Woodgreen Community Services and Gentrification in Riverdale

Legacies of Liberalism and Faith-Based Institutions: Woodgreen Community Services and Gentrification in Riverdale

Helen Ketema

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Geography Graduate Department of Geography and Planning University of Toronto

Legacies of Liberalism and Faith-Based Institutions: Woodgreen Community Services and Gentrification in Riverdale

Helen Ketema

Masters of Arts Geography

Department of Geography and Planning University of Toronto

2020 Abstract

This thesis aims to bring literature on gentrification and the social economy in conversation in order to examine the role of non-profit housing providers in navigating gentrification within their neighbourhoods. Much of the literature on the role of non-profits and community organizations in responding to gentrification focuses on what De Verteuil (2015) calls the ‘post-welfare city’.

Through building on the framework of ‘neoliberal communitarianism’ (DeFilippis, 2004), this thesis takes a historical and place-based analysis to demonstrate the ways in which non-profits’ synergy with processes of gentrification should be understood beyond the temporal scope of neoliberal co-optation under the shadow state (Wolch, 1990). This thesis contributes this argument to the literature on non-profit actors and gentrification in Toronto through examining the case study of Woodgreen Community Services and their redevelopment of the Edwin hotel in the Riverdale community.

ii Acknowledgments

I dedicate this thesis to all people threatened by displacement from the neighbourhoods they call home, as well as those unable to find adequate and affordable shelter within the current housing crisis.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to all the individuals who participated in this study, taking time out of the important work they do, to speak with me. In particular to Woodgreen Community Services for their willingness to cooperate.

I especially wish to thank Dr. Michelle Buckley for being of immense support throughout the process of completing this master’s thesis. Thank you for your constant flexibility, detailed feedback, honesty, patience, and guidance.

Lastly, I wish to thank my family and friends for being an unwavering support system. Most importantly I dedicate everything I do to my mother Meaza, without her none of this would be possible.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... iii Table of Contents ...... iv List of Figures ...... vi List of Acronyms ...... vii List of Appendices ...... viii 1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Main Arguments ...... 3 1.2 Placing Woodgreen and South Riverdale in Context...... 5 1.3 Welfare State Retrenchment, Neoliberalism and the Provision of Affordable Housing...... 7 1.4 Non-Profit Actors, Gentrification, and the Rise of the Shadow State ...... 10 1.5 Neoliberal Communitarianism and Organizational Limits to Resisting Gentrification ...... 11 2 Methodology ...... 15 2.1 Methods and Rationale ...... 15 2.2 Policy Document Analysis ...... 17 2.3 Interviews ...... 18 2.3.1 Sampling and Recruitment ...... 19 2.3.2 Data Collection and Structure of Interviews ...... 20 2.4 Data Analysis ...... 22 2.5 Archival Research ...... 23 2.6 Positionality and Ethics ...... 23 2.7 Conclusion and Limitations ...... 26 3 ‘Placing’ the New Edwin: ...... 28 Genealogies of Gentrification and Social Service Legacies ...... 28 3.1 History of Riverdale: Industrialism and Marginalization ...... 31 3.2 Genealogies of Social Services in Riverdale: Woodgreen United Church and Community Centre ...... 32 3.3 Social Reform, Settlement Homes, and Traditions of ‘Living with Neighbours’ .... 33 3.3.1 Woodgreen’s Response to Gentrification: Maintaining a ‘Healthy Mix’ ...... 40

iv 3.4 ‘Deconcentration’ of Social Housing: State Withdrawal, ‘Mixed-Income’ Communities, and Neoliberal Redevelopment ...... 43 4 Constructing the ‘Deserving Subject’: Woodgreen’s Funding Model and the Role of Corporate Philanthropists ...... 46 4.1 Social Reformers, Philanthropy, and Housing: Woodgreen in Historical Context 47 4.2 Devolution of State Funding ...... 50 4.3 Promotion of “Housing First” Policies ...... 54 4.4 Becoming “Shovel Ready”: How Organizational Reputation and Corporate Philanthropy Steer Investment ...... 57 4.4.1 Corporate Philanthropy’s Influence ...... 61 5 “Being the Mediator”: On the Futures of Woodgreen’s Legacies of Neoliberal Communitarianism ...... 68 5.1 The New Edwin and Woodgreen’s Limitations to Mitigating Gentrification ...... 73 6: Conclusion ...... 81 Works Cited ...... 85 Appendices ...... 90 Appendix A: Policy Chronology ...... 90 Appendix B: List of Interview Participants ...... 93 Appendix C: Informed Consent Sheet ...... 94 Appendix D: Interview Guideline ...... 96 Copyright Acknowledgments ...... 99

List of Figures

Figure 1-North Riverdale ...... 30 Figure 2- South Riverdale ...... 30 Figure 3- "Woodgreen Settlement Challenge",1938 ...... 47 Figure 4- George C. Metcalf, Woodgreen Neighbourhood House, 1959 ...... 49 Figure 5- Brochure for 'First Steps to Home' ...... 63 Figure 6- Map of Woodgreen Properties ...... 78

vi List of Acronyms

BIA…………Business Improvement Area CDC………...Community Development Corporation SRO…………Single Room Occupancy RFP…………Request for Proposal HOPE VI……Home Ownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere HUD…………Housing and Urban Department TCHC……….Toronto Community Housing Corporation THC…………Toronto Housing Corporation HPS…………Homelessness Partnership Strategy HPI………….Homelessness Partnership Initiative

vii List of Appendices

Appendix A: Policy Chronology ...... 92 Appendix B: List of Interview Participants ...... 96 Appendix C: Informed Consent Sheet ...... 96 Appendix D: Interview Guideline ...... 98

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1 Introduction

Non-profit housing organizations that serve marginalized communities across urban contexts operate under constantly changing conditions. This includes dealing with a lack of resources and government austerity. It can also include changing business models and institutional shifts in community-based organizations to respond to these changing conditions (Elwood, 2006). In North America, many have suggested that these shifts in the operation of the non- profit and housing organizations have been fueled on the one hand by processes of neoliberal state funding for housing, and on the other by organizations’ efforts to respond to gentrification.

Indeed, a crucial issue faced by many housing organizations working within disinvested neighbourhoods is the struggle to prevent their own displacement by gentrification, alongside that of the communities they serve. Some scholarship sees social service and housing organizations as institutions holding back the tide of gentrification (DeVerteuil, 2015), while others have noted the ways in which community organizations have been complicit with neoliberalism and subsequently gentrification (De Filippis, 2004; Arena, 2012). In conversation with this literature, this thesis explores how non-profits which work with marginalized communities negotiate processes of gentrification in their neighbourhoods while considering the risk of displacement to both the organization and the residents they serve. This thesis hopes to build on the literature of urban non-profits and housing providers in relation to gentrification, specifically in the Canadian context. I will do this through an analysis of a non-profit social service agency, Woodgreen Community Services, which continues to operate in the Toronto neighbourhood where it was founded. Through an in-depth case study of the conversion of a former Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel, the Edwin, into a site of transitional housing and services, I will examine the modes of engagement, resistance or negotiation employed by Woodgreen Community Services.

The case of Woodgreen allows me to examine a model of a redevelopment taken on by a non- profit organization providing housing in Toronto, in relation to the threat of both organizational and residential displacement. This study will build on key scholarship on the social economy and gentrification to ask how local community organizations have responded to the onset of

gentrification in their neighbourhoods. I will examine Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the former Edwin Hotel at 650 Queen Street East for Woodgreen’s “First Step to Home” program, located in the South Riverdale neighbourhood of Toronto. Through an in-depth case study of the redevelopment of the former Edwin Hotel in rapidly-gentrifying Riverdale, I will explore how non-profit agencies navigate processes of gentrification. My central research questions are: 1. What does Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the Edwin hotel demonstrate about the role of social service agencies in negotiating gentrification under the context of state withdrawal? a. Under what conditions was the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel possible? b. What strategies or models has Woodgreen adopted to continue developing housing in Riverdale amidst gentrification and state withdrawal? To what extent are these strategies novel? c. What does this tell us about the role of non-profit housing providers in responding to, and shaping, processes of gentrification?

When conducted by the private sector, the redevelopment of an aged hotel within an increasingly expensive neighbourhood represents the form of reinvestment that often further spurs gentrification. However, this Woodgreen redevelopment which opened in March 2010, provides transitional housing1 to homeless men over the age of fifty-five with twenty-eight self-contained units and various on-site support services. This location is also the centre for Woodgreen’s housing assistance services and where individuals can apply in person for any of Woodgreen’s other seven social housing locations. This serves as a significant case study because it involves the redevelopment of a built site within this gentrifying neighbourhood that was used to grow both the housing and social services available to low income and homeless community members. However, there are also important contradictions within this process which require investigation, such as the fact that the Edwin hotel already housed many low- income residents, and the renewal conducted by Woodgreen reduced the amount of permanent

1 “Transitional housing is conceptualized as an intermediate step between emergency crisis shelter and permanent housing. It is more long-term, service-intensive and private than emergency shelters, yet remains time-limited to stays of three months to three years. It is meant to provide a safe, supportive environment where residents can overcome trauma, begin to address the issues that led to homelessness or kept them homeless, and begin to rebuild their support network.” (Homeless Hub, 2019)

affordable housing in the area, and inevitably contributed to the efforts to ‘revitalize’ the neighbourhood by improving the hotel’s physical conditions.

The aim of this study is to examine how agencies that provide non-profit housing and services navigate gentrification in communities such as Riverdale, where Woodgreen Community Services has operated for decades. Through examining the motivations, decision making, political and financial dynamics around the development of a transitional housing site at the ‘New Edwin’, I seek to understand how agencies such as Woodgreen both view and negotiate their role in gentrifying spaces. I initially planned to examine the redevelopment of the former Edwin hotel by Woodgreen to understand how this hybrid model represents the organization’s continued presence in the neighbourhood, while creating housing which can mitigate the displacement of marginalized communities in the area. However, I quickly came to realize that these two elements were precursors to more fundamental questions around the role of non-profit housing providers in the ‘neoliberal’ or ‘post-welfare’ city, specifically in the context of a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood. When I began interviews and the research process, it became clear that the ‘hybrid’ of services and housing in one site was the obvious choice due to the scarcity of affordable properties, thus the best-practice belief in maximizing spaces owned by the organization was rather unremarkable. I instead have sought to understand what the processes through which Woodgreen has redeveloped the Edwin hotel demonstrate about how non-profit social services agencies are able to continue developing housing in the context of gentrification and state withdrawal, and what the potential implications are of the tactics employed by these actors under such conditions.

1.1 Main Arguments In this thesis, I argue that while Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the former Edwin hotel represents a site-specific success, a grounded study of this process demonstrates how successfully providing non-profit housing requires a negotiated synergism with the overall processes of neoliberalism and gentrification. I suggest that this is in line with what De Filippis (2004) calls the ‘neoliberal communitarian’ approach of non-profits in the new millennium, which refers to the ways that organizations operate under market-based goals, non-confrontational forms of engagement/organizing focusing on cooperation rather than

power relations, and powerful assertions of community which assert that individuals have shared interests within a community. However, contra De Filippis, I also argue that although Woodgreen’s conflict-free approach to community development aligns with neoliberal communitarianism, this apolitical form of work is must be understood as a part of the organization’s much longer, place-based legacy, which long predates welfare state retrenchment and neoliberalism of the 1980s.

By placing the New Edwin case study within Woodgreen’s geohistories of housing and service provision in Riverdale, this thesis contributes to the literature on welfare state retreat in urban settings, non-profits’ responses to gentrification, affordable housing, and neoliberalism within urban community development. As I will demonstrate in the following chapters, Woodgreen has not set out to challenge or resist gentrification, rather to work within the constraints of neoliberalism to achieve projects such as the New Edwin. I highlight three place-based and geo-historical values and practices promoted by Woodgreen which include; the settlement movement’s doctrine of social improvement through middle- class presence within the inner-city, the reliance on philanthropy in the withdrawal of the state, and acting as a ‘mediator’ within neighbourhood-level power and class dynamics.

My thesis will also build on De Verteuil’s analysis of how non-profits fill the gaps left by state retreat in the post-welfare city. De Verteuil (2015) utilizes the framework of resilience to demonstrate how incremental actions by the voluntary sector can maintain the residuals of the Keynesian arrangement of the welfare state under gentrification. I argue that in the case of Woodgreen, this incrementalism actually works to uphold and reinforce neoliberal logic through their own contradictory moves. I aim to demonstrate how Woodgreen’s neoliberal communitarianism is not only indicative of the organization’s malleability in the context of state withdrawal, but part of a tradition of service-oriented, apolitical, and historically faith-based work. In the remainder of this introduction, I provide some background on the neighbourhoood of Riverdale and outline the content and arguments of the main chapters in this thesis.

1.2 Placing Woodgreen and South Riverdale in Context The neighbourhood of Riverdale is part of the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit River.

European settlers began to arrive at the end of the 18th century, notably John Scadding, who was granted 253 acres of land along the Don River by the John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant- Governor of Upper Canada. Riverdale was called ‘Riverside’ when it was annexed to the City of Toronto in 1884. During the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the early 1900s the Toronto Housing Company developed its first housing for working families in the area, called ‘Riverdale Courts’ (Purdy, 1993). Riverdale, which sits just east of the Don River and south of the Danforth. Riverdale, like many disinvested inner-city urban areas, has a long industrial and immigrant working-class history. Historically, much of what can be described as gentrification in Toronto took place in the resettlement of neglected and lower-income inner-city neighbourhoods toward the end of the 20th century. The gentrification process was first signaled by the spillover effect of increasing real estate values in the mid 1970s from the gentrification of Cabbagetown, just west of the Don River (Ley, 1996 ; Walks & August, 2008). The neighbourhood is divided into North and South Riverdale by Gerrard Street.

Historically much of the housing sitting on the southern part of the area, closer to the railway, ports, and heavy industry, catered to working people. South Riverdale by the 1970s and 80s also came to be known as “Chinatown East” due to the settlement of many Chinese businesses (Muir, 2013). Whilst the north part of Riverdale has seen a consistent increase in average rents and property values in relation to the city average between 1971 and 2001, the anticipated gentrification in southern Riverdale significantly stalled between the 1980s and 2000 (Walks & August, 2008). While North Riverdale has even historically had housing geared more towards middle-class families, and today has a median household income substantially higher than the city average, and only has a racialized population of 24%, in comparison to the city-wide 51.5%, South Riverdale has also seen changes in past two decades (City of Toronto- Social Policy, Analysis & Research, 2018). An analysis of census data conducted by the City of Toronto demonstrates the consistent decline of low-income and tenant households in South Riverdale from 1996 to 2001, and the most recent 2016 census data demonstrates these rates continue to drop, while median household and family incomes in the neighbourhood remain above the city- wide median (Toronto Public Health, 2004; City of Toronto- Social Policy, Analysis &

Research, 2018). North Riverdale and neighbouring Leslieville have long been considered gentrified parts of Toronto’s east end, resulting in significant pressures on South Riverdale. Although Walks and August signaled to the early signs of renewed gentrification in South Riverdale in their 2008 study, there has been a limited amount of scholarly investigation on the area since then. However, multiple media reports in recent years have documented the rising rental costs and disappearance of rooming houses and other affordable forms of housing within South Riverdale (King, 2016; Nickle, 2019). These demographic shifts, in addition to the visibly changing commercial strip of Queen Street East, are part of the reason for my interest in the pressures faced by Woodgreen Community Services, a long-standing organization in the area.

