In January 2025, the Government of Ontario is conducted their pre-budget consultations. They were looking to hear from workers, families, business owners and communities on what they would like to see in the 2025 Budget. This provided an opportunity to shape provincial priorities.

The SPACE Coalition's 2025 budget submission focuses on Community Use of Schools (CUS) funding.

CUS is an initiative of the Ontario Ministry of Education that supports access to school space, outside of school hours, for community members to come together, volunteer, build skills, access community programs, become physically active, and build strong healthy communities.

SPACE Coalition recommends that the Government of Ontario take a system-wide approach to addressing community use of schools by:

• • Providing school boards with dedicated funding to retrofit aging school facilities to meet current accessibility standards thereby ensuring fair access to all community members.
  • Establishing a home in government to efficiently work with the over 58,000 nonprofits, charities
    and grassroots groups in Ontario.
  • Mandating Community Use of Schools Advisory Committees in every school board.
  • Expanding the authority of the Provincial Ombudsman to the oversight of the Community Use of Schools Program.

See our full 2025 Pre-budget submission. 

Find out more about the 2025 Budget.