Street Youth Legal Services (‘SYLS’) is a unique legal outreach program in Toronto, Canada. It connects young people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness aged 16 to 24 years old with a lawyer at youth drop‑ins and shelters across the city.
The SYLS lawyer provides:
- advice, referrals and representation directly to street-involved young people;
- legal education workshops to young people and persons advocating on their behalf;
- test case advocacy;
- law and policy reform submissions.
The SYLS model prevents youth homelessness by:
- empowering young people with knowledge of their legal rights and the tools to assert them; and
- helping young people understand and address the broad variety of legal issues that can contribute to homelessness, impact housing stability and prevent a young person from successfully transitioning out of homelessness.
Drop-in Schedule
- Every other Tuesday, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – YMCA Drop-in (7 Vanauley Street)
- Every Thursday, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – Evergreen Centre for Street Youth (365 Spadina Avenue)
- First Wednesday of every month, 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm – Native Youth Resource Centre (655 Bloor Street West)
- Every Friday, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm – Covenant House Community Support Services (CSS) (20 Gerrard St E)
Legal Services Offered
The SYLS lawyer will provide legal information, advice, and referrals to all street involved youth that contact JFCY directly or through the drop-in’s.
When selecting clients for legal representation, the following factors will be considered when deciding whether a client is able to be represented by the SYLS lawyer:
- Is the legal problem a chronic problem for the SYLS population?
- Is the legal problem a problem unique to the SYLS population?
- Is the legal problem one that the client has no other potential places to obtain representation or co-ordinated legal help?
- Does the client have specific vulnerabilities (e.g: age/disability/marginalized) that makes it difficult/impossible for them to effectively access other legal help?
- Does the SYLS lawyer have time/resources/expertise to represent the client?
Educational Workshops for Youth and Agency Staff
The SYLS lawyer provides individually tailored educational workshops on a variety of topics. If you would like to book a workshop with the SYLS lawyer, please contact us.
All workshops include information on how to access legal help and reliable sources of online legal information.
Workshops can also provide detailed information on a variety of legal topics. Common topics include:
- Police: Your rights when stopped by the police;
- Criminal Court: What happens when you are charged or ticketed and need to attend court;
- Youth Records and Criminal Records: How to request them, who can access them, what you can do about them;
- Employment law: your rights as an employee in the workplace;
- Housing: your rights if you’re unhoused, living at a shelters, in shared housing or as a tenant;
- Immigration: an overview of the refugee and other immigration processes and how to get legal help;
- Leaving Home: your right to attend school, to have your possessions, to receive income support and other issues that arise when you’re kicked out or leave home.
Visit the Legal Rights section and Publications page for information on legal rights
Reports, Test Cases and Other Law Reform Materials
- Fair Change v Ontario [Safe Streets Act Challenge]: JFCY intervened in the successful Charter challenge of Ontario’s Safe Streets Act (“SSA”). The Court found that the SSA violates the Charter freedoms of unhoused people living in poverty. This is a significant win for young people in Ontario who live in extreme poverty and are entitled to express their needs with dignity and respect.
- LS v YouthLink Youth Services [transitional housing eviction]: JFCY appealed the eviction of a young person from a transitional housing program to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. We advocated for protective occupancy agreements to prevent sudden and unfair evictions from transitional housing. While unsuccessful, JFCY continues to engage in further advocacy and law reform efforts on this issue, including engaging directly with transitional housing providers.
- Article on Access to Justice Through Street Youth Legal Services published in Parity Magazine’s issue dedicated to Preventing and Sustaining Exits from Youth Homeless in Canada, Oct 2019 Vol 32 – Issue 8.
- Chapter on Addressing The Legal Needs of LGBTQ2S Youth Experiencing Homelessness, published in Where Am I Going to Go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada & the US, by Abromovich A & Shelton J (Eds), 2016.
- Submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Children in Street Situations, April 2016.
- Perspective: Personal Experiences of Racialized Youth in their Interactions with Toronto Police Services and the Barriers they face to Obtain Justice, discussion paper for the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Racial Profile Policy Dialogue held in Feb 2016.
- Street Youth of Toronto, 2015 photo project.
- Access to Justice for Homeless Youth, feature article in Housing Again Bulletin, Nov 2014.
- Can I See Your ID? The Policing of Youth Homelessness in Toronto, 2011, by Stephen Gaetz, Bill O’Grady, and Kristy Buccieri, conducted in partnership with JFCY.
- Surviving Crime and Violence: Street Youth and Victimization in Toronto, 2010 Report, and the accompanying Town Hall Presentation, 2010 Slides.
- Changes – The Affidavit Project, 2011 Report, captures the experience of youth and their first-hand interactions with police officers.
- Homelessness Youth and Access to Justice, 2002 Report.