Toronto Metropolitan University · Government of Canada Research and Knowledge Initiative
PUBLIC RESEARCH REPORT
Navigating Transformation
The Future of Rental Housing in an Era of Transit Investment
Combining 14 years of eviction filing and property-level data with ownership records, rent analysis, and tenant interviews, the report examines how transit investment, landlord power, rising rents, and neighbourhood change shape housing insecurity across Toronto. Focusing on five communities, it shows how displacement pressure can build long before tenants formally leave their homes.

ABOUT THE STUDY
À PROPOS DE L’ÉTUDE
KEY FINDINGS
4 of 5
study areas recorded eviction filing rates above Toronto’s primary rental market average of 4.6 filings per 100 units
3.3x
the odds that a social housing property recorded no eviction filings in a given year, compared with other private-market property
5.9%–7.7%
compound annual growth in average effective rents on new leases across the five study areas, 2013–2023
7 of 10
rental properties with the highest total number of eviction filings were located in Black renter-majority
EXPLORE THE REPORT
Explore how landlord type, property size, ownership change, and neighbourhood conditions shape eviction filing patterns.
Examine how transit investment intersects with rent growth, displacement pressure, and neighbourhood change across the five study areas.
Learn how tenants experience housing insecurity before displacement and what governments can do to protect housing stability.
PUBLICATIONS & RESOURCES
Read the complete report for the full statistical analysis, neighbourhood findings, tenant interviews, maps, tables, and policy recommendations.
Examines how the political afterlives of Toronto’s limited-dividend housing enabled organized abandonment, financialized extraction, and racialized housing insecurity.
Analyzes how financialized landlords produce racialized geographies of eviction and housing instability in Toronto’s Black-majority renter communities, while highlighting tenant resistance.
Traces how Black tenants at Chalkfarm Drive confronted racialized displacement, landlord pressure, and housing insecurity, while showing how refusal and tenant resistance became strategies for defending home.
PROJECT TEAM
Principal Investigator and Report Author
Research Manager, Statistical and Spatial Analyst
Research Coordinator and Data Analyst
FUNDING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Federal support for this research was provided through Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada’s Research and Knowledge Initiative, together with matching support from Toronto Metropolitan University.
We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Government of Canada, which made this research possible, along with the institutional support provided by Toronto Metropolitan University. We also thank the City of Toronto Housing Secretariat, City Planning Division, Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Data Team, and the community and tenant organizations that supported this research. We extend our appreciation to the public servants, policy practitioners, Toronto Metropolitan University staff and colleagues, and, above all, the research participants whose knowledge, experiences, and insights shaped the study.

