Our Homes
While a lot of affordable housing in North America is apartment buildings or townhouses, Circle is a bit different: Most of our homes are detached or semi-detached houses with 3 or more bedrooms. We also own a small number of larger houses that contain two to five apartments each. We’ve heard a lot from our Tenants about the benefits of this housing: access to backyards, basements, and garages, privacy, and enough room for families. In fact, Tenants believed this so deeply, that they led to the fight to save their homes when they were under the threat of sale. You can read more about that history in The Circle Story.
Our 607 homes are scattered across the City, with clusters in the downtown east, East York, central Scarborough, Malvern, and more. They are integrated into their neighbourhoods, and usually look a lot like the houses nearby. We own a wide variety of housing, including prewar rowhouses, interwar semi-detached and detached, postwar bungalows and more. A lot of our Tenants have told us that they take pride in caring for their homes, and love their neighbourhoods.
We are grateful for the opportunity to preserve this rare and much-needed family housing in areas where affordable homes are increasingly hard to find.
The Land
Circle’s homes lie within the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Toronto is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabek, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and continues to be home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
The land where Circle’s homes are located exists across multiple treaties. To the West of Woodbine Avenue, Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. To the East of Woodbine Avenue, Toronto is covered by the Williams Treaties. In 2015 the Mississaugas of the Credit submitted a land claim to the governments of Ontario and Canada, claiming unextinguished title to a section of the land under the Williams Treaties called the Rouge River Valley Tract. This land claim is ongoing, and a settlement has not been reached. A large number of Circle’s homes sit on land that is part of the Rouge Tract Claim.
Our committee created this map that shows the approximate boundary of the Rouge Tract Claim up-close, so that we could visualize how many of Circle’s homes are located in that territory.
It is important and necessary to acknowledge this context. As an organization, Circle is committed to critically looking at what it means to own and operate housing on this land, and how we can support reconciliation and Indigenous sovereignty. In 2022, Circle created an internal staff committee to further this objective. Our committee has organized staff workshops with Indigenous educators, and regular opportunities for collective discussion and learning. This work is ongoing, and something we are committed to deepening in the coming years.
Read our full land acknowledgement here.