Woodgreen was initially founded in the early 1930s by Reverend Ray McCleary of the Woodgreen United Church in the Riverdale neighbourhood. Woodgreen’s first services were geared towards offering childcare and filling the gap in recreational activities for youth, within what was then an industrial and working-class area. The organization’s relationship with the church ended in the late 1960s, but the services expanded and continued to focus on the surrounding neighbourhoods. Woodgreen’s first apartment building was built in 1964 for Riverdale seniors and today the organization continues to operate seven-hundred affordable housing units across the city’s East End (Woodgreen, 2010-2018). As one of the first member agencies of United Way Toronto, the organization offers a wide array of services such as employment assistance, childcare resources, youth programs, immigrant settlement, housing and other supports for groups such as those experiencing homelessness, seniors, single mothers, and disabled people. Woodgreen is also one of the dozens of subsidized housing providers across the city of Toronto and their housing serves a wide demographic of people. The sub-area where the former Edwin Hotel is located is now referred to as ‘Riverside’, harkening back to the neighbourhood’s historical name, as designated by the local Business Improvement Area (BIA). This is part of an effort to distinguish the area from the larger Riverdale neighbourhood, and capitalize on the new mixed-use projects of both residential and commercial space in the area (City of Toronto, 2016). As a long-standing community organization in one of Toronto’s rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods, Woodgreen will provide important lessons for the future of equitable community development and neighbourhood change.

1.3 Welfare State Retrenchment, Neoliberalism and the Provision of Affordable Housing

The impact of industrial capitalism in the late 19th century and early 20th century across Western Europe and North America created enormous amounts of urban poverty. Although philanthropists and institutions (often rooted in faith communities) worked to respond to the social and economic ills brought about by rapid industrialization, state programs became essential, both to relieve strife and prevent political repercussions (Wolch, 1990). The welfare state was underpinned by Keynesian economics which advocated for state intervention in stabilizing the economy, enriching social welfare, and maintaining full employment. Three distinct features of the welfare state were the commitment to provide citizens with a form of social security, the creation of specific government institutions for implementing welfare policies, and the allocation of a significant portion of national product to social welfare (Wolch, 1990, p. 37). Affordable housing has historically been a key arena for state policies. With the pressures of increased international economic competition, the decline of domestic manufacturing sectors, and the oil crisis of 1974, welfare spending in most Western capitalist countries drastically declined between 1975 and 1981 (Wolch, 1990). The free-market ideology of neoliberalism has allowed for private sector involvement in various areas of society such as education, health care, and increasingly, housing.

Gentrification refers to the displacement of one community, often lower-class and racialized, in a neighbourhood to make way for wealthier residents, in turn changing both the demographics and the property value of an area. Since the term was first coined by the German sociologist, Ruth Glass (1964), there has been considerable debate around definitions and causes of gentrification, as well as potential solutions. Jon Caulfield (1994) in his book on gentrification in Toronto, frames the early scholarly interventions of urban study as strictly structuralist, with neoclassical economics as the dominant paradigm, until the rise of neo- Marxian orientations, such as the contributions of David Harvey’s Social Justice and the City and Neil Smith’s rent gap theory. Caulfield highlights how this framework allowed for a shift from positivism to more critical approaches in urban study. Harvey has written at length about neoliberalism, its effects on urbanization, and the “right to the city” approach (Harvey, 1989;

Harvey, 2007; Harvey, 2008). Harvey describes neoliberalism as a political and economic theory based on an “institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade” (Harvey, 2007, p. 22). Neil Smith’s rent gap theory describes how suburbanization and disinvestment/devaluation of properties in cities has led to a scenario where there is a gap between the low actual “ground rent” charged by landlords, and the higher “potential ground rent”, creating the incentive for redevelopment. Slater (2018) frames this theory as a Marxist critique of neoliberal land use which, despite its critics, can still be an important framework to understand how states create the economic conditions for gentrification.

Global financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have effectively established neoliberalism as a ‘global set of rules’ since its rise during the Thatcher-Regan era of the 1980s (Harvey, 2007). The rise of neoliberalism as the economic and political status quo worked to undo much of the social safety net the welfare state had previously established in Western states. The application of neoliberal economic policy reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom under the Regan and Thatcher governments began the process of effectively diminishing much of the Keynesian welfare state established in the post-WWII era. An essential part of the welfare state’s public expenditure, which has faced continuous cuts in recent decades, and an important factor to potentially inhibiting gentrification, is social housing. Although much of these policies caught hold in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s, it was not until the early 1990s that Canada started to see the withdrawal of the public sector from housing. Under Jean Chretien’s Liberal government, The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation stopped funding social housing in 1994, ultimately removing a large number of federal funds for non-market housing (Isitt, 2008). After this period the province of Ontario followed suit and a vast majority of the government responsibility for social housing was delegated to under-resourced municipalities.

Peck and Tickell (2002) describe the contemporary pattern of “roll out” neoliberalism as the trend to load local institutions with increasing responsibility but little power. Peck and Tickell draw on Harvey’s (1989) work on urban entrepreneurialism to describe how city governments

have been forced to shrink their own political and economic autonomy through corporate partnerships. This form of neoliberal governance in urban planning, housing, and economic policy has fueled much of gentrification in contexts of the “post-welfare city” (DeVerteuil, 2015). The trend of neoliberal governance on the municipal level has impacted resources for public housing. Limited funding from other government levels has led to greater influence by private interests, such as real estate developers, often increasing gentrification in cities like Toronto. Neoliberal agendas and governance frame redevelopment and commercial gentrification as an attempt to attract a “creative class” in parts of the inner suburbs or “priority neighbourhoods” of Toronto, often through discourses of creativity and entrepreneurialism (McLean, Rankin, and Kamizaki, 2015; Leslie and Hunt, 2013). The withdrawal of the state from responsibility over housing provision has been followed by a push toward privatization, with urban redevelopment policies such as “social mixing” or “poverty deconcentration”, which call for the insertion of market housing through the ‘revitalization’ of social housing, often increasing gentrification in cities (Arrigoitia, 2018; Crump, 2002).

In Chapter Three, I examine the specific geographic, economic and historical context of Woodgreen’s presence in the neighbourhood of Riverdale in order to chart how the organization’s legacies of social service work connect with their contemporary promotion of the ‘social mix’ ethos. Through a historical analysis of Woodgreen as a community-based service organization, I contribute to the literature of ‘neoliberal communitarianism’ and similar theories on urban community development’s cooptation, which largely focuses on what De Verteuil (2015) refers to as the ‘post-welfare’ city. In particular, I trace the place-embedded history and values of an organization like Woodgreen to highlight how many of their methods are in line with the tradition of apolitical service work which predates the welfare state, rather than simply viewing it as indicative of neoliberal cooptation. Through tracing the history of the “Settlement Homes” movement, and the ways in which the Woodgreen founder was inspired by this, I argue that their contemporary view and engagement with gentrification is part of a long legacy of work which values the proximity of different classes within the inner-city. Thus, reinforcing contemporary neoliberal logics around ‘social mix’, a policy which often contributes to gentrification.

1.4 Non-Profit Actors, Gentrification, and the Rise of the Shadow State

Multiple actors such as planners, policymakers, developers, and BIAs are pivotal to understanding the complexities of gentrification and urban politics within neoliberal institutions (Rankin & Delaney, 2011). In inner-city Toronto neighbourhoods such as Cabbagetown, BIAs have sought to ‘improve’ commercial areas by upholding class divisions which set the neighbourhood apart from the surrounding apartments and high-rises of Moss Park, St. Jamestown and Regent Park, through by-laws and zoning restrictions (Fumia, 2010). BIAs have been part of Toronto’s discourse of multiculturalism, and have facilitated gentrification in commercial areas through the use of cultural and ethnic labeling (i.e. “Little Italy”, “Indian Bazaar”), as well as Victorian aesthetics and nostalgia in other areas such as the BIA designation of “Village of Parkdale”, all to market these areas to a wealthier demographic and increase value (Hackworth & Rekers, 2005; Slater, 2004). There is an abundance of literature on actors such as the state, BIAs, homeowner associations, developers, and public- private partnerships in relation to gentrification in Toronto (Fumia, 2010; Hackworth and Rekers, 2005; Rankin and Delaney, 2011; Slater, 2004). Bunce (2018;2019) has explored sustainability planning policies that perpetuate environmental gentrification and the role of community organizations within Toronto in combatting gentrification through the use of community land trusts. Through this thesis, I aim to further explore the role of non-profit community organizations in gentrification through using a historical lens to demonstrate how Woodgreen’s actions are not only a symptom of neoliberalism, but part of a trend of place- based practices.

The development and preservation of social housing, specifically non-profit housing run by social service agencies, can serve as a key point of analysis for examining the role of non-profits in the context of state withdrawal and neighbourhood change. Some of the literature on urban community development refers to local organizations as part of the social economy. The social economy refers to non-profit work conducted by “Third sector” organizations which are neither part of the state, nor part of the for-profit private sector. Although these organizations may run in a manner similar to businesses, their goal is often to build a community’s capacity to address an

unmet need rather than generate profit (Amin, Cameron, & Hudson, 2002). Third sector organizations that participate in the social economy include organizations which offer under-met service needs, such as training, job and entrepreneurial experience, housing, welfare, consumer services, and environmental upgrading (Amin, Cameron, & Hudson, 2002). Woodgreen is, by that definition, a third sector organization and a part of the social economy.

Since the work of Jennifer Wolch (1990) on the non-profit realm as representing the emergence of the “shadow state”, under the context of welfare state retrenchment and government austerity policies, there has been considerable debate on the potential role the social economy has in creating more equitable visions of urban redevelopment. There is a growing interest in understanding the third sector, or ‘voluntary sector’, and its potential role in more equitable and democratic forms of community economic development and urban planning (Rankin, 2013; Casper-Futterman and DeFilippis, 2017). In Chapter Four, I highlight the tensions and contradictions Woodgreen’s funding approach in redeveloping the Edwin hotel demonstrates. Woodgreen’s entrepreneurial approach in redeveloping the Edwin hotel demonstrates how the private acquisition of the building through corporate philanthropy was due to the reputation of the Woodgreen, mainly derived from their neoliberal communitarian approach. Furthermore, securing the building, according to key city officials made them “shovel ready”, ultimately harnessing access to limited state funds in a time of government retreat from housing. This chapter focuses on how Woodgreen’s efforts to attract corporate philanthropic funding resulted in the construction of future residents of the ‘New Edwin’ as ‘deserving subjects’, ultimately contradicting the key tenets of the ‘Housing First’ paradigm through which government funding was made available. An examination of the history of the social reform movement and Woodgreen’s faith-based history reveals how the influence of philanthropy in social housing development is part of a long history which predates more recent neoliberal roll-backs and is indicative of how Woodgreen continues to operate within this legacy.

1.5 Neoliberal Communitarianism and Organizational Limits to Resisting Gentrification

There is a sizable literature on community organizations in the United States, particularly critiquing the cooptation of Community Development Corporations (CDCs), which originated out of both the “neighbourhood movement” of the 1970s and the federally funded and ‘professionalized’ version of 1980s protest movements. Many scholars have debated the role of CDCs in urban community and housing development, as well as in relation to gentrification. Some scholars have suggested that due to the decline of federal funding for public housing in the United States, and a decrease in tax incentives for private development of affordable housing, CDCs took on a bigger role and actually represent the potential for innovative and more place-based housing models (Robison, 1996). However, others critique CDC’s ability to redevelop urban areas and discuss how such models only work under the assumption that capital and poor communities have mutual interests (Stoecker, 1997). While Kirkpatrick (2007) uses specific case studies to analyze how CDCs operating on market-led logics, versus community-oriented logics, have resulted in diverging outcomes for neighbourhood redevelopment in Oakland. I argue that De Filippis’ (2004) analysis of CDCs through ‘neoliberal communitarianism’ provides an important framework for understanding what these competing logics look like in terms of place-embedded organizational form and practice. However, I aim to examine how these logics and practices within non-profit organizations are part of a longer geohistory, one which pre-dates 1980s social movements and state withdrawal, which are often the point of analysis for literature within the American context of CDCs.

I also suggest positioning neoliberal communitarianism next to an analysis of these place- based logics and practices which utilizes the lens of historic institutionalism, a political science framework which compares institutions across time to understand shifts in policy and their impact. I believe this case study represents how social service agencies engage in ‘layering’, where actors foster powerful interests by adding new institutions rather than completely dismantling old ones (Hacker, 2005). I understand Woodgreen to be part of an existing framework of Anglo-Protestant institutions rooted in early iterations of Western liberal thought and the social gospel, through which the dynamics of the welfare state, and more recently, neoliberal institutions have been layered upon. I draw on De Verteuil’s

(2015) comparative analysis of non-profit actors in gentrifying neighbourhoods across three cities: I favour the voluntary sector as a bellwether of neoliberalism and post-welfarism, sensitive to impacts from gentrification-induced displacement and the deleterious impacts of welfare state retrenchment, both signature neoliberal tendencies. I do not see the voluntary sector as inherently (or exclusively) co-opted into the neoliberal ‘shadow state’ (Wolch, 1990), but nor do I see it as intrinsically positive or progressive as Castells (1983) did. Rather, I view it as somewhere in between, increasingly crucial in filling the gaps left behind by welfare state roll-back, providing a vehicle for social movements, citizenship and survival despite its notoriously asymmetrical, uncoordinated, and uneven nature, best understood as heterogeneous networks, sites and actors.

I suggest in the case of Woodgreen Community Services in Riverdale, the organization is neither co-opted by the neoliberal ‘shadow state’ nor does it prevent displacement, in many ways, it is operating in line with their own traditions of apolitical work. Furthermore, I argue that although neighbourhood agencies are important to fill the gaps left by state withdrawal, as the case study of the New Edwin demonstrates, this is often only possible through contradictory moves by organizations which actually reinforce the very dynamics which foster processes of neighbourhood gentrification.

De Verteuil (2012) argues that social service agencies and non-profits employ various strategies of resistance which include ‘private residential strategies’ such as purchasing space when possible and represent a ‘place- embedded politics of resistance’ through the creation of service ‘hubs’ or a concentrated cluster of organizations and services (2012). Despite Woodgreen’s ownership of property used for housing and services clustered in the gentrifying areas surrounding South Riverdale, in Chapter 5 I challenge De Verteuil’s assertion that this represents a ‘place-embedded politics of resistance’. The case study of Woodgreen ‘s redevelopment of the Edwin hotel demonstrates how despite an organization’s ongoing physical presence, their participation in the overall processes of neoliberalism and gentrification might sustain their access to limited state funding, but ultimately fails to guarantee their ability to continue developing housing within a gentrifying area.

