Toronto Tenant Support Program: Who the City Pays to Help With AGIs and Evictions
City Hall does not decide rent increases or evictions. What it does is fund five non-profit projects to work alongside tenants. Here is who they are, what each is required to do, and what the program is not.
Which organizations does the City of Toronto fund to support tenants, and who is eligible?
For the funding term April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028, the City selected three non-profits to run five Toronto Tenant Support Program (TTSP) projects. The Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR) holds two: Professional Legal Services, and a Research, Policy and Data Development project. The Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations (FMTA) also holds two: Organizing and Capacity Building, and Information Services (the FMTA Tenant Info Hub). The Centre for Immigrant and Community Services (CICS) holds one, in Information Services. The legal stream is described as serving “eligible Toronto tenants”, but the City page publishes no eligibility threshold, such as an income limit; whether you qualify is assessed by the agency you contact.
Source: City of Toronto, Toronto Tenant Support Program page (date modified April 13, 2026)
Toronto City Council cannot approve your landlord’s above-guideline rent increase, and it cannot refuse it either. It cannot evict you, and it cannot stop an eviction. Under Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, those decisions belong to the Landlord and Tenant Board, a provincial tribunal. The City says so plainly on its own rental renovation page: the RTA eviction process “falls outside the City’s jurisdiction.”
What the City can do is spend money, and for tenants it does that through the Toronto Tenant Support Program. The City does not deliver the help itself. It pays non-profit, community-based organizations to stand beside tenants, explain the process, help them organize and, in one stream, provide legal services.
I’m Arthur Zhao with AZ Real Estate Partners. Below I go through the program one funded organization at a time, then cover what it is not, and only after that explain what an above-guideline increase application or an eviction notice actually is under the Act. This is general information, not legal advice on your tenancy. For your own situation, contact one of the agencies listed here or a lawyer or paralegal.
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The five funded projects, one organization at a time
According to the City of Toronto (2026), it “funds non-profit, community-based organizations to deliver the Toronto Tenant Support Program (TTSP) with the aim to protect affordable, private-market rental housing.” Projects were chosen through a City review against written Service Delivery Requirements, and the current term runs to March 31, 2028. Three organizations hold the five projects.
Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR): the legal stream and the research stream
Professional Legal Services (project name: Legal supports to Preserve Tenancies and Affordable Housing). This is the only TTSP stream whose written requirements describe professional legal services. The City page lists what it supports eligible Toronto tenants with:
- above-guideline rent increases
- eviction matters
- maintenance applications or other tenancy issues
- questions about relevant bylaws, such as the Multi-Tenant (Rooming) Houses Bylaw and the Rental Renovations Bylaw
The agency must be registered with the Law Society of Ontario and must have paralegals and/or lawyers on staff who are registered with the Law Society. The requirements also cover assessing tenants’ needs, making referrals (for example to financial assistance and income-support programs), and providing language translation services as needed.
Research, Policy and Data Development (project name: Preserving Affordable Rental Housing in Toronto – A Community-Based Research Platform). This is a research project on preserving affordable rental housing, with findings shared with the City and recommendations taken to the Province. Nothing in its listed requirements describes taking on individual tenants’ cases.
Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations (FMTA): organizing, plus an information hub
Organizing and Capacity Building (FMTA Outreach and Organizing Team). The requirements are written around groups rather than individual files: outreach to tenant associations, educating tenants on dispute processes, helping tenants, tenant groups or associations prepare for hearings at the Landlord and Tenant Board or other tribunals, and helping tenant associations formalize their operations and governance. The team is also expected to spot buildings and applications that could be precedent-setting and refer them to the Professional Legal Services stream. Language translation services as needed are part of this stream’s requirements too.
Information Services (FMTA Tenant Info Hub). Information and referral: assessing what a tenant, tenant group or association needs and either providing the service or referring onward. The City’s Information for Tenants page lists the FMTA Tenant Hotline at 416-921-9494 and says FMTA can answer questions and connect you with local tenant associations.
Centre for Immigrant and Community Services (CICS): information and referral
CICS holds the second Information Services project, named Holistic Information and Referral Strategy for Housing Support. The City’s tenant page describes the service as “free, multi-lingual rights information, connections to tenant support services, and legal information” and lists 416-292-7510 ext. 7222 or housing.support@cicscanada.com. The page does not say which languages are offered. On language, the Information Services requirements say only that online services must be easily translated into the languages most often used by tenants, and must comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005.
What the program is not
The City is not the decision-maker. Funding an agency to help you prepare does not put the City on either side of your file. Whether an above-guideline increase is allowed, and whether a tenancy ends, is decided by the Landlord and Tenant Board under the Residential Tenancies Act. The City’s rental renovation page puts it directly: “Only the Landlord and Tenant Board may issue an eviction order.”
The research stream does not take cases. One of the five projects is research and policy work. If you need help with your own notice or application, the relevant streams are legal services, organizing, and information services.
Service-hour requirements bind the agencies; they are not promises to callers. The requirements say funded agencies must deliver services 35 to 40 hours per week, including weekends and evenings, and the Information Services stream must report on response rates and call statistics to the City. Those are conditions the City attaches to the funding. They do not tell you when someone will pick up, how long you will wait, or whether you will be taken on as a client.
