Abled Initiative

community stories October 2005 ISBN #1-55382-150-5 ANC Begins in Scarborough Village A brief history The Action for Neighbourhood Change project (ANC) may be complex but its A portion of Scarborough known as purpose is clear. The initiative is about real Scarborough Village has been selected as the people helping one another to make their area for involvement in Toronto’s Action for neighbourhoods better places to live. Since Neighbourhood Change (ANC) project. the project began in February 2005, it has Spreading north from a series of sand bluffs along generated optimism and hope among the coast of Lake Ontario, Scarborough was community members. The partners are established as an agricultural settlement in the excited that the program is having the 1800s by mostly English and Scottish immigrants. desired results: Citizens are becoming During the second half of the 20th century, involved in changing their neighbourhoods Scarborough evolved into a suburban Toronto and government is hearing the feedback community. Wave after wave of housing develop- it needs to support them effectively. This ments, a Golden Mile of strip malls and a well series of stories presents each of the five developed road system defined Scarborough as a ANC neighbourhoods as they existed at bedroom community suited to middle-income the start of the initiative. A second series families. Low-cost high rise apartments were built will be published at the end of the ANC’s from the 1960s onward to house new immigrants, 14-month run to document the changes but settlement programs and services were not and learnings that have resulted from the made available. effort. For more information about ANC, visit: www.anccommunity.ca In the early 1980s, when (then) Metro Toronto began looking for modestly priced tracts community stories of land on which to site social housing, the Mayor continued to see itself as a bedroom community of Scarborough offered several properties for the reliant on the automobile, half of its 593,297 construction of high rise apartments.1 Often residents were recent immigrants and 60 percent situated adjacent to industrial areas, railway lines were visible minorities. and high speed roadways, these developments were physically isolated and often overlooked by The new Toronto City Council operates Scarborough residents and politicians. Many of four community councils to address issues of local the apartments were occupied by recent immi- concern. One of these council areas closely grants. Partly because their accommodations matched the borders of the former City of added to a sense of marginalization and partly Scarborough. Over time, the boundaries of the because of language and access barriers, these other three community councils were adjusted new community members did not push for social according to various requirements; those programs or better living conditions. Scarborough encompassing Scarborough have remained also lacked a strong network of community unchanged. agencies that could pursue program funding, unlike the well-established social service agencies Despite an apparent acceptance of the in downtown Toronto. Increased levels of immi- status quo among Scarborough’s political gration throughout the 1990s added more representatives, citizens and service providers newcomers to an already underserviced area. were beginning to push for change. In the spring of 2003, a group of about 40 people began to In the late 1980s, homeless families were meet regularly to discuss how to communicate a worrisome addition to Toronto’s homeless Scarborough’s multicultural personality and needs population and no downtown shelters existed to to city councillors. The Scarborough Community house them. Scarborough’s municipal council Action Network (SCAN) was born. again offered inexpensive accommodations to fill this gap. A stretch of deteriorating and unused motels along Scarborough’s Kingston Road were The changing face (and place) of poverty in made available to shelter these families, though Toronto the lack of cooking facilities in each unit made food security an issue. Some Scarborough resi- A portion of Scarborough Village was dents began to complain to Toronto City Hall that chosen by United Way of Greater Toronto these accommodations were unsightly and needed (UWGT) as its focus for ANC partly because the to be cleaned up. area embodies the types of changes which have affected Toronto neighbourhoods over the last When the amalgamated city of Toronto 20 years. Prior to 1981, families living on low was created in 1998, the people of Scarborough incomes were spread fairly evenly throughout the were faced with a new reality. The previously city. After that time, concentrated areas of higher unacknowledged and under serviced low-income levels of poverty began to emerge and whole neigh- accommodations (including the motel family bourhoods were identified as under financial shelters) now were the direct responsibility of stress. The former municipalities of Scarborough, Scarborough in its new role as a member of the North York and Etobicoke have seen particularly amalgamated municipality. In 2001, statistics dramatic increases in the number of higher poverty showed that while the former City of Scarborough neighbourhoods. 2 Caledon Institute of Social Policy community stories United Way of Greater Toronto and the Responsibility for Homelessness: An Action Canadian Council on Social Development focused Plan for Toronto.2 The paper focused on the attention on this phenomenon of rising poverty need to see homelessness as a multi-dimensional levels by neighbourhood in a publication entitled problem which must be addressed collaboratively “Poverty by Postal Code” [UWGT and CCSD by multiple levels of government, community 2004]. Already a shorthand reference to the organizations and citizens. At this time, UWGT problem, the report affirmed UWGT’s directional and staff at the City of Toronto are working in shift toward supporting community development partnership on the issues of neighbourhood and neighbourhood revitalization efforts. The renewal and poverty reduction. Creating stronger ANC project will further this work; in particular, relationships among provincial and federal it will support efforts to influence federal and local government departments is a priority for both policy developments which affect neighbourhood organizations. vitality. Within UWGT, there was a general sense “Toronto still has areas of concentrated that Toronto’s inner city had received the resources poverty in the downtown core,” says UWGT and attention it required to get poverty reduction Research Director Susan MacDonnell, “but the strategies into place. In 2002, the organization new reality of urban poverty is what is happening began to test new approaches to strengthen in the inner suburbs. Scarborough is a good services in Toronto’s suburban neighbourhoods example of this new reality, where communities by launching its “Strong Neighbourhoods, Healthy originally designed for the automobile and a City Strategy.” By 2003, community development middle-income population are now home to lower- work had assumed sufficient importance within income populations who don’t have access to a UWGT that it needed to be thoroughly integrated car and who are far more reliant on local shops into the existing corporate culture. The UWGT’s and services. Yet these communities have few 2003 strategic plan described new policy and amenities. It is this combination of factors – a research mechanisms and funding and governance growing low-income population and a lack of structures which would direct future community services and supports – that is creating commu- development work. UWGT also pledged to assist nities under stress.” agencies and other community members in the areas of public policy formulation and capacity Sean Meagher and a three-member team building. from Public Interest Strategy have been contracted to conduct the on-the-ground work of ANC – Barney Savage, UWGT Senior Policy which begins with the identification of as many Advisor with responsibility for community community players as possible. affairs and development, credits another trend with the shift in direction. Says Barney: “Our donor population had become more interested in funding The changing mandate of the United Way of community development work and was asking for Greater Toronto more information on our activities and results. We are very pleased to participate in the ANC project The United Way of Greater Toronto’s to get a better understanding of how the community current approach to community development was development approach unfolds at the neighbour- influenced by the 1999 report entitled Taking hood level – the human and financial resources Caledon Institute of Social Policy 3 community stories required, the possible impacts on federal gov- nine neighbourhoods in need of immediate ernment policy and the benefits to residents. assistance were the next selection criteria applied.3 Ultimately, ANC and the lessons we have learned Once the number of possible neighbourhoods was from our other community development projects narrowed down to five, the selection committee will help us to better understand who we need to undertook a second review of the criteria and work with on this type of initiative and the impact chose Scarborough Village. we can have as an organization. The project is providing a unique opportunity to test out inno- Says Susan MacDonnell: “Our reason for vative ideas in a highly diverse neighbourhood,

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