In Chapter Five, I discuss how in response to state withdrawal and as part of a social service legacy, Woodgreen’s neoliberal communitarian approach was essential to the success of the

‘New Edwin’ project, but ultimately resulted in a limited capacity to mitigate the effects of gentrification. Their place-based practices in the Riverdale neighbourhood, such as their focus on ‘neighbourliness’ and efforts at “mediating” class conflict and neighbourhood change, has helped build their reputation and legitimacy to accessing both public and private funds. I trace this approach of ‘mediation’ to Woodgreen Community Centre when it was still connected to the United Church. However, the social mix doctrine is flawed, and in the case of New Edwin, the investment into the transitional housing is not enough to mitigate the displacement of clients from the neighbourhood. Woodgreen does not actually explicitly ‘resist’ gentrification, and the pressure of being priced out of developing housing in the area in the future has led to their interest in more affordable areas of the city. Amidst rapidly changing real estate values in the neighbourhood, declining opportunities to develop affordable housing, limited prospects for affordable housing, and subsequent demographic shifts in the neighbourhood, the organization has recognized the need to shift beyond the neighbourhood-based approach. Ultimately, this had led to a contradiction of their neighbourhood-based identity which has contributed to their success. Before I move on to the three substantive chapters in my thesis, below I briefly outline my methods and positionality in my field research.

2 Methodology

2.1 Methods and Rationale

The objectives of this research were to examine the ways in which non-profit agencies engage with processes of gentrification in inner-city Toronto. The Woodgreen case study in Riverdale provides an entry point to analyze the role of social service agencies, who also provide housing, in shaping the outcomes of gentrification under the context of state withdrawal. Thus, I was interested in Woodgreen as a case study on how and why non-profit actors make certain decisions about how to continue providing housing and services under the context of gentrification, neoliberal governance, and developer-led redevelopment.

I chose Woodgreen as a case study because of two factors; firstly, the organization continues to be rooted in the neighbourhood of Riverdale, which is widely regarded as a rapidly gentrifying area. Secondly, their continued ability to remain in the neighbourhood, their provision of both services and social housing sites across the neighbouring areas of Riverdale, Greektown, and Leslieville presents an important model to consider how community organizations respond to gentrification. Research conducted on the quality of life in Riverdale, particularly the lower-income southern end of the neighbourhood, found that Woodgreen was often mentioned by respondents as an important service agency in the community, along with community health centres and churches (Raphaela, et al., 2001). In David Ley’s mapping of patterns of gentrification across major Canadian cities, he described how the well-known gentrification of Cabbagetown beginning in the 1970s spilled east over the Don River into the area of Riverdale, where 1980s census tract data demonstrated a 33% income growth (Ley, 1996). In addition to rising income in Riverdale, it was one of many inner-city neighbourhoods where there was a reduction in available rental housing due to demolition, renovations, and conversion of units from previous owner-tenant occupancy to solely owner-occupied. Through

analysis of City of Toronto data, Ley described how the district of North Riverdale lost half its stock of owner-tenant rental units, displacing approximately 3574 people between 1976 to 1985 (Ley, 1996).

Considering the limited time and scope of this project for the purposes of a master’s thesis, an in-depth case study that focused on a specific instance allowed me to take a more holistic approach to the research question. Case studies provide space to analyze the inner workings of social processes and relationships, rather than strictly focus on the outcomes of these processes (Denscombe, 2010). Thus, in order to answer the central research question around the process of Woodgreen’s current model of affordable housing and service provision, in relation to gentrification in the area, the case study of the former Edwin hotel offered the opportunity to explore how and why these models were able to work in this specific context.

This study employed three main methods; a project document review, semi- structured interviews, and archival research. First, I conducted a review of key documents on Woodgreen’s history of initiatives such as partnership documents, government and funder documents, annual reports, documents from the city of Toronto staff and council records. This primary data was essential to an understanding of how Woodgreen’s strategies within Riverdale and the city’s East End have been framed, and what mechanisms and policy measures were necessary in order for Woodgreen to develop social housing and expand social services throughout the area, specifically in relation to the case study of the former Edwin hotel. Second, I conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants. In-depth interviews provide a method to collect data on a respondent’s specific experience, opinions, as well as their privileged information as a key-actor in their field (Denscombe, 2010). In addition to this, archival research was conducted at the United Church of Canada’s archives in Toronto in order to explore the longer historical roots of Woodgreen Community Services as part of the Woodgreen United Church.

2.2 Policy Document Analysis

Through examining the annual reports, internal documents on housing initiatives, and archived marketing materials of Woodgreen, I have been able to analyze the details of the New Edwin site, the First Steps to Home program, and its funding sources. The data collected from key informant interviews further illuminated the funding sources listed in Woodgreen and city reports. The City of Toronto documents have demonstrated the process of renovations and the funding structures which were utilized in redeveloping the former Edwin hotel into Woodgreen’s New Edwin for the purpose of First Steps to Home transitional housing program. Through reviewing archived city plan proposals for the neighbourhood I was able to understand the history of planning policy and gentrification in the area. These methods helped reveal both the context and ‘conditions’ under which Woodgreen conducted the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel, as well as the strategies they employed to achieve this project.

Through a close analysis of city recommendation documents, staff reports, city council decision documents, and meeting minutes, all of which are publicly available, I was able to discover the exact budgets and funding sources provided to Woodgreen for this project. By examining city data on building permits and speaking to city staff, I was also able to discern the limited actual physical changes made to the structure, which led to limited interference from city planning officials. This helped answer my questions around how Woodgreen had been successful in this redevelopment. In addition to examining these documents, I created a policy chronology which outlines the timeline of policies, government publications, key decisions and funding agreements on local, provincial and federal levels, as well as subsequent media coverage which preceded and followed the opening of the New Edwin. This has allowed me to organize, contextualize, and highlight the important government funding programs which were mentioned in the city documents, and to make sense of the process through which the Edwin renovation took place . Thus, understanding how the combination of the organization’s preexisting capacity and

the funding opportunities facilitated this New Edwin development. These methods were important in order to understand the specific model used by Woodgreen and chart the chronology of key political and financial decisions which preceded the opening of the New Edwin. This included the initial proposal submission by Woodgreen to the City of Toronto in order to compete in the Request for Proposal (RFP), the city’s Affordable Housing office granting federal funding to Woodgreen, City Council approval, and the subsequent budget outlines.

2.3 Interviews

In conducting semi-structured interviews I have taken an approach described by Dexter (1970) as ‘elite interviewing’, or allowing a well-informed respondent to describe and define the problem and situation at hand in their view. I used a semi- structured approach in order to address the central interview questions, but also allow the interviewee, as someone with greater insight on the issue, to elaborate beyond the questions I raised (Denscombe, 2010). Through informant interviews with key actors involved in the process, such as the head of the City of Toronto’s Affordable Housing office who was involved in allocating funding for the New Edwin and facilitating the Request For Proposal (RFP) process, I have been able to gain better insight on facets of the first research question around conditions and context. Furthermore, hearing the thoughts of key senior Woodgreen staff and management has aided in answering the research question around the organization’s response to gentrification. The key informant interviews were essential to understanding the landscape under which Woodgreen operated during that time period, how the changes in a lack of provincial funding for housing impacted their work, and specifically the implications and motivations around the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel. Many of the themes which emerged from the interviews provided information which was not readily available through the document analysis, such as the insights I gained into the organization’s future objectives for housing and services in the Riverdale area, its inability to purchase new assets in the neighbourhood, and its plans to move farther east in the next several years.

2.3.1 Sampling and Recruitment

The study participants were purposively sampled on the basis of their exclusive knowledge and experience in relation to the case study and the organization. The interview participants included current and former directors and senior-level staff of Woodgreen, and local housing advocates in order to understand their experiences working with the agency on the development of housing. These actors were chosen because they enabled me to examine firsthand accounts of the processes and decisions which preceded the opening of the New Edwin, and also uncover the reasons for key decisions. This method allowed me to select specific individuals based on the prior information obtained through the document analysis of this case study. Through purposively sampling individuals with knowledge on Woodgreen’s “First Step to Home” program and process of redeveloping the New Edwin site at 650 Queen Street East, I have utilized their expertise to provide valuable insights on the topic (Denscombe, 2010). After contacting the initial group of people with experience on this case study, I used a snowball sampling method as participants referred me to other individuals they have worked with or know of, who also could provide useful insights.

Furthermore, the communications listed under the City of Toronto documents I examined included individuals such as local housing advocates, the city’s Affordable Housing and Shelter Support divisions and provided insight into which key individuals could provide an important perspective on this research. Through examining the agenda item history and meeting minutes from the city’s Affordable Housing Committee (now the Planning and Housing Committee), I was able to identify individuals to contact who had either written letters in support of Woodgreen’s bid for funding or provided an oral deputation at the committee meeting. Although not all of these individuals still worked for the organizations they previously represented, I was also able to utilize a snowball sampling approach in this instance where the individuals I originally contacted forwarded my information

to their former colleagues, who eventually got in touch with me via email to notify me that they were willing to be interviewed.

However, certain barriers did arise. Firstly, the case study I have chosen was a development which opened nearly a decade ago. Many of the key individuals involved have since retired, were unable to participate in this study, or unfortunately passed away. Secondly, contacting city officials who often have extremely busy schedules can require a lot of patience and persistence on the part of the researcher. In order to mitigate this roadblock, I continued to search for other individuals who could potentially be valid participants in this study, while writing and analyzing the data I had collected thus far. Therefore, I found being flexible and realistic with my own work timelines became necessary. Due to both of these drawbacks, my sample size resulted in the participation of six key informants which included, senior management at Woodgreen Community services, former staff of the Woodgreen foundation, senior city of Toronto public servants, and local housing advocates. Although this was slightly less than my initial goal of ten in-depth interviews, I believe combined with my other methods and secondary data collected I was able to reach an appropriate level of saturation within my results, as the participants I did interview had high quality, in depth knowledge of the project.

2.3.2 Data Collection and Structure of Interviews

Methods are contingent on my abilities and position as a researcher, the limited timeframe, logistics, and potential audience of the proposed work (Tuck and McKenzie, 2015). My position as a young researcher interviewing seasoned experts or senior staff within their respective fields led to the form of ‘elite’ interviewing that Dexter refers to, as he describes “a good many well-informed or influential people are unwilling to accept the assumptions with which the investigator starts; they insist on explaining to him how they see the situation, what the real problems are as they view the matter” (Dexter, 1970, p. 6). In many of my interviews I found this dynamic to be common; the respondent would guide the conversation, offer up

information outside of the specific question, and re-explain issues from their perspective. This was very useful to me as this often revealed many of the latent values and assumptions held by each informant. Through keeping the discussion semi-structured I was able to discover critical information which was both surprising and important in providing new avenues of inquiry and analysis.

Each interview conducted was approximately 50 to 80 minutes long in duration and were recorded on my personal cell phone. The majority of interviews were done in private and in the offices of the study participants. When reaching out to potential participants I indicated that I would meet them at a location and time of their convenience. As many of the individuals interviewed were senior professionals in their field, and thus had their own office space and presumably relative control over their work hours, they invited me to interview them during working hours. My assumption here is that since the participants themselves suggested this, I did not impose any social or professional risks on them by conducting interviews in this manner. For two of the participants we met in relatively busy coffee shops, again locations of their suggestion. The volume of people in both these public locations actually afforded a degree of privacy to our conversation as other patrons were not seated close enough to hear our discussion. Prior to beginning the interview, I read through the information sheet and consent forms with the participant and obtained written consent (see Appendix C). The interview guidelines I created had five sections; the Introduction which asked about the interviewee’s background, the Background which covered their relationship to Woodgreen, the Context which inquired about their knowledge of the context of the New Edwin redevelopment, the Case Study which focused on the New Edwin project, and the Conclusion which allowed participants to add any remaining thoughts (see Appendix D). However, these questions acted primarily as a loose guide to ensure I covered all the necessary questions pertinent to the study. In most cases, I revised the interview guideline according to who I was about to speak to and the specific questions I felt they were in the best position to answer. Furthermore, due to the semi-structured and ‘elite’ nature of the interviews, I probed beyond the initial response to my questions, while

also providing the space for participants to go slightly off topic or discuss different case studies which they felt were relevant to my research.

2.4 Data Analysis

Researchers in other fields have commented on the importance of triangulation when conducted ‘expert’ interviews, in my work I have attempted to triangulate data by using the key policy documents, archived sources, as well as cross referencing information provided throughout the different interviews (Trueb, 2014). In order to analyze the interview data collected from informants, I utilized the NVivo qualitative data analysis software. The audio file of each interview was transcribed within a month of the interview. After transcribing and reviewing all the transcripts I began the process of preliminary data analysis. This included open-coding one of the interview transcripts in order to draft a list of emerging themes to code for in each interview. I created a code book which included reoccurring words and phrases, topical and descriptive nodes, and analytical nodes which were at least one sentence observing a process or phenomenon in the interview data. I used these as the first nodes to code the remainder of interviews in the NVivo software. Through the use of search queries, automatic coding for reoccurring phrases, as well as reading through each transcript within the software, I was able to analyze each interview transcript in detail. I also created “Cases” within the software in order to organize information on specific places or events frequently mentioned in the interview data, these often aligned with the initial ‘descriptive nodes’ I previously drafted, such as descriptions of other Woodgreen housing locations. I was also able to label “Relationships” within the software between nodes in order to keep track of the more ‘analytical nodes’, for example I observed a strong connection between the sections of interviews coded for ‘pollution’ and those coded for ‘real estate’ as this highlighted how the process of gentrification in the neighbourhood was described in interviews.

2.5 Archival Research

Finally, I undertook archival research in order to examine the specific geographies of Woodgreen’s operations within the area through a historical lens. Since there was limited historical information on the organization (besides the agency’s website) available, and I was aware that Woodgreen Community Services as an organization stemmed out of the Woodgreen United Church, I conducted archival research at the United Church of Canada Archives. This helped me to answer my question on whether these changes were novel and ultimately laid the foundation for my argument for a more historically-grounded understanding of Woodgreen’s methods of operation and politics. The archival church newsletters, church histories, lecture transcripts, and other secondary sources such as newspaper clippings found in the archive’s collection on Woodgreen United Church illustrated how the organization’s contemporary orientations were not novel at all, rather but of much longer legacies. Overall these three methods have allowed me to answer the central questions of how this model came to be in terms of funding motivations, policy goals, and neighbourhood context.

2.6 Positionality and Ethics

As Tuck and McKenzie (2015) argue, methodology is part of the epistemological and ontological assumptions guiding the researcher, which can be either implicitly or explicitly part of the rationale in selecting the research focus. According to their analysis of paradigms often associated with a particular methodological approach my work generally falls under the ‘critical’ paradigm which understands knowledge as influenced by power, and that reality is structured according to power (Tuck & Mckenzie, 2015). Tuck and Mckenzie (2015) list critical ethnography and participatory research as common methodologies, while interviews or focus groups are cited as common methods used by researchers under the ‘critical’ paradigm.

