After the Toronto Tenant Union’s (TTU) founding convention in April, the group held a rally nearby outside of The Crossways, a residential and commercial complex at Bloor and Dundas Street West. Protesters waved paper mache cockroaches and demanded that the building’s landlords take action to deal with the building’s pest problems.
The protest was led by the Crossways Tenant Association, a group made up of some of the complex’s approximately 1,000 tenants. The association is affiliated with the TTU.
Chi Zhang, who is active in the building association as a floor captain and secretary, tells The Grind that 70 per cent of the tenants they surveyed have dealt with cockroaches at some point during their time living there. Renters also complain of hot water shutoffs and worsening building conditions.
Zhang says building management is frequently “aggressive” towards tenant organizers, often demanding that guests of tenants leave the building, a tactics she believes is used to intimidate and prevent collective action.
However, this has not prevented the association from demanding better conditions from their landlord. On the Victoria Day holiday, May 18, the Crossways Tenant Association held a celebratory potluck for renters and families just outside of the building.
“We had people sitting in the sun chatting and eating, kids playing hopscotch, and the management came outside and started yelling, shouting that the kids were defacing private property, and threatening to call the police on tenants,” Zhang says. “But we called their bluff. There were too many of us for them to intimidate, so they went inside. And we stayed on celebrating for two more hours.”
Also in May, tenants scored a win after sending a letter to management refusing to accept rent increases while the building’s conditions worsened. Crossways responded to this pressure, confirming in writing that rent would not be increasing in 2026.
The Crossways is managed by real estate company Creccal Investments Ltd. Creccal did not reply to The Grind’s request for comment.