How to build community for the unhoused and refugees: Lessons from a Davenport church
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How to build community for the unhoused and refugees: Lessons from a Davenport church
The Green Line team visited 322 Geary Ave. to learn how C3 Toronto is helping the unhoused, refugee claimants and those in transitional living find community through its brunch and clothing drive.
Winnie Byanjeru, Love This City director at C3 Toronto, sits inside C3’s office at 322 Geary Ave.
: Anthony Lippa-Hardy/The Green Line.
Amanda Seraphina James Rajakumar
Indian immigrant with a post-grad in journalism from Centennial College. Now living in Grange Park, meeting new people, and hearing different stories. Has four names, so it’s a pick-your-player situation.
May 30, 2025
Tips on building community for refugees and the unhoused:
- Reach out to residents and organizations in the neighbourhood to crowdsource lightly used clothes for the donation drive.
- Find an accessible location in your neighbourhood to host the event.
- Borrow clothing racks from local shops and vintage stores.
- At least one month before the event, find people in your neighbourhood to volunteer.
- Two days before the event, get volunteers to help set up the retail store experience and serve as personal shoppers on the day of.
- Negotiate deals and discounts with local restaurants to serve free brunch-style food at the event.
Not everyone has the luxury of picking out clothes for themselves, especially the unhoused and new refugees to Canada.
But thanks to its unique retail store experience and cafe-style brunch, C3 Toronto, a local church in Davenport, is restoring choice and control to Torontonians who are often denied a say in where they live or what they eat.
Toronto Foundation’s 2023 Vital Signs Report found Toronto is the loneliest city in Canada.
: Amanda Seraphina/The Green Line.
In 2023, Toronto Foundation’s Vital Signs Report found that Toronto is the loneliest city in Canada, a reality that hits even harder for marginalized people.
With an average of 11,000 people actively unhoused in Toronto and with shelters running at nearly full capacity, the city's 10-year homelessness infrastructure plan calls for more shelter sites and improved community engagement.
Attendees shop for pants at C3 Toronto’s Toast and Threads event held on May 24, 2025, at 322 Geary Ave.
: John Abboud/C3 Toronto.
In response to the loneliness epidemic findings in Toronto Foundation’s report, C3 launched Toast and Threads, a unique take on a clothing drive, last year. Its events offer a retail-store experience — complete with personal shoppers and a cafe-style brunch — to the unhoused, refugees and Torontonians in transitional living.
“What Toast and Threads is doing is bringing that visibility and letting an individual know, 'Hey, you actually deserve to take up space in this room and this is a community that we want you to do that [in],’” says Winnie Byanjeru, director of Love This City at C3 Toronto, the church’s outreach arm.
“It creates this sort of healing, this sort of confidence in an individual. It's like ‘Okay, you see me, you give me the agency that I need,’ and all that works together to create dignity.”
Byanjeru adds that the event provides equity and agency to those who don’t usually get to pick where they live or what they eat. “It’s incredible the difference that a t-shirt can make in someone’s life.”
Volunteers for C3 Toronto’s Toast and Threads event come together for a group photo at 322 Geary Ave.
: John Abboud/C3 Toronto.
Held three times a year, Toast and Threads provides clothes before every season change, starting with spring clothes in February, summer clothes in May and winter clothes in November.
C3 has helped over 200 Torontonians by partnering with local shelters and social services, including Matthew House, a shelter for newly arrived refugee claimants.
Gamaliel Marquez, home team manager at Matthew House, says these kinds of partnerships help local charities run more effectively.
“When somebody has a roof on top of their head, food on the table and clothing to wear, that's when they can start focusing on more stuff," he explains. “They can focus on their paperwork, specifically as newcomers and refugees, because it's so tough in Toronto. They can focus on developing skills or getting knowledge.”
Marquez adds that Matthew House’s partnership with C3 Toronto enables it to provide clothing to its residents, so they don’t have to worry about getting winter jackets and other seasonal clothes.
Mary Muhoho, a refugee claimant at Matthew House, stands inside C3 Toronto’s office at 322 Geary Ave. while volunteers set up for Toast and Threads.
: Anthony Lippa-Hardy/The Green Line.
Mary Muhoho joined Matthew House in October 2023 after immigrating to Canada earlier that year to flee persecution in Kenya. She’s attended three Toast and Threads events so far.
Muhoho says the event helps build a healthy community for refugees like herself. “Sometimes you might feel like you don't have a place to go or you feel like probably this weekend you don't have a plan. [But] such an event gives you that opportunity to just come here, hang out, have friends and just share."
C3 wants to expand Toast and Threads across Toronto. Right now, it's helping Celebration Church International in York University Heights and Proclaim Church in Pelmo Park-Humberlea and O'Connor-Parkview to start their own donation drives.
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