I believe my lived experience as well as my background in ‘critical development studies’ has in part fueled the desire to focus on the issues of gentrification. Although commonly used, the term ‘gentrification’ itself remains politically charged, and in many circles is viewed as a divisive or contentious topic. I thought it important when engaging in research which deals with the temporal and spatial dynamics of urban neighbourhood change, the role of non-profit actors, and who gets to remain in-place and ‘belong’, to actually name the issues at hand. Gentrification is a loaded term, but I use it in this study as a means of acknowledging the violence and displacement inflicted by what is often viewed as routine and unpreventable neighbourhood change, particularly in our market-led societies. The processes of gentrification is not a topic for debate within this study, and still more prominent than simply the backdrop of this work, but rather the entry point for interrogating the external motivations and factors which have influenced the development of a transitional housing site during a period seemingly on the cusp of dramatic neighbourhood change. Thus, my use of the term and the way I structure the questions within my methods demonstrate the values I hold, specifically the need to acknowledge how larger power structures influence our realities. Likewise, through the data collection process, the information I obtained from informants was, in my view, never objective or value-free, rather it provided the necessary insight into their specific paradigm, and often of the organization they worked for.

My positionality as a young black woman researcher informs my use of an intersectional approach to all my work. Drawing on the traditions of black feminist scholar Kimberley Crenshaw (1989), and her seminal work critiquing US discrimination’s law’s inability to understand black women’s unique experience based on the interaction of race and gender, I continue to consider how I can apply feminist methodologies within my work. Other feminist scholars have outlined : In addition to the deﬁnition of intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological entrance point to understand power differentials and normativities, it is, second, to be understood as a tool that can be used to analyze how political resistances vis-à-vis intertwined power differentials and normativities are being built around a resigniﬁcation of categorizations and normative identity markers, and, more generally, how individual subjects

negotiate the power-laden social relations and conditions in which they are embedded. (Lykke, 2010, p. 51) Here what interests me is the ways in which community organizations, and individual actors within them, have negotiated the power relations they are inevitably a part of within their everyday work, particularly in the context of gentrification. Although this research is not focusing on explicit issues of race or gender, gentrification is a process which is rooted in power. The communities and individuals who are already marginalized in society are often the ones who are left displaced.

An intersectional lens helped me highlight some of the issues around certain constructions and power relations within Woodgreen’s execution of the New Edwin project, such as my discussion around ‘deservingness’ in chapter four. Experiences of gentrification time and time again have further marginalized communities and neighbourhoods on the basis of their position within class privilege, gender, race, ability, nationality and other facets of their identity. Furthermore, when reflecting on the methods used, the social distance between the informants and myself as the researcher cannot be ignored. Intersectionality is an entrance to understanding how the work within the non-profit sector is often undervalued and gendered, but also why the senior staff and officials I have interviewed are often white and middle-class, and although they are intimately aware of the impacts of gentrification in the areas which they work, they are not affected by this process in a way their clients may be. This dynamic informed the questions I asked and my analysis.

In regard to ethical considerations, in addition to following a consistent consent process with each participant I provided the option for informants to decide if they wanted to be personally identified. Although ensuring privacy and confidentiality is often associated with anonymity in research, participants should also have the right to be identified and have their words attributed to them. Considering the positionality of the study participants, as individuals with a low level of vulnerability, and the nature of my study posing very limited social, professional, emotional, or financial

risks to them, it is not surprising that the vast majority opted to be identified. Furthermore, in highly specified case studies such as this, it would be difficult to completely anonymize someone. This was part of the reason I was also specific on the consent form that each participant indicates whether or not they wish to have their words quoted verbatim, regardless of their choice to identified or use a pseudonym.

During many of the interviews both participants who chose to be personally identified, and those who utilized a pseudonym, indicated during a part of the interview that they did not wish to be directly quoted on something. Although during the initial consent process these participants chose to be directly quoted, as certain scenarios would come up they indicated when they would want to tell me something ‘off the record’, I would either pause the recording or make a note on the transcript not to quote the participant verbatim on that section. Considering that these individuals continue to work in the field and strive to maintain professional relationships, it is important that I respect these requests and consider the impact of including data in my thesis which could have an adverse effect on professional relations, or the programming that the organization’s clients rely on. It was important here to reconsider the potential risks and benefits to including all interesting and new information in my study, versus what was truly necessary to answer my questions while maintaining ethical priorities.

2.7 Conclusion and Limitations

The inability to access certain individuals to interview, such as the former CEO and President of Woodgreen who presided over the New Edwin project, limited the level of in- depth information I was able to gather. Furthermore, interviewing current and former board members could have also provided useful insights towards each research question. However, the limitations in regard to interview methods were often due to individuals who refused to participate or simply never responded to my requests, though I exhausted my options when it

came to interview participants. I should also note that focusing on such a specific case study also limited the pool of potential interviews. I chose not to reach out to clients and actual community members served by Woodgreen because their insights cannot directly answer my question on how a non-profit, such as Woodgreen, has developed affordable housing and responded to gentrification. I made this decision because in order to focus on the selected case study, I had to define a clear scope and utilize the most effective methods to reveal the inner workings of the organization and the structures it operates within. However, that is not to say their perspective is not important, indeed, clients and residents provide an essential voice on issues of gentrification in their own neighbourhoods. Furthermore, residents are important to evaluations on how services from organizations such as Woodgreen, may have impacted their life, however this is not within the scope or focus of my study. I believe including these perspectives could possibly enrich this work and open a line of inquiry into how representative such agencies and organizations are of the actual needs and desires of the community members they serve. Although this could provide an interesting and rather important angle, considering the time constraint of this Master’s thesis, interviewing clients of Woodgreen would ultimately require additional investigation beyond my central research question, and would be outside the scope of this case study.

3 ‘Placing’ the New Edwin: Genealogies of Gentrification and Social Service Legacies

The Edwin hotel was built in South Riverdale in 1906 and before Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the space, it operated as a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel which housed many low-income tenants (City of Toronto Heritage Department). The neighbourhood of Riverdale was historically one of the city’s main industrial areas and working-class inner-city neighbourhoods, which sits just east of the Don River, south of Danforth Avenue. The official boundary between North and South Riverdale currently is Gerrard Street, with North Riverdale extending east only until Pape Avenue (see Figure 2), while South Riverdale extends east to Leslie Street and Greenwood Avenue, and south until the Lakeshore(see 1 Figure 2) Woodgreen Community Services represents a long-standing provider of housing and social services in the neighbourhood. In this chapter I trace this history through an analysis of the significance of the settlement home movement, how it inspired the leadership of the Woodgreen United Church to launch the community-based social service agency, and how the politics around that form of community work illuminates the organization’s contemporary engagement with gentrification. Ultimately, this historical analysis will reveal how the contradictory shifts made by Woodgreen in the early 2000s are not simply a by-product of the constraints brought by recent government austerity, but also the result of long-standing practices in organizational form and identity. My overarching aim in this chapter is to demonstrate the need to consider the longer place-based histories of organizations within the non-profit sector, as it reveals how Woodgreen’s efforts through the redevelopment of the New Edwin are part of a tradition of social service provision which promotes the notion of social class mix within the inner-city, while avoiding any fundamental challenge to the systemic causes for inequality. Thus, reinforcing contemporary neoliberal policies around ‘social mix’ which often contribute to gentrification.

In conducting a close examination of the redevelopment of the Edwin Hotel and what it represents for Woodgreen’s methods to continue providing both housing and services, I examine the historical, political and economic contexts under which this project was developed in order to demonstrate how this project aligns with and reaffirms the geohistories of social service provision in the Riverdale neighbourhood. In this chapter I examine the political, economic, and social histories of the South Riverdale and Woodgreen as a community organization rooted in a faith-based tradition, as part of a legacy of social housing and welfare provision in this neighbourhood. Through an analysis of archival materials of the Woodgreen United Church and Woodgreen Community Centre, in conjunction with interview data from key informants, I aim to trace the ways in which the motifs and politics of the settlement home movement continue to impact how Woodgreen has responded to gentrification in Riverdale in the contemporary context.

Although most of the literature on non-profit actors and gentrification focuses on shifts surrounding the decline of the welfare state, this chapter seeks to outline the place-based genealogies of organizations like Woodgreen through the lens of a slightly longer history. DeVerteuil’s (2015) examination of voluntary sector across the ‘post-welfare’ cities of the West argues that organizations have remained resilient to processes of neoliberalism and gentrification through the formation of inner-city ‘service-hubs’which act as residuals of the Keynesian welfare state. This analysis is presented as an attempt to complicate theories in line with Wolch’s (1990) ‘shadow state’ thesis, which focuses on the problematic ways in which the voluntary sector has become both an arm of the declining welfare state, and suceptible to cooptation by the state. However, in the case of Woodgreen Community Services in Riverdale I argue that though their housing stock may represent the residuals of the welfare state, the ways in which they reinforce neoliberal logics is not simply due to the cooptation by the state, or even corporate actors. This is important in order to move beyond the narratives of neoliberal cooptation of the social economy which do not examine the ways in which the complicity of these actors with neoliberal logics is actually a combination of the impact of state withdrawal, as well long standing place- based and context specific ways in which non-profit institutions like Woodgreen operate.

An understanding of the legacies through which the which non-profits operate within challenges the limitations of analyzing through the prism of the ‘post-welfare city’, or the emergence of non-profits as part of the ‘shadow state’ in the neoliberal era (DeVerteuil, 2015; Wolch, 1990). I intend to build upon this analysis utilizing De Filippis’ (2004) theory around ‘neoliberal communitarianism’, which describes community development work which aligns with market- based goals, engages in a nonconfrontational manner, focuses on cooperating with power relations, and operates on the belief that individuals have shared interests within a wider community. However, whereas De Filippis’ uses this framework to understand the ways in which community development has shifted in the context of neoliberalism, I argue that Woodgreen demonstrates how this form of apolitical orientation to community work is rooted within a history that predates neoliberal state withdrawal. The case study of the New Edwin reveals how agencies like Woodgreen are able to survive the processes of state withdraw and gentrification through a ‘neoliberal communitarian’ approach which does not fundamentally challenge the power dynamics and structures in which they operate. Before I explore the New Edwin itself, chapter three is really about placing the context in which it arose through exploring the landscape of Woodgreen’s operation that continues to surround the New Edwin.

Figure 2- South Riverdale Figure 1-North Riverdale (City of Toronto- Social Policy, Analysis & Research, 2018)

3.1 History of Riverdale: Industrialism and Marginalization

Woodgreen’s presence in Riverdale stretches back to the late 19th century, almost as long as the neighbourhood itself. Some of the earliest European settlers were granted farm lots in the area of what would become Riverdale by the British colonial government in September of 1793 (Catherine Nasmith Architect, 2008). By 1873, due to the Grand Trunk Railway connecting Toronto with Montreal, the village of Leslieville transitioned from a mainly agricultural area to an area with greater residential development and local industry (Muir, 2013).The neighbourhoods of Riverdale and neighbouring Leslieville were incorporated into the city of Toronto in 1884. Residential development intensified following this, such as the nearby Don Mount, as well as the rapid development of scattered housing around the Grand Trunk Railway tracks near Queen Street for workers (City of Toronto Planning Department, 1984).

Factories for brick production, metal processing, food processing, oil, and acetone production, grew, and so did the air and soil pollution in the area (Muir, 2013). The area became attractive to industry due to its close proximity to the rail lines, while Queen Street, Gerrard Street, and Broadview Avenue eventually developed into commercial districts. North Riverdale came to house more upper income families compared to the working class southern end of the neighbourhood (City of Toronto Planning Department, 1984). The environmental impact of industrialism had particularly long standing impacts on health, quality of housing, and the property values in South Riverdale. By the early 1900s, the fumes and smoke resulting from the concentration of factories were dubbed the “The Riverdale Plume” (Muir, 2013, p. 53). By 1923 the neighbourhood consisted of a mix of Victorian-era houses, and significant light and heavy industry (City of Toronto Planning Department, 1984). Since the 1980s both scholarly research and city policy have anticipated that, like in many working class, inner-city areas, reinvestment and gentrification in South Riverdale was inevitable. Ley’s (1996) analysis of housing and demographics in Riverdale demonstrates how the conversion of rental units back to owner- occupied dwellings in South Riverdale, and increases in resident income levels, signaled indicators of gentrification in the early 1980s. While the city’s planning proposals for South Riverdale in 1984 cite the loss of 520 rental units within the decade, an increase of middle class families, and overall lack of significant public or private investment into the rental housing stock

as cause for concern around gentrification (City of Toronto Planning Department, 1984). However, Walks and August (2008) argue that gentrification in the South Riverdale actually stalled during the period between 1981 to 2001 despite these early concerns around potential neighbourhood change. They cite several factors in this delayed outcome of gentrification such as lingering environmental hazards and lead soil contamination as well as the strong presence of a local Chinese community. Ultimately, the concentration of industry in the neighbourhood produced a historically working-class and immigrant character.

3.2 Genealogies of Social Services in Riverdale: Woodgreen United Church and Community Centre

Protestant churches which were once prominent in the early 20th century are part of genealogy of social services which continue to be important to the fabric of the Riverdale neighbourhood. The Woodgreen church was first built and opened in 1875 as a Methodist congregation near Queen and Munroe Street in what is now South Riverdale. The church eventually became part of the United Church of Canada in the 1930s and the Woodgreen Community Centre opened in 1947 (United Church of Canada Archives). During the Depression era, when the predecessor of the current Woodgreen organization began, half of South Riverdale was left unemployed and there were no city-run programs for children or youth. Irish immigrant Raymond “Ray” McCleary, who was the minister of the Woodgreen United Church, began a drop-in program for boys in 1936, followed by a nursery program which would eventually grow into the fully staffed community centre serving youth and children in the community (Muir, 2013). This history of Reverend McCleary illuminates why Woodgreen’s daycare is still of such symbolic value in the neighbourhood of Riverdale, as the current Vice President for Housing and Homelessness, who preferred to be referred to by his first name Mwarigha, framed it: Woodgreen has been around here for a long time. So that means something. It was here from the 1930s. So as a Christian based welfare organization, in that broader sense of work…it has evolved with the neighbourhood, and it seems in cycles. But more significantly, it has embedded its brand in the community, so that even people who have succeeded, and work in some kind of a penthouse on Bay Street, will remember that they went to daycare in Woodgreen. This notion of the brand and identity of Woodgreen is significant in that it appears its legacy in the neighbourhood continues to influence its contemporary organizational form. The first

property owned by the church, in addition to the church building, was a home at 37 Boulton Avenue which belonged to a married couple who were members of the congregation (United Church of Canada Archives). The deed of the house was transferred to Woodgreen for the church and neighbourhood purposes. In 1931 Reverend Ray McCleary painted the door of this home red, which would later go on to inspire the name of another offshoot of this faith community, the Red Door Shelter organization in Toronto (United Church of Canada Archives).

Records in the United Church of Canada archives help sketch the history of the Woodgreen United Church’s welfare efforts in its local community up until the 1960s, when the social services branch of Woodgreen would split from the faith organization. The Woodgreen United Church would also eventually close its doors and was recently demolished in 2017 to make way for a forthcoming mixed-used condominium development. However, the Red Door Shelter, which existed in the previous church structure, has managed to secure new shelter space as part of this development (Community Planning, Toronto and East York District, 2015) . The church, whilst headed by Reverend Ray McCleary, established the “Wood Green Settlement Trust ”on

April 12th of 1937 as part of an effort to plan and fund the vision for a community centre which would address the recreational, child care, and religious education needs of the youth in what was then a densely populated, but underserved Riverdale (United Church of Canada Archives). Archived newspaper clippings from 1946 describe the opening of the Woodgreen Community Centre, and how the church fundraised approximately $400,000 from donors and the faith community to build the centre. The article goes on to describe the dire need for the recreational space provided by the centre due to the increasing concentration of factories in the neighbourhood which had encroached on public spaces for children (Hain, 1946; United Church of Canada Archives). Ultimately, Woodgreen Community Services has always been involved in social services during a period when state supports were limited.