💡 My own reading: treat the City page as a directory of who to call, not as a service guarantee. Almost every line on it is a requirement placed on the funded agencies: minimum experience, Law Society registration, hours, reporting, committee participation. That is how a funding contract reads. It tells you which organizations the City pays and what the City expects of them. It does not give an individual tenant a right to a lawyer, a callback window, or representation at a hearing. Use it to choose your first call, and then let the agency tell you what it can actually do for you.
What the paper in your hand legally is
Before calling anyone, identify which of two very different things you have received. In both cases the starting step is the landlord’s, and the deciding step belongs to the Board.
⚠️A notice is not a lockout order. Under RTA s.39, a landlord shall not recover possession of a rental unit unless the tenant has vacated or abandoned it, or an order of the Board evicting the tenant has authorized the possession. A notice of termination on its own is neither of those.
The 3 per cent limit, read narrowly
The AGI provision has a cap, but read what it actually covers. According to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (s.126(11)), where the increase justified by security-service operating costs and eligible capital expenditures is more than 3 per cent, the part attributable to those costs is limited to 3 per cent, and the order sets a further increase above the guideline for each of the two following 12-month periods, again no more than 3 per cent in each. The subsection names those two grounds. It does not mention the third ground, an extraordinary increase in municipal taxes and charges.
If your application includes capital expenditures, s.126(4) also requires the landlord to make the information filed with the application available to tenants in accordance with the prescribed rules. That material is worth reviewing with whichever agency you contact.
Contacts listed by the City
These numbers come from the City of Toronto’s Information for Tenants page (rental renovation licence section). The Tenant Support Program page itself tells readers to contact the organizations directly.
- 311: the City says to call 311 to connect with free tenant support services funded by the City.
- FMTA Tenant Hotline: 416-921-9494. Questions, and connection to local tenant associations.
- CICS: 416-292-7510 ext. 7222 or housing.support@cicscanada.com. Free, multi-lingual rights information, connections to tenant support services, and legal information.
- Canadian Centre for Housing Rights: 1-800-263-1139. Free legal information and advice.
The same page also lists Legal Aid Ontario’s Tenant Duty Counsel Program (416-979-1446) for help at eviction hearings. That is a Legal Aid program, not one of the five TTSP projects.
Before you pick up the phone
Group your preparation by who you are about to call. Have the relevant items in front of you so the call goes somewhere.
- ☐Ask to be connected to the City-funded tenant support services; 311 is a connector, not the agency itself.
- ☐Have your rental address and unit number ready.
- ☐Say in one sentence what you received: a rent increase application, or a notice of termination.
- ☐Keep the document beside you and read out the dates and section numbers printed on it.
- ☐Tell them whether other tenants in your building received the same thing.
- ☐Ask which service, or which referral, fits your situation.
- ☐Write down who you spoke to and what they told you to do next.
- ☐Gather your lease and your recent rent receipts or payment records.
- ☐Collect every notice and every Board document you have received, in date order.
- ☐Keep your written communications with the landlord together; the City recommends asking your landlord to communicate in writing.
- ☐Ask at the start whether you are eligible for their service, since the City page does not publish the criteria.
- City of Toronto, Toronto Tenant Support Program (date modified April 13, 2026)
- City of Toronto, Rental Renovation Licence: Information for Tenants (date modified May 25, 2026)
- Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, S.O. 2006, c. 17, ss. 37, 39, 69, 120, 126 (Ontario e-Laws)
Beyond the LTB: What Ontario’s Rental Housing Enforcement Unit Can (and Can’t) Do →Tenant Behind on Rent? How Toronto’s Rent Bank Money Works, and Where a Landlord Stands →Your Tenant Just Filed for Bankruptcy: Does Ontario’s Arrears Process Still Work, or Does Federal Law Freeze It? →First-Time Renter Guide →
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the City of Toronto take my side at the Landlord and Tenant Board?
No. The City funds non-profit agencies through the Toronto Tenant Support Program, but the decision belongs to the Landlord and Tenant Board under the Residential Tenancies Act. The City’s own tenant page says only the Board may issue an eviction order. The agencies, not the City, are the ones funded to help tenants prepare.
Can our building’s tenant association get help getting organized?
That is what the Organizing and Capacity Building stream, run by the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations (FMTA), is required to do: support tenant associations to formalize operations and governance, and help tenant groups prepare for Landlord and Tenant Board hearings. The City’s tenant page lists the FMTA Tenant Hotline at 416-921-9494 for connecting with local tenant associations (City of Toronto, 2026).
Will they help with questions about the rooming house or rental renovation bylaws?
The Professional Legal Services stream, held by the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, lists questions about relevant bylaws, naming the Multi-Tenant (Rooming) Houses Bylaw and the Rental Renovations Bylaw. Like the rest of that stream, it is described as serving eligible Toronto tenants, and the City page does not publish the eligibility criteria, so the agency decides. The City’s tenant page lists CCHR at 1-800-263-1139.
How long are the current tenant support agencies funded?
The City of Toronto’s program page says the current organizations were selected for the funding term April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028. The page does not say what happens after that date. For anything later, check the City page again.
Does the 3% limit on above-guideline increases apply to every reason a landlord gives?
Not by its wording. Residential Tenancies Act s.126(11) says that where the increase justified by security-service operating costs and eligible capital expenditures is more than 3 per cent, the part attributable to them is limited to 3 per cent above the guideline, and the order specifies further increases for each of the two following 12-month periods, each no more than 3 per cent. The subsection does not mention the third ground, an extraordinary increase in municipal taxes and charges.
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