The City of Toronto has resumed its Community Crisis Response Fund to help communities to respond to the impact of violent incidents and associated crises during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The General Community Crisis Response Fund provides financial assistance of up to $3,000 for initiatives that address the impacts of a violent traumatic incident within a neighbourhood or across multiple communities.
The Fund will help communities develop or implement their own activities and initiatives and provide tools to improve community resilience and wellbeing in the event of a community-wide, trauma-inducing act of violence, such as a gun-related incident, stabbing, swarming, etc.
Funds are available to help communities respond to the impacts of violent incidents that have occurred since February 1, 2020. Funding will support projects for up to a six-month period or as amended with direction from the Medical Officer of Health.
This General Community Crisis Response Fund is intended to assist communities (local neighbourhood or community of common bond) with one-time funding to develop or implement their own crisis response projects and devise support tools in order to improve community resilience and wellbeing.
The fund can also support faith-based groups with coordinating virtual accessibility of healing and recovery activities around grief and loss.
For the purpose of the fund, a crisis is a community-wide, trauma-inducing physical act of violence (shooting, shots fired, stabbing, swarming) that may or may not result in life-threatening injury or death. The crisis must have an impact on the living conditions or health status of the community and prevent the normal coping ability within the community.
Faith-based groups can utilize the fund to assist with healing and recovery efforts around grief and loss. For example, the fund can be used to support the virtual accessibility of community healing activities such as healing sessions, vigils and viewings that are open to everyone in the target population and where appropriate. The fund cannot be used to financially support religious based activities or programs. Faith-based groups will be required to work with a local, not-for-profit organization to apply for and access the fund. Groups who apply without a clear demarcation between religious and community service functions at the program and budget levels are not eligible for this fund. All eligibility criteria will need to be met in order to apply.
To access the fund faith-based groups will need to do the following:
The project or activity must meet all of the following criteria:
Project funds requested for subsidizing individual needs and/or to fund existing community initiatives responding to COVID-19 needs, are not eligible.
Your application must demonstrate that your initiative responds to a community-wide trauma-inducing incident with appropriate activities. Funding priority will be given to applications that meet the following criteria and guidelines:
The following examples describe activities and initiatives that can be supported by the fund:
You must contact the Community Development Officer in your area prior to applying.
The fund will be used to support projects that will respond to violent incidents/community crisis that occurred since February 1, 2020.
Applications will be reviewed on a weekly basis and a decision will be sent via email within five to 10 business days of the acknowledgement receipt of application. Any inaccurate or incomplete information could result in the application being removed from consideration for funding. Should the City require any clarification on the application, we will contact the applicant via email.
If you have questions about the Community Crisis Response Fund, please contact the Community Development Officer for your area.