3.3 Social Reform, Settlement Homes, and Traditions of ‘Living with Neighbours’

I aim to trace the history of Woodgreen’s social services in the neighbourhood of Riverdale in order to demonstrate how the organization has long operated in a context of limited government

support, prior to the establishment of welfare state provisions and its retrenchment. Through examining the connection between Woodgreen historically, and settlement homes, I aim to illuminate the long legacy of the organization’s belief in the necessity of ‘social mix’ within the working class inner-city. Woodgreen United Church and Woodgreen Community Centre was a major source of welfare provision for residents of Riverdale during a period where there were few state supports provided. Faith-based communities, outside of explicit missionary or evangelist work, were active agents of housing and welfare provision at the turn of the twentieth century across cities in North America.

One important example of the role of faith-based social services in histories of urban marginalization is the role of ‘settlement homes’ or ‘settlement houses’. The roots of Canada’s non-profit housing sector lie in the social gospel movement and ‘settlement houses’ of the late 19th century as a response to issues brought about by urban industrialism (Isitt, 2008). The social gospel movement was a response by Christian institutions to social issues during the late ninetieth century and early twentieth century context of industrialization and urbanization (Isitt, 2008). Faith communities such as the Methodist and Presbyterian churches launched social services, promoted recreation, education, sobriety and personal salvation, during the First World War in British Columbia, which led to churches establishing shelter and orphanages, until state- run foster care took over in the 1960s (Isitt, 2008). Scholars have argued that the movement of Protestant churches in Canada’s social services was part of a shift to challenge extreme individualism, and although the church represented traditional or conservative values, its social initiatives were foundational to modern welfare state policies (Christie & Gauvreau, 1996).

However, settlement homes which emerged across England, the United States, and eventually Canada during the same time period were mainly secular or non-denominational institutions which worked to serve immigrant and working class inner-cities. Settlement houses combined recreational centres, social welfare agencies, cultural activities, and middle-class residency in ‘neglected’ segments of inner-cities, led by local middle-class residents (James C. L., 1998). London’s Toyneeball Hall was one of the first established in 1884, proponents of which advocated for middle class residency in working-class areas in order to provide “the urban poor with friendship, practical assistance, and dynamic illustrations of a ‘better’ way of life” (James

C. L., 1998, p. 51). Jane Addams, one of the most widely recognized leaders of this movement, viewed settlements as the best channel to extend culture and education ‘to the masses’, which she believed integral to the success of a democratic society. Addams, and other leaders of settlements in the United States, despite espousing a narrative of immigrant inclusion, used these institutions as tools of cultural and educational assimilation into mainstream American society (Lissak, 1989). James (1998, p. 289) describes how “Inspired by the British Idealist school of thought the settlement movement argued that social regeneration in the urban industrial milieu could best be accomplished if members of the middle class created islands of 'enlightenment’ in the midst of urban slums”. Settlement homes typically provided educational and recreational services by middle-class ‘settlers’ who lived and worked there, hoping to bridge a connection between classes. Furthermore, these centres were also used as sites of social investigation to test solutions for issues that poor communities faced and is often cited as a precursor to the social work profession (James C. , 1998; Fabricant & Fisher, 2002). Programs such as supervised playgrounds, employment offices, and libraries were often started by settlements before being taken over by state agencies (James, 1998). Although many middle-class people who became involved in settlement houses were driven by religious reasons, the movement steered away from direct evangelism and remained non-denominational in most cases. This is very similar to the approach of Woodgreen Community Centre in the 1950s and 60s. Although the community centre had not completely severed ties with the Church, media coverage of the organization at the time described its work as being on a ‘non-denominational, first come, first served basis’ (Stephenson, 1961;United Church of Canada Archives).

In the Canadian settlement movement, emphasis on citizenship education meant promoting the “hegemony of middle-class ideals, values, and culture” amongst the working-class and non- Anglo, non-Irish immigrants it served within the city (James C. L., 1998, p. 49). Henthorn (2018) discusses the role of urban elites and philanthropists in Houston’s city building process and the formation of settlement homes at the beginning of the 20th century, in the backdrop of the migration of working-class people from other areas of the South, racial segregation, and little state supports. It should be noted that although the settlement movement is often held up as an early effort in serving diverse communities, many settlements across the United States failed to integrate black Americans in the same way as European immigrants, leading to a segregated

movement of black-led settlement homes (Hounmenou, 2012). Samuel Stein (2019) traces part of the history of urban planning in the United States to the ‘progressive reformism’ movement’s effort to ensure social reproduction and quell urban rebellion amongst working classes in the ninetieth to early twentieth century. Stein asserts that while settlement homes, as part of this reformist agenda, provided vital social services to the urban poor, they also worked to reinforce patriarchy and Protestantism. The settlement home movement serves an important site for understanding the ways in which organizations like Woodgreen, which are situated within faith- based traditions of community work, continue to reinforce moral discourse around the culture and behaviours of marginalized communities, as I will illustrate below.

Both the settlement home and social reform movements emerged in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain and North America to fill the lack of welfare and support provided by the government to alleviate the unsafe and unhealthy living conditions of working class communities, often within inner-cities (Browne & Welch, 2002; James, 2001). The social reform movement was rooted in individual level charity and philanthropic organizations which emphasized the need to both improve conditions in which poor communities lived, while improving their habits and virtues, as an effort to prevent a drain on public funds and issues of societal safety and security. James (2001) distinguishes this from the settlement movement, which offered an effort to resist the extreme individualism of laissez-fair capitalism, while stressing the importance of community and geographic proximity between the rich and poor. This emphasis on proximity between classes, realized through middle-class individuals living and working out of inner-city settlement homes, is indicative of a larger sentiment on the importance of ‘social mix’, which is both reflected in Woodgreen’s leadership’s perception of gentrification, as well as the current dominant urban planning doctrines.

Toronto was a major centre for Canadian settlement homes which emerged in the early twentieth century. Some of the first settlements in Toronto, such as the Evangelia House and Riverdale Settlement, were located in the Riverdale neighbourhood (James, 2001). Thus, the neighbourhood of Riverdale as a historically working-class area was a target for settlement home movements of Toronto. A close examination of archival material on the Woodgreen United Church reveals the direct linkages between the settlement home movement and the traditions of

‘social mix’ that Woodgreen Community Services operates within. Internal Woodgreen newsletters from 1938 describe the church’s plans behind the establishment of the “Wood Green Settlement Trust” as part of an effort to pursue social services in the tradition of settlement homes: For some time now the plans have been discussed and formulated as to the possibility of the erection of a Settlement House to be known as Wood Green Settlement, which would include Nursery school, further accommodation for the Sunday School, clubs rooms, and last and above all, the much needed gymnasium for recreational facilities.

Newspaper clippings found within the United Church of Canada’s archives describe the founder of Woodgreen, Reverend Ray McCleary, and his time spent studying at settlement houses prior to launching the Woodgreen Community Centre during his time at the church (Stephenson, 1961; United Church of Canada Archives). However, most clear is the inspiration behind Woodgreen’s community work in the Reverend’s own words.

The full archived transcription of the ‘Robertson Memorial Lecture to Theological Colleges’ delivered by Rev. McCleary in 1959 describes his sentiments in relation to settlement homes. The Reverend McCleary continues to be heralded as the founding figure for the contemporary Woodgreen Community Services. Excerpts from this speech demonstrates how he intended Woodgreen’s community work to squarely fit within the tradition of the settlement home movement. Rev. McCleary described the settlement house movement as “One of the Most Remarkable Social Phenomena in the Anglo-Saxon Social Fabric”, and quoted various sources on the roots of the settlement and social reform movements as a response to complex changes brought about by the industrial revolution: Not only are the above quotations of historic importance but they also give us the pattern from which flowered many other noted settlement houses in Britain and the United States. Perhaps the most noted was that of Hull-House in the southside of Chicago during the days of the butchering green and the pork barrel era of the slaughterhouse neighbourhood. Jane Adams, one of America’s foremost women visited the Barnetts and was so impressed that on her return from a visit in 1889, Hull-House was created by her and her Remarkable Associate, Ellen Gates Starr, on the Southside of Chicago. It was these women and their associates through their gripping and colourful experience of living with the neighbours in Hull-House that brought about more legislation for the alleviation of the suffering and diabolical conditions of child labour and factory conditions for women workers. Jane Adams will always be a name to conjure with and becomes more illuminous as history adds luster to this brilliant name for her remarkable work of humanitarianism. (United Church of Canada Archives, 1959)

He goes on to state, “It was my experience in Settlement Houses not only in Canada but in the United States, such as Hull-House, Henry Street Settlement and other that sparked off and gave me the idea of the possibilities of Woodgreen’s Contribution to our particular neighbourhood...” The influence of the settlement home movement on Woodgreen’s early form of community work is evident. In the following section I move on to discuss how many of the values encompassed by the settlement home movement endure in Woodgreen’s contemporary urban redevelopment initiatives.

Figure 3- "Woodgreen Settlement Challenge",1938, (Woodgreen Church Newsletter, United Church of Canada Archives)

3.3.1 Woodgreen’s Response to Gentrification: Maintaining a ‘Healthy Mix’

Many of the themes uncovered through a closer examination of Woodgreen’s engagement with gentrification in the context of the Edwin Hotel redevelopment parallel the values of the Protestant-led settlement and social reform movements of the early twentieth century, which predate much of the supports provided by the welfare state. Woodgreen’s senior management, when discussing issues of gentrification, emphasized the need for preserving a ‘mixed income’ community. A common theme throughout the interview data was the notion that Riverdale represented part of the East End’s “gritty” neighbourhood identity, which thus translated into the relatively accepting nature of businesses and the wider community of transitional housing at the Edwin hotel. This was part of a larger narrative that Woodgreen emphasized as the “mixed” nature of the neighbourhood. As the current CEO, Anne Babcock described challenges between poor and newer wealthier residents: And even though people in the neighbourhood now know, or, seem to understand that it’s a good thing to have a mixed-income community, there’s still challenges, particularly in the summertime, when everything’s much more visible, people in the parks, people asking for money, all of those kinds of things…

For a neighbourhood, I think to be healthy, I think you need to have a lot of diversity of people. And so if all neighbourhoods are getting priced out so that nobody, but those people who can afford it and live here, and you don’t have that- you don’t have the diversity that you need to make it healthy…

Senior Woodgreen staff and researcher at Woodgreen, Diane Dyson, described in relation to the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel:

And I think in the East End it’s probably an easier story to sell. Because while there are people that worry about their property values, and that is always an issue that pops up, the east is also known for being more gritty and working-class roots are one of the reasons that a lot of people move into a neighbourhood. They like to have a sense of a mix. They don’t want to live inside an enclave.

Meanwhile the Vice President of Housing and Homelessness at Woodgreen, Mwarigha, used the example of Woodgreen’s childcare services as a case study for the historical importance of social mix in the area: And so those parents who, even though they are wealthier, who then come back and live in the East End, (who grew up in the east) …They tend to take their kids to Woodgreen daycare. And so Woodgreen daycares are very economic- in the income mix, and the social mix is very dynamic.

Thus, many of the key staff and management within the organization maintain that although it is important to ensure low-income people are not priced out of the neighbourhood, wealthier residents actually prefer the ‘social mix’ within Riverdale, save the visibility of poverty amongst the area’s homeless population.

This notion that a ‘healthy’ neighbourhood requires a mix of income, class, and social groups parallels the values of the settlement home movement which inspired Woodgreen’s founder. The settlement movement did not seek to restructure or fundamentally challenge systems of power. Rather, it sought to improve the habits and quality of life for immigrant and working-class communities within inner-cities through having upper-class individuals facilitate services and live within the community. Similar to Woodgreen, the settlement movement consisted of neighbourhood-based groups, originated from religious individuals but strived to be non-denominational, and valued the proximity of rich and poor as an effort to create greater community cohesion, though it did not seek to fundamentally challenge classism (James C. , 2001;Fabricant & Fisher, 2002). This is also indicative of the ways in which Woodgreen Community Services operates within the framework of ‘neoliberal communitarianism’, as they emphasize the importance of facilitating a ‘healthy mix’ to help residents of different classes live together, rather than challenging the systems of gentrification or neoliberalism. Within De Filippis’ (2004) analysis of CDCs in the United States, he highlights how not all organizations should be oversimplified as co-opted under neoliberalism because earlier CDCs were never created to fundamentally transform the structures governing urbanization. Similarly, understanding Woodgreen’s roots in relation to the settlement home movement reveal the reasons for their current orientation towards neighbourhood change.

The sentiments of the senior staff at Woodgreen I interviewed echoes many of the central tenets of the settlement home movement, primarily the importance of proximity between working class and wealthier people within the inner-city. This often meant the middle-class workers lived in the inner-city centres, as part of an effort to pass on middle class values and behaviours to the urban poor. As Cathy James describes the impetus for the creation of settlement homes in Toronto: During the growing presence of non-Anglo-Celtic immigrants living in less ethnically homogeneous neighbourhoods in some parts of the very poorest parts of town exacerbated even further the perception that the city was becoming ghettoized and the classes were becoming estranged from one another. Moreover, the appearance of these impoverished enclaves

confirmed the opinion of some theorists that such people were culturally predisposed toward indigence, and thus had to be remolded into Canadian citizens. (James C. , 1998, p. 291)

This preoccupation with ‘ghettoized’ inner-city areas, or ‘impoverished enclaves’ not only provides the historical context for Woodgreen’s organization form, but also much of the dominant planning policies which have been utilized to justify neoliberal redevelopment of social housing across cities in North America. However, as I have demonstrated in this chapter thus far, the notion that inner-city enclaves of poor and immigrant neighbourhoods can be improved through the injection of wealthier residents is not new. Rather, it is part of the lasting legacy of settlement homes which have influenced agencies like Woodgreen, and its emphasis on the importance of geographic and social proximity between classes as a solution for the issues plaguing inner-city areas. Woodgreen’s current leadership continues to adopt the doctrine of ‘social mix’ to characterize the interactions between gentrifiers and low-income community members, such as those they serve at the New Edwin site. This emphasis on having a ‘healthy mix’ through maintaining the presence of social housing in an overall context of gentrification illustrates how in line Woodgreen’s approach has been with neoliberal processes of urban revitalization. A key part of this logic, to bring in middle or upper class residents to inner-city neighbourhood, reflects contemporary urban planning policies around ‘social mix’. This historical analysis illuminates how the traditions of social service that Woodgreen is rooted in is part of the reason they promote notions of ‘social mix’, policies which arguably reinforce gentrification.

