failedfund failedfund
is for toronto-based artists who are disabled and have been failed by the toronto housing system



we "fail" when we do our very best, but the system rejects us. when we "fail", it is the system that fails us. it is very different from making a mistake. making a mistake means that we might have done our best, but we can also acknowlege that there was a more appropriate and socially just way that we would have liked to follow and that could have worked given the context.

at the moment, an incredible number of people are being failed.


final report for the failedfund

start date: in november 24
last deadline: january 18, 2026
closing date: end of january 2026

donors: 15 in total, quite a few of them artists, one of them a top manager at the city's Housing Secretariat. the calls for donations took place through emails, postcards and a gogetfunding flash campaign: from january 4 to january 18, 2026. a big thank you to all donors. with your support, the failedfund came to amount to CAN$ 4,500.

applications: 8 in total, with 2 in the first round when supports were limited to CAN$ 300 and 6 in the second and last round of calls. all the applications were carefully reviewed and all of them were approved. given the housing situation in toronto/T'karonto, the failedfund is very aware that its supports are no magical amount.


being (a) disabled (artist) in T'karonto/Toronto is often synonymous with living in such survival modes that housing-related stress becomes a serious health-damaging factor that many (arts) organizations and the province of Ontario and the city of T'karonto/Toronto still undermine. and it is not getting better:

designed to fail:
How Ontario's income security policies create and perpetuate homelessness
by Lena Balata January 2026
Published by Maytree Poverty, Rights, Change




"towards douceur"
by claude wittmann (2025)
disabled artist
administrator of the fund



quotes by disabled artists

It's a struggle choosing what bills get paid so that I can make rent at the end of the month. Precarious underemployment and mental health challenges compound and I find myself with limited capacity to care for myself the way I need to. My PTSD is activated and affects my chronic pain. All of this is intensifying the stress and sense of despair. - anonymous, 2025

I'm underemployed due to disability and chronic illness, and for the past few months I haven’t been able to make more than half my rent payment, if that. - anonymous, 2025

I've become so destitute that without outside funds support I won't have rent $ for the 1st of next month, when housing issues could get much harder. I have high anxiety about how to disclose this and ask for help. - anonymous, 2025

I have been near homelessness for months at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, couch surfing and subletting for another set of months at the end of 2021 and then I faced an endless infestation and high extermination costs in 2022 until i broke a hip and was displaced in hospitals and then out of the city. My mental and physical healths have spiralled down with severe episodic diarrhea, PTSD, dissociation, tinnitus, and new chronic pain. And I am still not in a housing situation that I would call safe. - anonymous, 2025

"I have been paying 75% of my ODSP income to housing costs just to live in an unsafe shared house with 6 other people. It is insanity and the stress factor makes my conditions worse. It is just a catch 22." - anonymous, housing survey done for Toronto Workman Arts' Being Scene (BS), 2021

"One of my main stressors is housing. I have moved almost yearly due to renovictions, not being able to afford rent, losing my job and being underemployed for so long." - anonymous, (BS), 2021

"I am making my illnesses worse by using everything I have to work in order to have a home and stay alive. I'm surviving but barely. - anonymous, (BS), 2021

"Part of my breakdowns are housing stress. If I lose my mind, I will lose everything. Having the ability to have a housing situation I could afford would give me peace of mind." - anonymous, (BS), 2021 "Rent goes up each year. I get my income from ODSP. If it continues I'll be back to before I was on ODSP with deep debt and afraid of becoming homeless."-- anonymous, (BS), 2021

"My fear of homelessness remains." - anonymous, (BS), 2021


short story of the failedfund
the failedfund has been an extension of a project entitled precarihousingthemap, itself born out commissioned work for Workman Arts' Being Scene in 2021. precarihousingthemap was led by disabled artist claude wittmann in collaboration with other disabled artists who, like him, had been failed by the toronto housing system.

precarihousingthemap collected stories, visuals, recordings and made a few significant steps towards convincing Workman Arts (WA) to concretely help artists like them defend their right to safe housing in toronto/T'karonto. unfortunately, WA was been in the position to follow through.

the failedfund started in november 2024, with an anonymous donation by a Toronto-based invisibly disabled artist. this artist had faced recurring housing insecurity and received a small financial compensation from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) for a 2021 situation in which TCHC had breached their human right to be accommodated.

after that, the failedfund rolled as a collaboration with Tangled Art + Disability (thank you Cyn Rozeboom for being our trustee) and recently also with Tristan Whiston from ReDefine Arts (thank you Tristan).

the failedfund managed a last call for donations and applications between november 2025 and january 18, 2026 and it ended after that.


land acknowledgment

in a recording


T'karonto is in the "Dish With One Spoon Territory". The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans and all newcomers included have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect. The "Dish", or sometimes it is called the "Bowl", represents what is now southern Ontario, from the Great Lakes to Quebec and from Lake Simcoe into the United States. We all eat out of the Dish, all of us that share this territory, with only one spoon. That means that we have to share the responsibility of ensuring the dish is never empty, and includes taking care of the land and of the creatures we share it with. Importantly, there are no knives at the table: we must keep the peace.

This is not the spirit with which settlers imposed the 1787 Toronto Purchase, the 1805 Indenture, the 1923 Williams Treaties, or the 2010 $145 million settlement between Canada and the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation and we acknowledge our discomfort with this. All these agreements imposed the settlers' concept of land ownership and extinguished rights. The land on which we stand was never considered through an equal nation-to-nation relationship and thus never ceded.

And now, even when the land is publicly owned and the basic needs of all are met, we are in a problematic situation. Toronto/T'karonto is not de-colonized.

This said, the failedfund also acknowledges that decolonizing our way of thinking, our privileges, our relationships to others is way more complex, destabilizing and time-consuming than we expected. We humbly try to do our best.


access
the failedfund apologizes for not providing an accessible website.

failedfund at tangledarts dot org



website design by claude wittmann, 2024