Devyn Stackhouse

The Mayor and City Council

I have a specific place-making project in mind: shade sails for Danforth. We have no covered streets in Toronto and the 4pm sunlight driving/walking west on Danforth is blinding. Shaded public spaces are integral to extreme heat health challenges. I want the Council I sit with to to seek greatness. I want Danforth to be the envy of the world. I'm an artist. Artists make the best politicians; we have practiced moving ideas into reality. I'm also incredibly persistent ;)

Housing

Compassion and innovation. The scene is heartbreaking, and only new ways can repair our hurting streets and communities. No one chooses to live unsheltered when there's a better appropriate option available. We need to figure out the "appropriate" element instead of forcing unworkable outcomes on struggling people. Policy-wise, I'm optimistic about the rapid deployment of bunkhouse hamlets, tiny 1-2 person homes with no plumbing arranged adjacent to a mini-community centre with shared dining, bathing, and recreational spaces.

Cost of Living

In a perfect world, phase out TTC rider fares. In this world, make Toronto Island Ferry passes available for free via the TPL museum access program. The Islands are the place in the city I go to re-charge, and it costs $9.57 each time.

Safety in Public Spaces

Some passengers of TTC are sufficiently disruptive, odorous, or sexually inappropriate that their presence becomes hazardous, encroaching on the rights of other passengers. Many are experiencing personal emergencies. We’re so numb that’s it’s normal to ignore utter dereliction and open wounds. I'll seek judicial clarity for conditions of removal for riders causing hazards. Where thresholds for removal are met, social worker/provincial officer pairs (or mixed larger groups) would respond. In contrast, encampments infringe no competing rights.

Getting Around the City

I abide by Universal Design principles, and pedestrians and mobility device users are at the top of my design priority hierarchy. They are followed in order by: active transportation, public transit, light vehicles, and heavy vehicles. The challenge is to engineer cars off the roads by making the alternatives irresistible. Implicit: safe permanent infrastructure, effective signage and comms, rider comfort standards, and my own twist: TTC rider-perspective art installations. (& I advocate a crackdown on stand-up escooters and edirt bikes)

Confronting Hateful and Hostile Behaviour

The City has already written the policies we need to state equality. The city has not created sufficient enforcement practices to administer our ideals of fairness and order. I will move to strike a cross-departmental taskforce on enforcement failures. On this taskforce, equity policy failures will be top priorities for investigation and change. When it comes to these complex human dynamics, we don't know what we don't know, and the City has acted with hubris for too long.