3.4 ‘Deconcentration’ of Social Housing: State Withdrawal, ‘Mixed- Income’ Communities, and Neoliberal Redevelopment

Discussions around gentrification in Riverdale have followed in line with Neil Smith’s rent gap theory, as deindustrialization and efforts to mitigate the impact of contamination in the neighbourhood is often positioned as an opportunity for potential reinvestment in an area with historically low housing costs (Slater, 2018). However, interviews with Woodgreen staff revealed that property values in the area of South Riverdale remained relatively low when the organization purchased the Edwin hotel. The notion of it the areas ‘gritty’ roots, and the fact that gentrification had not yet hit in the early 2000s was attributed to the lack of Not in My Backyard (NIMBYism) resistance to the Edwin project. Another factor commonly attributed to the low real estate value of the area is the issue of termite infestations in Riverdale. The city had even established an official program to support homeowners with the costs of fighting these infestations across the east end in 1965 (City of Toronto Planning Department, 1984). Walks and August (2008) suggest that the continued presence of factories led to virtually no investment or change in South Riverdale between 1945 to 1970, perhaps with the exception of urban renewal programs and the construction of ‘Don Mount Court’ as a public housing site in the 1960s. ‘Don Mount Court’ would eventually go on to undergo revitalization to become a ‘mixed-income’ community in 2012, as many other public housing developments in Toronto and across the West (August, 2015).

Much of the movement towards the demolition of public housing in North America which began in the 1990s was based on theories of ‘de-concentration’, that is the notion that urban issues plaguing particularly marginalized neighbourhoods are a result of the high concentration of poverty in those areas. Thus, the demolition of public housing and relocation of poor residents was viewed as a viable policy solution. However, this view of urban issues as social pathology is oversimplified and has proven ineffective in its application across American cities (Crump, 2002). Critics have highlighted the problematic nature of the language of ‘deconcentration’ often used to justify planning of ‘mixed-income’ communities and marketization of public housing ,“the language of poverty has usurped all resonance from the

language of race, enabling vigorously deracialized concepts—'concentrated poverty,’ the ‘underclass’—to acquire their ‘unimaginably black’ signification only through what is unpronounced and whispered in scholarly or political discourses, or sirened in the mass media” (Ansfield, 2015, p. 128). As the work of Goetz (2013) demonstrates, the objective of the ‘Home Ownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere’ (HOPE VI) program implemented by the American government in 1992, was the removal and literal demolition of public housing developments in various cities across the country for the purposes of “revitalization”. Inspired by ‘new urbanism’, the motivation by the state was to redevelop public housing into “mixed income” communities, where both social and market housing would be developed, paving the way for private investment. With the decline of social housing and the welfare state in the United States, narratives and processes of urban revitalization dismantled public housing, while private investment into publicly owned lands eventually triggered gentrification (Goetz, 2013). The history of disinvestment in public housing by the Housing and Urban Department (HUD), the downloading of housing responsibility to the local government level, and the willingness to cater to the interests of developers, illustrates a story of neoliberal effects on housing in American cities.

Walks and August have suggested that the HOPE VI program in the United States heavily influenced the planning and design approach to the Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s (TCHC) revitalization plans in Regent Park (August & Walks, 2012). This massive project to redevelop Canada’s oldest and largest public housing project was framed as a benevolent attempt to “clean up” the deteriorating housing in the area, and thus ‘de-concentrate’ the poverty in Regent Park through partnering with condominium developers to create a new mixed-income community (August, 2016). The history of this discourse of well-intended projects of urban renewal for improved health and living conditions has been described by many scholars as paternalistic and contributing to the continuous displacement of blackness in cities like New Orleans and Halifax (Ansfield, 2015; Rutland, 2018). Contemporary research on the revitalization of Regent Park describes how these policies of de-concentration and urban revitalization have impacted gentrification in Toronto (August, 2016; August, 2015). The change of leadership at TCHC and displacement of the very people who worked in the community made it difficult for the network of existing organizations in the area to effectively

mobilize around resident interests in Regent Park (Brail & Kumar, 2017). Thus, the sentiment of mixed-income communities as a path to improve conditions within the inner-city reinforces historical tropes of injecting middle class residents in such spaces in order to ‘revitalize’ an area. These ‘social mix’ tropes were a central element of the settlement movement, which sprung up in the context of little state supports, and much of the public housing built through the welfare state did not yet exist. Settlements were a major influence on the early Woodgreen organization, while the current management of Woodgreen Community Services reflect many of the same values. Understanding this place-based, and often cyclical, history of urban renewal and social service, helps disentangle some of the contradictions presented by Woodgreen Community Services, their actions, and their motivations in the context of gentrification.

Ultimately, the doctrine of social mix is not only part of a historical legacy of how Woodgreen engages in community development work, but also demonstrates how their work is line with contemporary neoliberal projects. Through reinforcing notions of a ‘mixed-income’ community which have arisen from increased gentrification in Riverdale, the organization’s leadership is working within the tradition of an agency which was inspired by the settlement home movement’s focus on proximity between rich and poor within the inner-city. I build upon De Fillippis (2004) analysis of the nuances in the origins of American CDCs, to examine how Woodgreen’s organizational roots can illuminate why much of their current approach is in line with neoliberal logics of urban redevelopment, such as mixed-income communities. I argue that these practices and values are not simply due to neoliberal cooptation, but also due to longer histories of social service work. These place-based practices rooted in historical legacies, both have allowed Woodgreen success in the case study of Edwin hotel, but work to reinforce the logics of neoliberalism which fuel gentrification, in turn risking a future for both resident and organizational displacement.

4 Constructing the ‘Deserving Subject’: Woodgreen’s Funding Model and the Role of Corporate Philanthropists

In this chapter I now turn to describe the development of the Edwin Hotel. In doing so I explore how corporate philanthropy has played an important role in the absence of state support for social housing and services. As provincial funding for housing has been on the decline since the 1990s, Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the Edwin demonstrates the move to raising private funds. However, I seek to highlight the ways in which this is not only indicative of shifts due to neoliberal constraints, but also Woodgreen’s own legacy, and the historical significance of philanthropists in housing and social services within a pre-welfare state context. Woodgreen’s long-standing reputation, lack of resistance to the privatization of housing funding, and their construction of their clients as ‘deserving’ subjects positioned them to receive corporate support. I utilize the historical significance of social reform movements and philanthropists in inner-city non-profit housing to understand the genealogies of Woodgreen’s work based in the church, which often relied on the generosity of wealthy philanthropists. In the first half of the chapter I show the ways in which Woodgreen has long worked with philanthropists, which I situate as key actors in housing at the turn of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I chart the history of philanthropy in urban social welfare and housing in North America and Europe, and Woodgreen’s specific histories in relation to this. Second, I discuss how the acquisition of the Edwin Hotel building through private philanthropy was due to Woodgreen’s organizational form and reputation, securing the building made them “shovel ready”, ultimately harnessing access to limited state funds in a time of government retreat from housing. Third, I note how the process undermined the principles of the “Housing First” project, a principle which asserts housing as a non-conditional human right, and reinforced notions of the “deserving poor”. Through an analysis of the New Edwin case study, my aim is ultimately to show how the increasing role of corporate philanthropy has worked to reinforce neoliberal notions of the “deserving poor”, while acting in the tradition of apolitical, ‘neoliberal communitarian’ approach has allowed Woodgreen to access to the necessary public funds for the redevelopment of the Edwin Hotel.

4.1 Social Reformers, Philanthropy, and Housing: Woodgreen in Historical Context

In his research on the history of wealthy philanthropists across the Western world between the 1840s to 1930s, Adam (2009) explores how housing was part of a process of urban social reform and was framed as an issue of safety, morality, and rooted in notions of self-help. A common theme amongst emerging capitalist societies was the concern with housing the poor, particularly in densely populated American cities where overcrowded tenements were common. Many of the concerns around an increasingly segregated and concentrated working class were common amongst both wealthy philanthropists or ‘reformers’ around inner-city neighbourhoods, and those heading the settlement home movement, except reformers had a particular focus on housing needs. This issue of housing the poor was of particular significance because of the construction of these neighbourhoods as spaces of danger and immorality which threatened the society in general (Adam, 2009). The long-standing impact of the reformist movement included the regulation of construction standards through building codes which promoted health and safety, such as the New York City tenement laws, which created safer housing conditions, but simultaneously increased property values and made new tenements unaffordable for many families (Stein, 2019). The involvement of wealthy individuals in the late eighteenth century in Germany initiated many housing cooperatives which would in later decades become run by tenants, while social housing models such as the British “Philanthropy and 5%” where worker apartment blocks were built with an expectation of 5% return on investment for philanthropists, began to emerge (Adam, 2009; Cunningham, 2015).

Similar conversations around housing the poor in Canandian cities like Montreal and Toronto became part of the public discourse in the early 1900s when the impacts of industrialization and immigration began to be felt. Adam (2009) explores how philanthropist ‘reformers’ across North American and European cities were influenced by each other, particularly in their development of privately owned social housing models. In his exploration of these private social housing models, he highlights how Toronto’s housing eventually was transferred to state control from wealthy philanthropists. The Toronto Housing Company (THC) was founded by a prominent businessman, George Frank Beer, in 1912, who

was publicy against government sponsored social housing, and believed the state should remove barriers for private development in the sector (Adam, 2009).

The newly founded THC aimed at building housing within the city close to industrial centres and planned for tenants to own a minimum of five shares of the company, at fifty dollars a share (Adam, 2009). Outsiders were also allowed to purchases shares, but as a limited dividend company they were limited to 6% dividends. Despite Beers’ opposition to state-run social housing, he lobbied for financial support from the state in order for the THC to construct its planned housing. In April of 1913, the Ontario legislature passed the ‘Hanna Act’, a bill which “enabled companies incorporated to provide housing for the lower classes at moderate fees to petition municipal council to guarantee its bonds up to 85%” (Adam, 2009, p. 85). This guarantee of state funding was done in exchange for the TCH allowing city council to appoint one board director, and to be consulted in the selection of construction sites, while the 6% dividends to company shareholders would be maintained. Adam (2009) contextualizes Toronto as being unique to other Western cities of the pre-World War era, due to the fact that while city councils may have funded museums or libraries at the time, this was rare for social housing, noting the Toronto case “symbolized the transition of social housing from being a private task to becoming a publicly funded function of municipal and then state government” (Adam, 2009, p. 85). This historical context of private interests and philanthropy-driven development of affordable housing in Toronto is important to tracing the contemporary practices of social service and housing providers such as Woodgreen, and the ways in which philanthropic donors were necessary in the purchase of the Edwin hotel. Ultimately, the history of for-profit, private actors, and their ability to harness state funds towards housing situates the role of corporate philanthropy in the Woodgreen and Edwin case study as part of a longer legacy of donor-led social housing initiatives.

Prior to the establishment of the welfare state (and its eventual withdrawal), faith-based agencies like the Woodgreen Community Centre, now known as Woodgreen Community Services, were vital to the social services of the neighbourhood. Since the organization was still a branch of the United Church, and Protestant churches in Toronto still had important community influence, Woodgreen was able to draw on both congregants and wealthy donors in order to build its first community centre and neighbourhood house. Archival material illustrates the history of Woodgreen’s first “church house” which was donated by church members, as well as the extensive fundraising efforts of the church. Fundraising through the

church and donations from well-known wealthy individuals in Toronto such as George Metcalf and Garfield Weston helped bring about the first spaces built by Woodgreen as a social service agency.

Figure 4- George C. Metcalf, Woodgreen Neighbourhood House, 1959 (United Church of Canada Archives)

Understanding the significance of philanthropy and considering Woodgreen’s historical role as a faith- based organization, illuminates how the agency’s willingness to collaborate with corporate philanthropy

for the New Edwin project is not only not unremarkable, but actually in alignment with organizational practice and tradition. The historical context of philanthropic involvement in developing housing in Toronto, as well as the social reform agenda, is important to consider the politics and decision-making factors which influence how projects such as Woodgreen’s New Edwin are funded. These legacies of corporate philanthropy are an important backdrop for the second half of this chapter as I turn to examine the specific reasons for Woodgreen’s fundraising from corporate philanthropists, and the ways in which this facilitated Woodgreen’s success in terms of the Edwin hotel.

4.2 Devolution of State Funding

Woodgreen has operated in the neighbourhood since the 1930s, initially through the support of congregation members and wealthy philanthropists. However, the level of state involvement has shifted in various ways since then. Woodgreen Community Services began to build housing, such as their first building for seniors in the late 1960s, from this point until the 1990s much of the funding for these projects came from the state. Some of the earliest public housing projects in Ontario were developed by the Ontario Housing Corporation and managed by local authorities between 1964-1973, with the federal government taking the lead in the following decade. However, by the late 1980s most social housing was administered through joint programs between the federal and provincial governments, until the devolution of housing to the province in 1999. By 2002 the province devolved responsibility of social housing to local officials but continued to oversee supportive housing. Although the federal government began to reinvest in housing from 2002 onwards, this period was marked by minimal investments into social housing (Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, 2017). Between the 1960s and 1990s many organizations depended heavily on the provincial government for housing funding, and in the face of funding cuts have to devote an increasing amount of their time searching for new sources of funding and “professionalize” themselves (Browne & Welch, 2002).

The downloading of housing responsibility from the federal government to local officials began in 1993 with the federal liberal government of Jean Chretien, and with the election of Premier Mike Harris’ Conservative government in 1995, when Ontario proceeded to cancel future provincial funding for housing (Hackworth & Moriah, 2006). The “Common Sense Revolution” brought on by the Harris

Government emphasized the role of philanthropy and volunteerism whilst reducing funding to non- profits in the field of health and welfare. Thus, many organizations which relied heavily on provincial funding were forced to dedicate larger amounts of their time to searching for new sources of private revenue while becoming increasingly competitive in obtaining contracts (Browne & Welch, 2002). This is particularly significant to understanding the context under which Woodgreen was operating in the early 2000s, because as a private non-profit social housing provider, they were part of a collection of non-government organizations and community groups which had relied primarily on the province (Hackworth & Moriah, 2006).

Under the Harris government of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the application of neoliberal policies led to greater privatization and market forces in the province’s service delivery. Public expenditure on the province’s services was significantly cut between 1995 and 1999, with housing being one of the areas where provincial grants were either significantly reduced or eliminated altogether (Browne & Welch, 2002). Ultimately the Harris government cut more than $300 million from provincial housing spending by 2000. Meanwhile, the Liberal government under Premier Dalton McGuinty which followed in 2003 did not result in major increases to investments in housing. The aftermath of the provincial downloading of housing programs to municipalities in 2002, and the cuts to hundreds of millions in public spending ultimately reduced Ontario’s housing policy to a patchwork of uncoordinated funds from different levels of government, the private sector, and community sources (Shapcott, 2007). Woodgreen, like many other non-profit housing providers, felt the burden of these provincial cuts.

Woodgreen’s Vice President for Housing and Homelessness, Mwarigha, echoed this sentiment, lamenting that “… the (provincial) government created these programs where the housing was already so highly subsidized. And so that was able to carry that population of people. Some of those programs ended in the early 90s when Mike Harris was elected, and, and instead, we've got this patchwork of stuff”. This history of reliance on provincial funding was echoed in virtually all interviews I conducted with senior Woodgreen staff, such CEO Anne Babcock’s reflections on how Woodgreen has been able to develop the amount of housing assets they own in the neighbourhood:

Okay, so as I said, initially, we had some very good programs at the provincial level, right. And so, they were rich enough that you would be able to get into the program, actually, federal dollars as well, without having to put any equity. And so those programs really enabled us to be able to

build as much as we were able to build back then. And then programs became a lot leaner. To this day, you there’s a fair bit of equity that needs to go in, you need to be able to purchase land, do all of the planning and zoning and development and design work, and environmental, before getting any money from anywhere. And so, you need to at least have some reserves dedicated to do that kind of work, otherwise, you can’t do this at all.

