A new network of housing providers and concerned citizens in small towns and rural communities across Ontario, known as the Rural Housing Issues Network of Ontario (RHINO) is being formed.

If you are concerned with providing and/or advocating for affordable housing in rural Ontario, join RHINO to help give rural housing issues a voice. Help us make sure that rural housing issues are not over-shadowed by urban areas and left out of the provincial strategy. We plan to have a RHINO presence at the community consultations announced by Housing Minister Jim Watson which have been taking place this summer and will continue until December - a list of dates and locations is available from the website of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, www.mah.gov.on.ca. Also visit the Wellesley Institute's web-site, www.stableandaffordable.com for updates and links to RHINO information and rural housing organizations across the province.

The organizations involved in initiating RHINO include Canadian Pensioners Concerned (Ontario Division), North House Transitional Housing in North Durham, the Affordable Housing Action Committee in the City and County of Peterborough, Habitat for Humanity in Peterborough, and Places for People in Haliburton and Orillia.

For more information or to join RHIINO contact: Anne Kewley, North House Transitional Housing at akewley@ personainternet.com, or Howard Watson, Canadian Pensioners Concerned at howard.watson@sympatico.ca. or phone the office