Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy

Toronto Community Housing is committed to providing equal opportunity to all employees. We strive to create a diverse and inclusive workplace that represents the cultural mosaic of our great city and the communities we serve. We recognize the value that comes from the different viewpoints, unique experiences and diverse perspectives of our employees, who bring fresh, new ideas to our business. Diversity plays a key role in our ability to deliver on our mission of providing clean, safe and affordable homes for tenants.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Toronto Community Housing

Toronto Community Housing is committed to implementing positive changes in its workforce and communities to achieve access and equality of outcomes for all residents and to create a harmonious environment free from discrimination, harassment, and hate.

Toronto Community Housing is strongly committed to diversity and inclusion within its community and encourages applications from Indigenous peoples, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women, 2SLGBTIAQ+ persons, and others who may contribute to fostering innovative ideas and solutions.

When actively looking for applicants, we recognize that not everyone will have all of the qualifications listed in our job postings. We encourage job seekers to consider their transferrable skills and to apply for positions that they believe they have the right skills for.

To learn more about our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion efforts, you can read our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy (PDF).

Read about the progress we made in 2022 for our EDI Strategy in our 2022 Annual Progress Report (PDF).

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that Toronto Community Housing is on the traditional territory of many Nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. We further acknowledge all Treaty peoples, including those who came here as settlers – as migrants either in this generation or in generations past – and those who came here involuntarily, particularly Africans brought here as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

We recognize the lands from which we gather and recognize the historical impact and multi-generational effects of colonization, oppressive laws, and broken treaties that have occurred here and are an ongoing dimension of our collective responsibilities. Therefore, this work is done in solidarity with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

We also endeavour to go beyond land acknowledgments to material support and advocacy to forward Indigenous people's interests.

Toronto Community Housing Corporation's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy 2022-2026

Toronto Community Housing's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy (PDF) has been approved at the Board. In developing the EDI Strategy, TCHC consulted staff with the goal to effectively listen, understand, and engage to build a framework that is flexible and response to the diverse perspectives and experiences of the people that live and work at Toronto Community Housing.

The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy is a corporate wide effort by Toronto Community Housing to assist in more effectively understanding and addressing the needs of everyone in our unique and diverse community.

Becoming a more diverse and inclusive workplace is not just about hiring people who have differences, but also creating an environment that allows people to bring their unique thoughts and identities to work to enhance the cultural and diversity competence of the workforce at large. Working to have diversity in our workforce reflective of the community allows us to foster the differences of thought, opinion, and experience that allow us to better meet the diverse needs of our customers and tenants.

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy reflects actions and initiatives that incorporate all dimensions of diversity, while the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Strategy will guide us in making changes to systematically address the realities of anti-Black racism experienced by Black tenants and staff. Though different in scope, both strategies share the goal of creating a more equitable and inclusive environment for staff and tenants.

Read about the progress we made in 2022 for our EDI Strategy in our 2022 Annual Progress Report (PDF).

For more information, or to learn more about our current efforts for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, please contact us at diversity@torontohousing.ca.

EDI Partnerships

TCHC is proud to be a Proud Partner of Pride at Work Canada and an Employer Partner with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) as we recognize the strength in working with community partners to achieve our equity, diversity, and inclusion goals.

Employee Networks at Toronto Community Housing

Employee networks are employee-driven associations organized around shared interests, issues, a common bond or background and a dimension of diversity. They are grassroots groups that allow individuals to share experiences, provide advice, offer mutual support and address unique member concerns in a safe environment.

Current TCHC employee networks:

Black Staff Caucus (BSC)
Filipino Kababayan Network
Pride Network
Women Inclusion Network (WIN)

Learn more about our Employee Networks.

The Centre for Advancing the Interests of Black People

Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) continues its commitment to acknowledge how social housing impacts different groups and their different experiences.

Our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Confronting Anti-Black Racism work is being done collectively and in solidarity with equity-deserving groups to create a safe space that supports all intersections of identity.

We strive to help staff, tenants and partners understand how systemic racism, oppression and our implicit biases can exclude or erase the experiences of various communities of race, gender, disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion and/or age, amongst others.

We are part of a global village. By recognizing our role in a global village, we must be intentional in fostering safe spaces that reflect our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion and respect among staff.

Our workplace actively encourages and promotes various equity initiatives, including but not limited to:

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy;
The Confronting Anti-Black Racism Strategy, and;
Employee networks (i.e., Black Staff Caucus, Pride Network, Women's Inclusion Network).

