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The Overhead: Chinatown Community Housing
Thursday, 12 November, 2026
THIS EPISODE: Chinatown Community Housing Toronto's Chinatown, like many Chinatowns in North America, is a thriving neighbourhood full of amazing restaurants, independent grocers, and unique stores, and a bit of a tourist destination. But that desirability is also starting to put pressure on the people who live there, or hope to live there. It's becoming too popular to maintain its former relative affordability. Chiyi Tam is the managing director of the Toronto Chinatown Community Land Trust and she's been trying to secure non-market housing in that neighbourhood. While researching the area, she and her team realized previous generations of Chinatown residents had been organizing and providing mutual aid, including affordable rental housing, for years. As Tam explains: "It's shocking for us to find people who are paying some $500 for their housing in Chinatown, and to have access to culturally-relevant meals that people are making in a group kitchen downstairs while you live above on the second floor. It's amazing." What can past generations of Chinatown residents teach us about securing non-market housing in that neighbourhood today?
