Action you can Take
As a starting point, below are suggestions from the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (www.tdrc.net):
1. Endorse the One Percent Solution: Encourage others in your community to endorse the Solution. (endorse at www.tdrc.net) Also show your support by wearing the 1% Solution button. To order a quantity of 1% buttons, contact us. Buttons cost $1/button. We will fill orders of 20 or more. You can recover your costs by selling them at your local event.
2. Contact elected officials at the municipal, provincial and federal level: Invite them to your local events. Organize a group visit. Write letters to them or call. Use opportunities like special holiday meals to organize a letter writing session; provide paper, pens, stamped envelopes, and sample messages at meetings and events. Be sure to keep the government officials informed of the local struggles in your area and ask what they are doing to end homelessness. When they receive more than a few visits or letters about any subject, they sit up and take note.
3. Raise awareness: Organize a forum; display a banner in prominent location; poster empty buildings or construction sites; respond to local emergencies; organize site visits to homeless programs or housing projects with political leaders and the media to highlight the ways that your community is successfully or inadequately addressing our housing crisis and homelessness disaster. Be creative!
4. Use the media to help spread the word: Encourage prominent people in your community to write an op-ed piece or letter to the editor. Invite media to your community events. Something as simple as calls to media communicating your concern for homeless people in your area or supporting or opposing a recent story can influence how the issue in covered in the future.
5. Prepare for Upcoming Elections: The federal elections are drawing near. Work with others to ensure housing is a key election issue.
6. Build housing: Faith groups, unions, and community groups have contributed to our affordable housing stock. Even a single unit on church property, for example, can help to emphasize the need and show how easily and cheaply it can be done.