We all share responsibility in the pursuit of equity and invite you to be part of our ongoing conversation about building a more equitable, diverse and inclusive social housing provider and employer.

To learn more about our efforts with confronting anti-Black racism, please visit our page for The Centre for Advancing the Interests of Black People.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Hiring

To learn more about our current openings, please see our Career Centre.

Toronto Community Housing is committed to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in employment. Our goal is a diverse, inclusive, and barrier-free workplace that reflects the communities we serve. We recognize that diversity makes our organization and teams better and stronger. As you read through our job postings and requirements, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the requirements.

If you have questions about the hiring process, please contact the People and Culture department at People.Culture@torontohousing.ca.

Diversity Demographic Self-identification Questionnaire

To better understand the diversity of candidates and to assist us in ensuring our recruitment systems and programs are equitable and accessible, we ask that you take a moment to complete this self-identification questionnaire.

Your responses are voluntary, any information that you provide is strictly confidential, and your privacy will be protected. If you do not want to answer a particular question, please click the "prefer not to answer" option. At the end of the questionnaire, we ask if you consent to us using the information in aggregate reporting to further assist our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy goals and actions.

We are providing definitions here, but please note that these definitions may change as our collective understanding on the topic and language evolves to be more inclusive. We are using best practices, as well as aligning with definitions and demographic data collection best practices from the Ontario Human Rights Code as well as the Employment Equity Act. This allows us to analyze our data in comparison to labour market trends.

If you have questions about the Diversity Demographic Self-identification Questionnaire in the application process or require accommodation in the hiring process, please email People.Culture@torontohousing.ca and quote the Job Requisition Number from the job posting.

Our Diversity Demographic Self-identification Questionnaire asks about five (5) different areas:

Gender Identity;
Cultural/Ethnicity Group(s);
2SLGBTQIA+ Identity;
Disability Status;
Indigenous Ancestry;
Veteran Status, and;
Immigration Status.

Diversity Demographic Self-identification Questionnaire categories

Gender Identity

The 519, a City of Toronto agency committed to the health, happiness and full participation of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, has posted a Glossary of Terms on its website. The glossary contains useful information to facilitate shared understandings when accommodating people in accordance with their gender identity or sexual orientation. A sample of the terms is listed below. Visit the 519's Glossary of Terms page the read the glossary.

Definitions:

Agender: denoting or relating to a person who does not identify themselves as having a particular gender.
Bigender: Someone who identifies as both man and woman.
Cisgender: This term refers to individuals who have a match between the gender they are born as and the gender they identify with.
Gender Fluid: Gender fluidity refers to change over time in a person's gender expression or gender identity, or both. That change might be in expression, but not identity, or in identity, but not expression. Or both expression and identity might change together.
Intersex: A person born with sex characteristics (chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals) that do not fit the typical medical definitions of male or female bodies.
Non-binary (Genderqueer): A person who does not follow the gender stereotypes of a man nor woman. They may express themselves as "feminine men" or "masculine women" or as androgynous, outside of the categories of "boy/man" and "girl/woman."
Questioning: A period where a person explores their own sexual identity, orientation, and/or gender.
Transgender: A person whose gender identity, expression or behaviour is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth.
Two-Spirited: Historically used by some North American Aboriginal peoples to describe a person who identifies as having two spirits (one male and one female) inhabiting a single body. This concept may be understood by North American/Europeans as either gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or a combination thereof.

Cultural/Ethnicity Group(s)

Ethnic/Racial groups are defined by race or colour only, not by country of birth, citizenship or religious affiliation. Toronto Community Housing uses the same categories as in the Canadian Census and gathered by Toronto Public Health. As these are updated, our choices will be updated as well.

Arab
Black (e.g., African, American, Caribbean, West Indian, etc.)
East Asian (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Koren)
Indigenous (e.g., First Nations, Métis, Inuk)
Latin American
Mixed race or multiracial (identifying with multiple of the options)
North African (e.g., Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan)
South Asian (e.g., Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan)
Southeast Asian (e.g., Malaysian, Filipino, Vietnamese)
West Asian (e.g., Iranian, Lebanese, Jordanian)
White/Caucasian

2SLGBTQIA+ Identity

The 519, a City of Toronto agency committed to the health, happiness and full participation of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, has posted a Glossary of Terms on its website. The glossary contains useful information to facilitate shared understandings when accommodating people in accordance to their gender identity or sexual orientation. A sample of the terms is listed below. Visit the 519's Glossary of Terms page the read the glossary.