Despite promises of thousands of new affordable homes in 2004, the province’s audited financial statements only reported 18 new homes created that year. Furthermore, Ontario residents identified with core housing needs2 during this period included 103, 200 senior households, 162, 300 immigrant households, and 11, 800 Indigenous households. The lack of social housing development compounded by the continuous housing losses through rental conversion and demolitions led to a shortage of affordable housing (Shapcott, 2007). Meanwhile the province’s housing spending continued to drop by more than 50% between 2000 and 2006, and by October of 2006 less than 10% of the 26, 640 supportive and affordable homes promised by the McGuinty Liberal government in 2003 had been built, while only 2161 were under construction (Shapcott, 2007). Woodgreen’s access to federal funds for the renovation of the Edwin Hotel was under this context of shrinking and inconsistent public funding for housing and homelessness. The Edwin marked a new venture for the organization which had never purchased an already-existing building and rehabilitated it; this ultimately fueled Woodgreen’s interest in partnering with the private sector.

The head of the Vice President for Homelessness and Housing at Woodgreen described how the shifts in provincial government funding for social housing had resulted in the need to compete for scarce resources, and the importance of organizations looking to develop housing to both have ‘cash up front’ in the form of equity which could contribute to the development, as well as multiple funding sources. Thus, Woodgreen’s ability to gain philanthropic support to secure the building of the Edwin Hotel, then access public funds, was vital. Mwarigha also discusses how Woodgreen’s act of purchasing an existing building and taking the initiatives to redevelop it, represented a new ‘housing model ’which stood apart from the typical practices of top-down government initiated projects : And if you remember, in the early in the mid-90s, late 90s, up until last year, the governments withdrew their funding of new social housing. So there was a big void there. And in that void, you have examples like Woodgreen that create the housing model. That's a combination of charity, generic sort of equity contribution from the reserve, long term mortgage, that works, yeah. Today, though, it's different, right? Because you have to come up with your own equity out

2 Households forced to live in unaffordable, substandard, and/or overcrowded homes (Shapcott, 2007)

front. And then once you've contributed to equity, you can go and get financing. There's a layer of government support somewhere in there…in terms of adding new housing, most of the old programs depended on the province coming down, announcing the housing program, and then rolling it out using the nonprofit sector. And the notion of the nonprofit sector initiating the development of new housing does not exist… did not exist before and the for the most part does not exist today. Which brings us to the example of Woodgreen, in the early 2000s, they decided to pioneer a model of doing housing by themselves.

The redevelopment of a pre-existing building removed many of the barriers in relation to urban planning and city zoning restrictions, making it an easier project to bring about compared to building a new development. Woodgreen’s ability to initiate this new form of housing, as their first time redevelopment of a built form into transitional housing, came out of the need to adapt to neoliberal reforms of the government’s role in housing, as well as secure other forms of financing, namely charitable donations from wealthy and corporate donors.

The frequent reference to Woodgreen as an innovator in the field of non-profit housing in Toronto’s east end stems from the entrepreneurial approach of its leadership. However, this should be understood, in addition to Woodgreen’s reputation, within the wider context of increased entrepreneurialism produced by neoliberal conditions which impact community development organizations in inner-cities, and urban governance as a whole (Kirkpatrick, 2007; Harvey, 1989). The key informants I interviewed from Woodgreen described how the organization’s CEO and president at the time, Brian Smith, was consistently searching for new properties and creative ways to continue building housing. As senior staff member Diane Dyson described Smith’s approach to the Edwin hotel, “Brian, always just kept his eye open for any different opportunities. If it was turned over in the neighbourhood, we would always have an interest to find out, you know, if there was an opportunity to convert this into something that

Woodgreen could use”. The director of Affordable Housing at the city of Toronto, Sean Gadon asserted that in his memory of the situation, Woodgreen actually bought out the company which owned the building, as this was their sole asset:

This was unique to Brian and Woodgreen, as I said to you, even the transaction was – he didn’t buy the building- they bought the corporation who owned the building. And so that was like, nobody had ever done that before. So that was kind of innovative. And most of the other organizations have been really focused around, you know, around doing new development, right, where you, you know, start with a fresh site and new construction.

As I will highlight further below, the transaction of Woodgreen’s purchase of the Edwin hotel, was not only an innovative approach, but one which relied upon corporate philanthropy. Woodgreen’s ability to adapt to the neoliberal reforms in housing policy also meant a simultaneous shift towards donor and private funds. The legacy of the agency’s philanthropic supporters demonstrates that these shifts should in fact be understood as part of longer place-based histories rather than solely a result of neoliberal restructuring. The redevelopment of the New Edwin was in part possible due to Woodgreen’s ability to align with the state’s limited investment into housing at the time, due to their background working with rehousing individuals from “Tent City” and the subsequent “Housing First” initiatives implemented through the federal and municipal governments. Woodgreen’s program in the New Edwin included “wrap around” supports for residents, in addition to housing and drop-in services provided to the larger public at the same location. As a transitional housing location it fell under the doctrine of “Housing First” programs which focused on rapid housing for homeless individuals. Through reinforcing the connection between private philanthropy, public sector support, and their own legitimacy as an organization, Woodgreen was able to access the federal funding for “Housing First” initiatives.

4.3 Promotion of “Housing First” Policies

Woodgreen’s initiative to transitionally house senior men in the renovated property of the Edwin hotel fell under the program model of “Housing First” which operates as service delivery model implemented by a particular agency or government body. Some programs, like “First Steps to Home” operated in the New Edwin by Woodgreen, may focus on target populations, while some may serve anyone experiencing homelessness (Gaetz, Scott, & Gulliver, 2013). Housing First is a recovery-oriented and rights-based approach that focuses on moving individuals who experience homelessness into independent and permanent housing as quickly as possible, without stipulations around compliance or readiness, while providing support services as needed (Gaetz, Scott, & Gulliver, 2013). The “Housing First” paradigm emerged as a popular evidence-based policy response to homelessness in the United States, Europe and Canada after considerable research across contexts demonstrated its effectiveness in lifting individuals and families, previously considered ‘hard to house’, out of homelessness. Rather than focusing on compliance and individuals being ‘ready’ for housing, “Housing First” as a model recognizes that in order for those experiencing mental health or addiction issues to be successful, they

primarily require safe and stable housing. However, it is not meant to be a single policy response to housing issues, rather an important aspect of larger programs and interventions in prevention, transitional, supportive, and adequate permanent housing (Gaetz, Scott, & Gulliver, 2013). The term “Housing First” was inspired by similar successful models in the United States. The key components of “Housing First” include principles of consumer choice and self-determination in housing, supports to help clients obtain housing, clinical supports, and complementary supports such as life skills and community engagement (Gaetz, Scott, & Gulliver, 2013). The city of Toronto launched a Housing First program in 2005 under Mayor David Miller, following the eviction of individuals living in Toronto’s “Tent City” (Doberstein & Smith, 2015). Woodgreen was actively involved in partnership with the city to relocate and house many of the people displaced by the construction of a Home Depot store at the former “Tent City”.

This project also inspired the motivation to develop transitional housing for a similar demographic, and with the federal government’s creation of the Homelessness Partnership Initiative (HPI). Woodgreen was able to secure the limited public housing funds at the time to renovate the Edwin Hotel when their Request for Proposal under the HPI funding allocated to the City of Toronto was accepted by the office of Affordable Housing at the city, and then passed in Council. Although the support of “Housing First” models under the Harper government provided the capital necessary for Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the Edwin hotel, the development of the transitional housing site highlights many key dilemmas in the sector of non-profit housing providers. For one, in a gentrifying space like the neighbourhood of Riverdale, the opportunities for long-term solutions to affordable housing within the same neighbourhood were limited. In the case of the Woodgreen’s program, the goal for many men became transitioning them into long-term care or supportive living facilities for seniors, as the current CEO of Woodgreen Community Services, Anne Babcock described: In some cases, these are men who could have been in nursing homes but wouldn't be accepted because of their behaviours. And so that also gives them the opportunity potentially to get transferred into a nursing home, if that's a better location for them. So that's an opportunity they wouldn't have without being in the program. But yeah, it is, I mean, transitional housing. I think you have to weigh the fact that you're putting so much support into one place into one group of people. As I seek to show later in this chapter, the role of corporate philanthropy played a critical role in Woodgreen’s ability to acquire the Edwin hotel, access to HPI funds to renovate the site for the purpose of transitional housing, but also the construction of ‘deserving’ subjects.

The bulk of the financing for the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel was awarded through the city of Toronto to Woodgreen Community Services as part of the federal government’s Homelessness Partnership Strategy (HPS) launched in 2006, specifically the largest component of this project being the Homelessness Partnership Initiative (HPI), which explicitly prioritized the “Housing First” approach. The components of HPI funding included Designated Communities identified for their issues with homelessness, ‘off-reserve Aboriginal Communities’3, Outreach Communities being smaller cities or rural areas, and Federal Horizontal Pilot projects which mobilize collaboration between federal agencies on specific issues (Evaluation Directorate: Strategic Policy and Research Branch, 2009). The City of Toronto’s Affordable Housing Action Plan for 2010-2020 states: Other forms of innovative affordable housing that provide the support people need to leave homelessness are also required. This includes interim housing that provides immediate access to housing for an individual while their permanent housing plan is being developed. Redevelopment of residential apartment buildings and single room occupancy hotels can be one way to create new interim or supportive housing. (Housing Opportunities Toronto, 2009, p. 14)

This ten year housing action plan was passed by the City Council in 2009, prior to the opening of the New Edwin, but after the funding had already been granted by the city to Woodgreen Community Services in 2007. Through an examination of the federal and city housing policy agenda during this period it becomes evident that there was an embrace of the “Housing First” model, and a specific support for transitional housing. The specific mention of redevelopment of SRO hotels, such as that of the former Edwin hotel, demonstrate it as a policy direction identified by the city, and of growing interest in regard to the availability of housing stock utilized by vulnerable populations. Thus, the city’s stance was, and appears to still be, receptive to innovative approaches to transitional housing such as the SRO hotel conversion, which reinforced the positive policy environment for Woodgreen’s redevelopment of the New Edwin.

Although “Housing First” emphasizes housing as a fundamental right and values the need for permanent housing solutions, certain program models, such as Woodgreen’s transitional housing, are part of also part of this policy approach. However, in addition to the fact that many of the men are unable to live independently in the community once completing their four years in Woodgreen’s program due to their

3 This language was used specifically in the government document to describe funding for Indigenous communities

age, there is limited opportunity for affordable housing in the neighbourhood for tenants to remain in the area. This highlights the importance for investment into both transitional “Housing First” models which assist individuals previously lacking any safe shelter and housing, as well as affordable permanent housing in neighbourhoods like Riverdale which are rapidly gentrifying. Critics have questioned the federal government’s application of the ‘Housing First’ philosophy under the HPI and its ability to equitably address housing needs given the lack of investment in the larger system (Doberstein and Smith, 2015). Ultimately the small investment into “Housing First” models lack an overall attention to wider processes of gentrification and how the rapid decline in the development of affordable housing by the state led to even more barriers for agencies to develop housing. In the case of Woodgreen, this has led to messaging which contradicts the principles of ‘Housing First’ and contributes to a system that perpetuates gentrification. The following section will demonstrate why the Edwin as a case study illustrates how seemingly progressive policies like “Housing First”, under the context of neoliberal reforms and reliance on private philanthropy, actually create a system where only particular agencies are provided with the opportunity of new housing developments. Through an analysis of how Woodgreen’s ability to partner with corporate philanthropy helped to make them “shovel ready” for the New Edwin project, I examine the ways in which organizational identity, place-based practices, and the impacts of limited state investment in housing has led to a process riddled with contradictions, where agencies like Woodgreen perpetuate problematic neoliberal notions around ‘deservingness’.

4.4 Becoming “Shovel Ready”: How Organizational Reputation and Corporate Philanthropy Steer Investment

In the context of state withdrawal it is not only the decline of government funding which should be examined, but the ways in which private actors and private money influence the allocation of scarce government resources. Though the vast majority of funding for both the renovation of the former Edwin Hotel, as well as the actual operational costs of the site came from the public sector, the contributions of both corporate philanthropy and individual donors from the financial sector has proven instrumental in creating Woodgreen’s capacity to compete for government resources. Woodgreen’s annual reports cite how approximately 73% of the organization’s revenue in the 2009-2010 fiscal year, prior to the opening of the New Edwin, came from various levels of government (Woodgreen, 2010). However, the

significance of corporate philanthropy here is its role in acquiring the Edwin hotel property for Woodgreen, and how this helped unlock access to the limited public funds for housing. The key informant interviews with Woodgreen senior management revealed the significant role of donors in helping Woodgreen secure the property and purchase the building. As the current CEO, Anne Babcock described: And so the overtime because of the way programs have changed that will you have to change your business model substantially in order for you to be able to continue to do that kind of work. So now, we have over 800 units of housing, and 12 different buildings. First six buildings, I think we’re all funded under different programs, but really good programs. The latter six were not, and so it's just a matter of how your business models work…And so the more recent ones that we've done, we were able to get donations to support our work, so that helped either secure land or do other things that we needed to do in order to continue to provide housing.

Thus, in the aftermath of state withdrawal and drastic cuts to public investment into non-profit housing, Woodgreen has increasingly had to look towards fundraising from private donors in order to secure properties for housing development. As I describe below, this has proved to be a crucial factor shaping which organizations receive government money and how donors can impact what sort of projects are developed.

When discussing the Request for Proposal (RFP) process with Sean Gadon, the head of Affordable Housing at the city who was charged with the decision to select Woodgreen’s proposal for recommendation, it became clear that notions of “shovel ready” indicate a certain level of capacity and financing required from agencies in order to be selected to execute a housing project before receiving funding. This capacity was both due to the organization’s long standing presence and Woodgreen’s ability to attract corporate donors. As Gadon described, “So basically what we would refer to even though this is a renovation, we call it ‘shovel ready’. So this is this was positioned really well, as opposed to another project that might have come in, that would have been a new construction project and but not being shovel ready for that definitely. I love these projects.” Director of Strategic Research at Woodgreen, Diane Dyson emphasized a similar sentiment as she described: One of the lessons that we learned about housing is that you always need to have shovel ready projects, because these calls just drop out of nowhere. So that we do keep sort of a ‘chute’ of things going where we know, okay, we need to find locations, we need to do build plans, we need to think through planning, because we'll have the space of you know, four or six months, maybe if a call comes out, we have to be able to show that we can move forward with it. And you can't develop housing that quick.

The fact that Woodgreen was “shovel ready” by already acquiring the Edwin hotel building before being rewarded the RFP bid for government funding under the ‘Housing First’ investment was due to corporate philanthropists. I argue that the legitimacy and capacity Woodgreen was perceived as having positioned them to receive donor funds, which then allowed them to access limited state funds.

