Toronto Neighbourhood Centres
Toronto Neighbourhood Centres (TNC) is an association of non-profit multi-service organizations dedicated to strengthening local neighbourhoods and enabling diverse communities to work together to promote justice and a healthy life for all.
TNC gratefully acknowledges that the land on which it operates has been from time immemorial the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. This land is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples. Tkaranto (or Toronto) is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit Nation. Please see Acknowledging the Land and the Commitments of TNC.
TNC's Relationships, Belonging & Anti-Oppression Charter
As TNC member agencies we understand the central work of neighbourhood centres as being of service to others, striving to sustain positive relationships and program spaces that are welcoming, and generating an experience of belonging for all, across the great diversities of people in our communities.
As Toronto Neighbourhood Centres members we commit to implementing ongoing learning and action processes focusing on the question:
How can we be in better reciprocal relationships with each other, with the communities we support, and with the more-than-human world, in ways that will forge sustainable and systemic advancements in anti-oppression, equity and belonging?
Please see our full charter (a work in progress) TNC Anti-Oppression Charter
Rethinking Community Safety
Our January 2021 report calls attention to the over policing of Black, racialized, and Indigenous people and proposes concrete, proven alternatives that keep communities safer, at a far lower cost.
The report, which is backed by dozens of community service organizations in Toronto, concludes that in a broad range of settings, policing is the wrong tool for improving safety. All too often, policing has deepened systemic injustices, harmed Black, racialized, and Indigenous communities, and failed to make communities safer.
To that end, the report recommends the immediate implementation of non-policing alternatives in four key areas: homelessness, mental health, youth, and gender-based violence. It also calls for the rethinking of police control over the 911 system since the vast majority of 911 calls do not involve violent situations.
Please view the full report Rethinking Community Safety
Anti-Oppression Statements
TNC Statement on Racism Against Chinese, East Asian and South East Asian Canadians (April 2021)
Toronto Neighbourhood Centresstands in support and solidarity with all Chinese, East Asian and South East Asian communities in Toronto and across the country. We commit to actively fighting daily microaggressions and systemic racism, as well as all forms of misogyny and discrimination that continue to oppress our neighbourhoods and society as a whole. ..[continued here]
TNC Statement on Anti-Black Racism (June 2020)
The Toronto Neighbourhood Centres (TNC) stand with our Black, Indigenous and People of Colour colleagues and community members, and their loved ones. The events of these past weeks have been traumatic and sadly familiar to Black members of the communities we serve. We want to acknowledge the long-term and historical trauma that has been a part of the reality for Black people who have been denied their basic human rights for generations. This is a pivotal moment; a series of events that have sparked an unusual level of empathy, and we are especially mindful of the toll it has taken on our Black colleagues and friends... [continued here]