Asexual: A person who experiences little or no sexual attraction to people of any gender.
Bisexual: A person who is attracted to people of more than one gender.
Gay: A person who is attracted to people of the same gender, typically used to describe a man who is attracted to men.
Heterosexual/Straight: A person who is attracted to people of the opposite gender.
Lesbian: A woman who is attracted to women.
Pansexual: A person who is attracted to other people regardless of gender.
Queer: An umbrella term used and reclaimed by some whose sexual orientations and/or gender identities fall outside of cisgender/straight norms.
Questioning: A period where a person explores their own sexual identity, orientation, and/or gender.
Two-Spirited: Historically used by some North American Aboriginal peoples to describe a person who identifies as having two spirits (one male and one female) inhabiting a single body. This concept may be understood by North American/Europeans as either gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or a combination thereof.

Disability

From the Ontario Human Rights Code, persons with disabilities are those any degree of physical, mental, sensory, psychiatric or learning impairment, which limits a person's movements, senses, or activities.

A disability includes:

any degree of physical disability, infirmity, malformation or disfigurement that is caused by bodily injury, birth defect or illness.
a condition of mental impairment or a developmental disability,
a learning disability, or a dysfunction in one or more of the processes involved in understanding or using symbols or spoken language,
a mental disorder, or
an injury or disability for which benefits were claimed or received under the insurance plan established under the WSIB

Visible disabilities can be noticed to an individual with their naked eye and by just looking at the person. They may have facial features that show they have a disability, they may have involuntary shaking throughout their body or they may not be physically able to move as the average individual does.

Invisible disabilities have side effects that may affect the way the individual thinks, hears, speaks or interacts with others. It can be challenging to know when someone has an invisible disability, as most of these people may be dismissed by their peers and society as 'odd' or 'off'.

Under the definition of disability under the Ontario Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H. 19, disability may include but is not limited to:

Physical coordination: difficulty using hands or arms, such as grasping objects or using a keyboard
Mobility: difficulty moving around from one office to another, walking long distances or using stairs
Blindness or visual impairment: unable to see or difficulty seeing, but does not include people who can see well with glasses or contact lenses
Muteness or speech impediment: unable to see or difficulty seeing

Deafness or hearing impediment: unable to hear or difficulty hearing
Psychiatric impairment: affects one's emotion, behavior and coping adaptability. This includes any mental or psychological disorders such as schizophrenia or depression
Learning disability: affects one's ability to process or understand information using symbols or spoken language such as Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Ongoing medical condition: Chronic or large health conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes and arthritis among others.

Please see the accessibility for applicants page if you are an individual who has a disability covered under the Ontario Human Rights Code and you require accommodation to apply to a job at Toronto Community Housing.

Indigenous Ancestry

Indigenous ancestry refers to whether a person has ancestry associated with the Indigenous peoples of Canada, that is, First Nations (North American Indian), Métis, and/or Inuit. Aboriginal peoples (referred to here as Indigenous peoples) of Canada are defined in the Constitution Act, 1982, Section 35 (2) as including the First Nations (status and non-status), Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.

The term 'Aboriginal' has been replaced with the updated term of 'Indigenous' when referring to individuals who identify themselves as First Nations people, Métis and/or Inuit. Ancestry refers to the ethnic or cultural origins of the person's ancestors, an ancestor being usually more distant than a grandparent. A person can have more than one ethnic or cultural origin.

Toronto Community Housing recognizes those who have and do not have Status.

Veteran Status

As defined by Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), Veterans in Canada are any former member of the Canadian Armed Forces who successfully underwent basic training and is honourably discharged.

VAC considers any former member of the Canadian Armed Forces who releases with an honourable discharge and who successfully underwent basic training to be a Veteran.

This includes:

Armed Forces and Merchant Navy Veterans who served during the First World War, Second World War or Korean War;
Former and current members of the Canadian Forces, including those who served in Special Duty Areas and in peacekeeping; and
Allied Veterans who:
- have served with one of the Allied forces during the Second World War or the Korean War; and
- have lived in Canada for at least 10 years or lived in Canada prior to enlisting.

Immigration Status

As outlined in Statistics Canada’s definition, immigrant status refers to whether the respondent is a non-immigrant, an immigrant, or a non-permanent resident.

Persons who are "Canadian citizens by birth" are "non-immigrants."

Persons who are, or who have ever been, landed immigrants or permanent residents are "immigrants."

Persons who are "Canadian citizens by naturalization" are also "immigrants."

Persons who do not have Canadian citizenship and who are not landed immigrants or permanent residents are "non-permanent residents."