July 8, 2025
NIMBYism hits centre stage in the Fringe production Stealing Home, a hilariously poignant play that will make anyone who's been to a community consultation laugh or cry.
The play begins with four walls announcing themselves as parts of what could be a modular home. But they’re not a home. They’re sitting in storage, costing Torontonians thousands of dollars a year in storage fees because of project delays, reminding us of the costs of NIMBYism.
The idea for Stealing Home came to playwright Annie Massey from a comment made by an East York resident more than four years ago, when he claimed that the local parking lot was "the heart of the community". Annie said, “I almost fell off my chair, I'd never heard anything so funny, I decided to write the play from the point of view of the parking lot — who definitely does not want to be dug up!”
The personified parking lot sits on the edge of the stage, beaming with pride as the neighbourhood takes an interest in its pothole-ridden surface. However, that love only lasts as long as it takes until a more “favourable” single-family home is proposed to sit on its site.
Massey says, “Although Stealing Home is fictional, it draws most heavily on the neighbourhoods of Willowdale and Cedarvale and their responses to supportive housing. Although the characters include a porch pirate, the play asks the question: Who really are the thieves? Who is stealing the homes?”
The play highlights how the current system allows the loudest voices in a community to “steal” housing from those who don't have access to the same political capital while Mayor Wibble and Councillor Wobble dodge responsibility. Residents' resistance to change is prioritized over the most vulnerable individuals.
We watch as Norma Fairly-Affluent quickly learns to navigate a political system, guided along by mentors who have done this before, to stop “undesirable people” from destroying the neighbourhood character she's fought so hard to build.
Meanwhile, porch pirate Pete stays camped out in the parking lot. While he steals Amazon packages from the neighbours, they’re actively trying to steal housing that could be provided to him and others in similar circumstances. His character brings the issue to a human level, showing the people who could be housed in this community are already there and being ignored.
Without giving any spoilers, the two projects that this play is inspired by have differing endings from each other. The Cedarvale and Willowdale supportive housing projects were proposed at the same time — Cedarvale is now home to 59 new residents while in Willowdale, construction has just started, 4 years behind schedule. The project was opposed by local residents at both the municipal and provincial levels, resulting in endless appeals that caused project costs to soar by $22 million.
Whether or not the play reaches the NIMBYs it pokes fun at, it will hopefully convince everyone else of the absurdity of their protests and continue to encourage the counter movement of YIMBYism across the city.
Stealing Home will run until July 13th at Alumnae Theatre Mainspace. For more information on show times and to buy tickets, check out https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/stealing-home.