Kensington-Bellwoods Community Legal Services

About Kensington-Bellwoods Community Legal Services

Kensington-Bellwoods Community Legal Services is a nonprofit community legal clinic in Toronto, funded by Legal Aid Ontario to provide free legal help to low income residents. Its practice areas include housing law, income security and social assistance, immigration and refugee law, and general administrative matters. The clinic describes its own mandate as working "towards the elimination of poverty in our society, and to ensure equality before the law." Its office is on College Street, inside the catchment it was built to serve: the area bounded by Ossington Avenue and Strachan Avenue, Yonge Street, Bloor Street, and Lake Ontario, which takes in both Kensington Market and Trinity Bellwoods Park, the neighbourhoods behind the clinic's name.

The clinic ran independently for more than 40 years before merging with The Neighbourhood Group Community Services in April 2023. It kept its own legal staff and its focus on casework, community development, and law reform, while joining a nonprofit with programs at 30 locations across Toronto under a "no wrong door" approach to services. In its first year under the merger it hired its first Director of Legal Services and formed a Legal Advisory Committee. In November 2024, it hosted a visit from the Chief Justice of Canada, Richard Wagner, held jointly with Pro Bono Students Canada, whose law student volunteers work at the clinic.