How to tackle housing challenges with organizer Flynn Daunt

By Adele Lukusa | January 8, 2025

THE GREEN LINE'S
CHANGEMAKER INTERVIEW

How to tackle housing challenges with organizer Flynn Daunt

For our January Changemakers newsletter, we spoke with community organizer Flynn Daunt about renovictions, tenant advocacy and working with the Keele Area Tenants Committee.

PICTURE OF AN EVENT AT A PARK HOSTED BY THE KEELE AREA TENANTS COMMITTEE.

AN EVENT HOSTED BY THE KEELE AREA TENANT COMMITTEE.
📸: Provided by Flynn Daunt.

Adele Lukusa BW

Adele Lukusa

A graduate of TMU, Kitchener native enamoured with Toronto and lover of Jamila Woods. Currently working on supporting mutual aid efforts and unpacking the nuances of Black haircare.

Jan. 8, 2025

It all started when Flynn Daunt was served an eviction notice.

Organizing was a necessity. So, he and his neighbours in his Keele Street building came together as a collective to push back against their landlord attempting to evict them.

They succeeded in stopping the renoviction — or eviction for renovations — of their building in 2020, and again in 2021. But Flynn and his neighbours didn’t want to stop there. They decided to share their efforts with others who find themselves in similar situations.

In 2023, they created the Keele Area Tenants Committee — and with it the opportunity to help other North York renters with their landlord disputes and eviction notices.

The Keele Area Tenants Committee only got the ball rolling three years after your first renoviction notice in 2020. What made you and other organizers finally commit to this?

It all started in early 2023 because people who helped us organize were also reaching out and helping other people around the area get organized. So, other people from my building and I would go to support them in their demonstrations against their landlords. We would get to know them and discuss the exact same issues. It got us talking about setting up this big network to help keep communicating and make this an active, growing project.

So we printed a bunch of flyers, went to all these buildings, slipped them under the doors of people and said ”Hey, we're going to have a meeting at the local library for anyone that's interested in coming out and learning more about this committee that we're putting together.” I was honestly expecting maybe a dozen people to show up, but the room was packed. All the seats were filled, people were peeking through the door. I'm pretty sure we were at capacity at the library area that we rented out. And I was honestly overwhelmed. I was honestly expecting something a lot more casual.

We were not established, nobody knew anything about us, we weren't really an organization yet. We just wanted to network and get some numbers from people who might have a problem. And it made me realize that this was a huge epidemic.

You’re essentially doing free labour with all this organizing work. How do you avoid burning out?

For me and most other people that I work with, it's all volunteer based. The organization that I helped start doesn't accept a penny or anything. We've never solicited and that's not been part of our goal. It's just a bunch of neighbours getting together and going to help out when we can.

And to be honest, I definitely rely on having that network. There’s an understanding amongst us that we can't help anyone if we, ourselves, are at capacity.  When I can't do something because I have my own job and my own bills to pay, I know that we have enough of a network that can help out when I can’t.

It is a lot of hard work, but I rely on the people I work with to pick up the slack when I can't and I will do the same for them.

There’s a big issue of complacency and/or lack of housing rights education when it comes to the average renter. How do you navigate that, especially as people lead busy lives that leave little time to organize and educate themselves?

Conversation. To get through to people, I remind them I’m just a regular person — and I think that helps out.

Rather than saying I'm from some sort of official organization that has grants from the government, I’ll say “I'm your neighbour. I live down the street from you. I've been going through the same thing that you've been going through. This is how we dealt with it and, if you want to, you can deal with it the same way.”

It's a difficult conversation to have because I think a lot of people don't really understand that regular people, working class people, have rights and they can protest. Just because somebody says you have to leave in two months does not mean you have to. You can get angry and you can push back and you can say “No, that's not fair.” You need a small group of people who keep pushing forward. Getting enough people on board is the key to success because people can get discouraged if they don't see their neighbours there with them.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

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Sources and
further reading

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check our sources for yourself.

Keele Area Tenants Committee

Keele Area Tenants Committee

THE GREEN LINE

BREAKING DOWN COMMON EVICTION SCENARIOS IN TORONTO

THE GREEN LINE

FIGHTING ABOVE GUIDELINE RENT INCREASES

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Posted in Changemakers, Housing, Neighbourhoods