There's an old saying that you can't fight City Hall. One Toronto church minister doesn't agree. The Reverend Janet Sidey has made it her mission to take up the cause of the poor and unfortunate in her neighbourhood -- and she's willing to rattle city chains to get things done.

On a tour of her neighbourhood, Sidey took W-FIVE inside some shocking homes: dilapidated houses with filthy conditions, crack dens, homes with no heat, and another without running water. These are conditions one doesn't expect in Toronto.

Sidey runs her mission out of a store-front church -- St. Monica's, located on a down-at-heels stretch of Gerrard Street in the city's east end. It's a three-year experiment by the Toronto Diocese of the Anglican Church.

Every day people like Dave Shanahan show up, looking for help. Shanahan lives in one of those deplorable rooming houses that dot the neighbourhood. The day W-FIVE is there, he comes to St. Monica's seeking help. He invites Sidey to his place for a first-hand look.

To start, there's no heat. In a hallway, there's a bathtub, the walls rotting away, black with mildew and filth. The shower in the bathroom at the end of the hall is more of the same. "It's disgusting," Sidey repeats. "It's not fit for humans," she says. And the cost to rent a room in a place like this? $400 a month.

Shanahan shows Sidey a Notice of Violation delivered by the City requiring the landlord to fix problems around the house. This was over a year ago and nothing has been done. Sidey speculates that the City ignores people like Shanahan because they don't vote in civic elections.

It's to give people like Shanahan a voice that Sidey started her Neighbourhood Action Group -- or N.A.G. for short. Concerned community members assemble at St. Monica's to discuss problems in the area. When W-FIVE attended a meeting that featured an accountability session with one of the neighbourhood's two city councillors, one woman complains about crack houses in her area. "I'm afraid to leave the house," she says.

Back on the streets Sidey takes W-FIVE to another home that shocks reporter, Victor Malarek. Two old men -- brothers,  one a World War II vet -- are sleeping on mattresses on the floor. The house is owned by one of the brothers but is in an obvious state of disrepair. There's no heat, no running water, the walls and ceiling are literally caving in. And crack heads have been using their house as party central, scrawling graffiti on the walls.

A few phone calls from Sidey gets action. First, fire inspectors tour the house. Then, a few days later, when W-FIVE's returns with Sidey on a third visit to deliver food, the City of Toronto's various departments have descended, removing the brothers to safer accommodation and condemning the house.

N.A.G.'s problem-solving tactics -- which have included publicly naming and shaming landlords -- has landed Sidey and the Anglican Church in hot water. Some landlords sued for libel and the Church backed down and removed the posters of the landlords.

At Toronto City Hall, the other councillor for the neighbourhood, Sandra Bussin thinks Reverend Sidey should not interfere. Bussin says the City doesn't need nagging from Sidey and her St. Monica's group. "I'm not sure that's the role of the minister," says Bussin.

But the criticism isn't stopping Reverend Sidey.

"She's a councillor. I'm a minister. I don't think she can be redefining my role," retorts Sidey. "My role is to be the body of Christ in this community and Christ certainly overturned moneychanger's tables in the temple and upset officials, city and otherwise," she says.