilton has made some exciting progress in building affordable social housing to Passive House Standard (Treehugger, January 2021).

The article starts off with “one of the greenest skyscrapers in the planet”, and I almost stopped reading (glad I didn’t). Thankfully 25% of this condo building is set aside for social housing. This is the kind of multi-faceted solution we need.

Luxury, elitist environmentalism is unacceptable and the climate movement needs to do more to fight the fights of working class, racialized communities - like good quality, affordable, adequate housing for all. On this note, we cannot celebrate Elon Musk’s EV Tesla empire and his unfortunate rise to being the richest man in the world (all billionaires are policy failures; no one “earns” this much wealth or deserves to be this wealthy and this money does not trickle down). See: Jacobin’s Elon Musk Is Planning for Climate Apocalypse for more on this.

TORONTO

life, activism, politics

I feel kind of guilty about not volunteering earlier in the Toronto Scarborough-Agincourt by-election happening this Thursday, January 15! I’ll put in a shift and encourage you to do the same. Here’s a link to phone bank for Manna Wong, the endorsed candidate by Progress Toronto.

But why does one more progressive city councillor matter?!

The City Budget (which dictates many other important elements of municipal government - like the Black Lives Matters’ demands to defund the police).

Did you know the City of Toronto currently spends just over 25% of taxpayer dollars on funding the police? $1.13 billion dollars annually. $3.3 million dollars PER DAY. This is comparable to the tax dollars spent on public transportation, the library, children services, and public health combined.

The updated draft city budget will be released this Thursday, January 14 - so we’ll definitely keep our eye on it. To dive in, Social Planning Toronto has a guide to all things budget. I deputed once in 2019 at Budget Subcommittee due mostly to my frustration at the lack of investment into the city’s climate plan TransformTO and the backlog of repairs into community housing and transit. With virtual everything, it’s much harder to be civically engaged. We’ll try our best.

That’s a wrap on newsletter No.1. Thanks for caring (and thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts with me!).

Dwell & Drizzle