Good day Torontonians, my name is Monica Forrester and I am running to become the next Mayor of this vibrant, growing, and diverse city of Toronto.

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As you know Toronto is one of the best cities in the world and we boast of our cultural diversity, opportunity, and love for one another in this growing city economically.

As someone that was born in Toronto 53yrs ago, I have lived in many diverse communities in this city, I have fond memories of the people I have met and the opportunities given to me as a Torontonian of this city.

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I have worked for 25yrs in community services, working with people experiencing homelessness, drugs use, and mental health and because of my lived-experience in these areas, I have dedicated my work to help better the lives of all Torontonians is this vibrant city we live in. Through my work I have been involved in many community lead groups to address the issues that people are facing when it comes to homelessness, the war on drugs, policing, and I am a voice in various communities on bettering lives of people in these communities, such as: neighbourhood safety, policing, crisis response, drug overdoses, and of course the ever growing homelessness crisis and encampments in our public parks and spaces.

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Drop-in's and food security are not just a homeless issue, it's everyone issue, as inflation rises, food programs are vital during this time. As mayor I would foresee more programs for diverse communities in our city 

 

When the pandemic hit Toronto in 2020, this unraveled the issues that existed but had not been thoroughly planned if a pandemic did happened. As the pandemic hit, everything stopped and the city was shut down. The cracks that we had in the system before the pandemic, now became craters, as we seen the despair of Torontonians when it came to housing/homelessness, mental health, health care, and violent crimes soared in the city among our youth. The shut down of businesses and restaurants where business owners were struggling to stay open and unfortunately many had to close.

The city scrambled to create short term solutions in response to more policing of people experiencing homelessness or living in encampments. Hotel/shelters were created to house the thousands of homeless people in our city so they could stay healthy during social distancing and bad weather conditions. Mental health crisis teams were formed to address the overwhelming mental health struggles people were experiencing in our city. The TO patio program to support restaurant and small business to recoup lost revenue through the pandemic.

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As we commend the mayor for acting quickly on the response and responsibilities of his constituents of Toronto, we see these were just band aid solutions due to a lack of addressing these issues years earlier.

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Now in 2023, everything is open, again and people are trying to go back to pre-pandemic shut down life. For most of us this is great to see family, friends and be able to go back to living in our liveable city. As Torontonian are getting back to some semblance of normalcy, we are experiencing high inflation rates, high rental prices, high food prices, public transit that is not meeting the needs of our ever growing city, as condo development has increased thousands of people living in our urban centres.

Homelessness/mental health issues are soaring due to the shutdown of city run hotel/shelter programs, which decreased the number of Torontonians living in parks/public spaces, the shelters are over capacity or shutting down.

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Now is the time to have a mayor that takes these issues seriously and prioritizes making this city a “Liveable City for Everyone”, where people come first. If you elected me to be your Mayor, my first priority is working for the people of the city to bring this city back to its glory and make sure no one is left behind.