Findings from both primary documents and results from semi-structured interviews with key informants reveal how certain organizations are pegged as deserving of such necessary philanthropic contributions through the reputation, capacity, but also the form of work conducted by the agency. Similarly, Sean Gadon remarked: And so they basically Woodgreen has been successful, in part because they've gone to the corporate sector. Now, the corporate sector, yes, they're making a donation. But of course, there's a there's a tax receipt at the end of it. And so it's not, you know, dollar for dollar, like they're getting, you know, it's in their benefit to get to give to charity. What is important in the case of Woodgreen is they were able to attract donors, a family that was successful, and understood the mission of what Woodgreen was about. But not every organization is able to do that. And our experience, as well as that, you know, older organizations that are more established, have that capacity.

Ed Clark, former CEO of the TD Bank group, and his spouse were listed as the major contributors which made the New Edwin project possible for Woodgreen (Lavoie, 2010). The major gift provided by the Clark family was essential to initiating the process of purchasing the former hotel, as well as filling the gap in funding which was not covered by the public funds provided through the city. The main role of Clark’s donation to Woodgreen’s New Edwin project was as, Suzanne Duncan, head of the Woodgreen foundation at the time, described “a million dollar gift that kind of kicked it off. And that helps secure the public sector funding because often you need to have a private donor to secure them”. Thus, Woodgreen’s move to purchase a pre-existing building was advantageous to accessing public funds. Sean Gadon went on to describe the factors attributed to why certain organizations that lack the reputation of long-standing agencies like Woodgreen, may not be well positioned to receive large donations: Younger organizations that I'll say have a fire in their belly and a great mission may not have those contacts and those connections. Yet, the government funding isn't necessarily enough to get them to do the job. You know, we're doing work around that, a lot of work to get the federal government to introduce a National Housing strategy, as a part of that. Women are specifically through a gender lens expected to get 25 … a minimum of 25% of the benefits coming from the national housing strategy. Also, their embedding in legislation housing as a human right. So some of the work we're doing here, will try to recognize that and do things that will be

affirmative in the way that organizations that serve underrepresented groups, we're going to try to figure out how we do better in helping them and supporting them, as opposed to, you know, necessarily, just going to groups that you know, have a track record, or have a long established history, that's really important. But at the same time, that may not be the group that is actually serving that group that might actually be in the most need, which is really where we need to be putting our resources.

Hence, there is a recognition in government housing goals that the projects and organizations who are most likely to receive funding under the current structures are not necessarily in line with marginalized groups and those which are overlooked by gaps in policy. The reputation and capacity of organizations like Woodgreen which afford the necessary connections to the corporate sector to fill the gap left by the public sector’s cuts to housing funding may also lead to other initiatives being overlooked. As Bain and March (2019) argue in their analysis of cultural philanthropy through the case of 401 Richmond as a hub for artists and organizations in Toronto’s downtown, private funding cannot replace the public funding, but under the context of government cutbacks, philanthropy becomes an essential yet uneven part of financing. This leads to organizations that receive such funding having a greater ability to garner legitimacy in the eyes of the city. Similarly, the analysis of the role of philanthropy in the case study of the New Edwin reveals how corporate philanthropy is dependent on forms of legitimacy, and particular types of organizational identity.

I argue that Woodgreen’s ability to garner corporate funding is due to their reputation as a service- oriented, mainstream, and apolitical organization. Woodgreen’s ability to access limited public funds and their capacity to develop housing in a way that is perceived as “shovel ready” by the city is mutually enforced through both their long-standing reputation, and their ability to appeal to the private sector for fundraising purposes. These factors are directly influenced by the apolitical, neoliberal communitarian approach they have taken to community development work. For example, a local housing advocate described Woodgreen as: …mainstream, in that it (Woodgreen) provides services to people, are known in the neighbourhood and do a lot of work with seniors…I think some organizations, see themselves as service agencies, but also as advocates, and right out there lobbying, you know, calling for action, stuff like that. I think Woodgreen advocates as well. But they don't do it in that way. You know, they don't come forward as radicals, they don't come forward as protesters…they come forward as an organization providing services. That's what they do.

Through not wanting to be viewed as overtly contentious or “radical” in their approach, Woodgreen has cultivated a certain type of reputation in Riverdale, which I argue is part of what Sean Gadon described as not perceived as “risky” by potential donors: Where they don't have the contacts, or they appear more risky. My view it all is about what the appetite for risk goes. Okay. And, Helen… so with this “First Steps to Home” project in the New Edwin, was that not that risky? Sean: Yeah. Helen: Okay. But with, but the donor, they're not seen as a risk? Sean: No, because the organization standing behind it. Right. Helen: Whereas if it was a newer, or organization that dealt with something more… Sean…immigrant serving…refugee serving organization, something that may become political. There's a reversion to it. An organization that can't show you something they've already done, because they're new. It is evident that organizational form and reputation impacts fundraising, and the role of corporate philanthropy is increasingly significant in dictating which organizations are able to acquire public funding.

4.4.1 Corporate Philanthropy’s Influence

Though there is a historical context of donor influence on how social housing has been built in Toronto, along with Woodgreen’s own reliance on philanthropic generosity in its early days of the 1930s and 40s, the redevelopment of the New Edwin reveals the influence which single donors can have on the processes of developing housing in the context of gentrification and neoliberalism. Director of Strategic Research at Woodgreen, Diane Dyson, described the specific influence of the one major donor in particular: There was a major donor who came to us who his main concern was older homeless men, and how can they be supported? So that was the challenge that was given to us and what could be done, we had had a long experience already with Tent City residents… And so that was part of the discussion with major donor was okay, so we actually need a transitional housing program to work with the hardcore people that had been there, his interest was older men

Ed Clark, as the ‘major’ donor enabled Woodgreen to purchase the Edwin hotel, potentially influenced the decision making around what type of demographic should be housed, and positioned Woodgreen to access the necessary public funds in the context of narrow and limited government housing funding.

At the time of the city’s recommendation of Woodgreen’s proposal for the former Edwin Hotel at 650 Queen Street East, the total project cost for the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel structure was billed at $5,035,539, with a total of $3,934,000 from HPI funding to be allocated (Affordable Housing Commitee-City of Toronto, 2007). The building would have already been purchased at this point using through Clark’s financial support. Although the HPI funds covered close to 78% of the redevelopment costs, the contributions of this key donor revealed to be essential to the organization’s ability to even access these funds. The remainder of the necessary financing for this redevelopment, once the $3,934,000 of HPI capital was provided by the City, would have been approximately $1 101 539. Reflecting on her experience fundraising for the New Edwin and “First Steps to Home” program, Suzanne Duncan stated “So it was individual donors who were part of RBC capital markets [who were the donors]. And they gave through United Way… I think, 800, or $900,000 was a huge gift over two years. And those were the guys who are like, yeah, that could be me. And then the CEO of Woodgreen, the Woodgreen foundation board also made a large gift to this, which left a gap of about 280,000”. Suzanne Duncan went on to explain that “… the board certainly thought about fundraising as like, I guess, if I have to, sort of a nose-held situation. And they felt very strongly that things like this project should be paid for by government. And that there was that the fact that there was a role for the private sector meant that government was failing.” Despite the board’s reluctance, Woodgreen’s willingness to, as Anne Babcock described, shift their “business model”, helped facilitate their access to funding.

Ultimately, with the decline in robust state funding for housing, Woodgreen had to market the “First Steps to Home” program in a way which would encourage support outside the usual groups of donors, as Duncan put “…it was really thinking about how do we talk about these things in a way that’s going to elicit sympathy not disgust?”. There were deliberate efforts to portray the would-be residents of the New Edwin as ‘deserving’ ‘grandfathers’ to potential donors through the creation of promotional materials. As Suzanna Duncan described, “…what should grandpa be doing, he should be growing tomatoes…that’s what aging should look like. That’s what these things should look like. So we were able to kind of appeal to people from that perspective, and really do some work.”

Figure 5- Brochure for 'First Steps to Home' Tropes around aging men and grandfathers were viewed as the best way to trigger sympathetic views from potential donors. Furthermore, this narrow and atomized approach to housing and homelessness funding neglects the gaps in policy to address the particular experience of populations may not fit into sympathy-garnering fundraising campaigns such as those used for the senior men of Woodgreen’s “First Steps to Home” program at the New Edwin.

I argue that this attempt to position the clients who would eventually be housed at the New Edwin as ‘grandfathers’ was part of an effort to invoke notions of ‘deservingness’ amongst a group of men who would otherwise not receive such considerations. This was done by appealing to the sense of precarity felt by wealthy, male, corporate donors themselves. Although much of the senior level Woodgreen staff and former staff involved in the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel viewed this demographic as a difficult group to garner empathy for from the larger community, the former head of Woodgreen’s foundation at the time, Suzanne Duncan, highlighted: Another important thing with this project is that these guys, were not going to be going back to work or becoming “productive members of society” or anything. So you can't do that…So it was

really around the stories that they had, how this could happen to anyone that we needed to be a fair and just society…So it was also during the economic recession. And so a lot of our greatest supporters were people in capital markets, which was a weird, I was very surprised. But they were a lot of over-leveraged finance guys, realizing that this could happen to them at any moment. Although histories of philanthropic giving demonstrate the tendency to draw on gendered and paternalistic notions of the need to support women and children through work-for-relief programs which emphasized wage work for men as ‘breadwinners’ who stabilize families (Henthorn, 2018), increasing economic precarity during the period of Edwin hotel’s redevelopment actually helped break through these conventions around men as “productive members of society”. Thus, constructing the tale of the formerly successful working man who had ‘fallen on hard times’ and become homeless later in life, created a narrative which not only fit into who was constructed as the “worthy” segments of society, but also what resonated to the presumably mainly white, male, upper class corporate donors. Through exploiting the insecurity of donors in the private sector during a time of economic uncertainty, Woodgreen’s foundation was able to construct a “deserving” subject which contradicted the typical historical narratives around who is deserving of charity.

What I seek to show here, is that despite the fundamental principle of “Housing First” which asserts that all people deserve and have the right to housing, Woodgreen’s reliance on corporate philanthropy, and its private fundraising efforts significantly shape which projects are ultimately implemented and who is served by them. Ironically, the construction of a specific vulnerable and “deserving” population was demonstrated in the fundraising efforts around the “First Steps to Home” program. Although seniors were cited in the City’s Affordable Action Plan (Housing Opportunities Toronto, 2009) as one of many key demographics highlighted for housing need due to particular vulnerabilities, street based surveys from that year maintained the average age of all individuals experiencing homelessness was 40 years old, with individuals over the age 51 making up the lowest proportion of homeless next to those under 21 (Shelter Support and Housing Administration, 2009). It is important to note here that this observation does not undermine the necessity of urgent housing for this demographic of senior, hard to house men. Rather, the issue lies with how, in the context of neoliberal housing reforms, organizations like Woodgreen have turned to the private sector, resulting in a process of reinforcing notions of ‘deservingness’ amongst particular populations, which in of itself undermines the key philosophy of “Housing First”.

Similar to contemporary neoliberal logics, notions of who is “deserving” or “undeserving” of access to social support are historically rooted in moral definitions of poverty, and those stigmatized for seeking relief were often viewed to be impoverished due to individual failure. By the post-World War II period, groups like the elderly, disabled workers, and unemployed veterans faced less stigma and were able to access universal social insurance programs in the United States (Katz M. B., 2013). Although women have historically elicited greater sympathy and support than men, these gendered logics were also contingent on race and perceptions of morality. Those reliant on ‘public assistance’, or programs based solely on need, namely single mothers, were viewed unfavorably morally due to their presumed promiscuity. Black women would be the fixation of policymakers like Daniel Patrick Moynihan who viewed poverty in the black community as a “tangle of pathology”, reinforced by the “welfare queens” trope of the 1980s used to justify subsequent drastic welfare reforms (Katz M. B., 2013). Various groups of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America were stigmatized and labelled as “undeserving” of state support throughout different periods of American history (Katz M. B., 2013). Research in the American context demonstrates how financial support from the state has not simply been on a consistent decline since the 1970s, but rather has shifted according to supports provided to certain “deserving” poor demographics, with greater investment in disabled and aging individuals and much lower rates for single mothers (Moffitt, 2015) . Neoliberal economic restructuring, which has fueled moral discourses around respectability and ‘deservingness’, has shifted states away from the post-war social contract that entitled all ‘worker-citizens’ to certain benefits, and resulted in the dismantling of social housing and increasing gentrification (Alexander, Bruun, & Koch, 2018).Thus, Woodgreen’s ability to sell the notion of ‘deservingness’ to corporate donors reinforced neoliberal discourses, but is also part of a longer history of urban community development discourse and practice. The place-based histories of faith-based traditions of community work, such as Woodgreen, demonstrate how organizations which take on this neoliberal approach are often also acting to reinforce long-standing gendered, racialized, and classed tropes, around proper behaviour and culture. This is specifically illustrated in the discourses which fueled early settlement home and reformist movements.

A recent study published on the gaps in affordable housing for low-income, single, non-senior households in the Cape Breton region of Nova Scotia illustrates how some of these neoliberal policies around homelessness and housing construct a “deserving” household along often gendered and colonial logics (Leviten-Reid & Parker, 2018). Changes to the economic and social geography of the Cape

Breton regional municipality have resulted in more individuals who are in poverty and living alone with access to mainly precarious, low paying forms of employment and little state supports. A 2016 survey by homelessness service providers in the area found 78% of clients were single adults without dependents, 39% under the age of 30 and 50% between 30-59. Although 52% were male compared to 48% female, it is important to note that women experience a less visible form of homeless, often utilizing people’s homes for shelter. However, despite the evidence for the need for housing amongst this demographic, both public housing and market housing in the region are largely targeted to families and seniors. This policy outcome is linked with neoliberal and moral discourses which frame low- income single people ,who are presumed “employable”, as “responsible” for their own poverty, these narratives are often disproportionately used to target low-income Indigenous people (Leviten-Reid & Parker, 2018). Thus, the success in Woodgreen’s ability to construct the narrative of the aging “grandfather” in order to attract donor interest should be understood within the context of larger projects of moral discourses and respectability politics which narrow the group of people positioned as “deserving” of state support. Corporate philanthropy reinforces these notions of “deserving” by donating to particular organizations who are perceived as aligned with such values, whilst also contributing to the decisions of which projects are built.

In this chapter I have sought to show the how Woodgreen’s willingness to partner with private philanthropists stretches back to their origins as a faith-based organization, within a context where churches and philanthropists played prominent roles in welfare and housing provisions. I traced this historical context to discuss how in the case of the New Edwin, Woodgreen Community Services was able to utilize corporate philanthropy to access the limited government housing investments in ‘Housing First’ initiatives, ultimately revealing the role private capital plays in driving the type of projects and organizations which are funded by the public sector. In the case of the New Edwin, increased donor reliance led to the construction of clients as “deserving” of sympathy, ultimately undermining the principles of the government’s ‘Housing First’ policies. In the next section, I turn to expanding on my argument on how Woodgreen’s strategies to developing housing and responses to gentrification, are not only a response to neoliberal conditions, but a part of a legacy of apolitical work rooted in their place- based history.

5 “Being the Mediator”: On the Futures of Woodgreen’s Legacies of Neoliberal Communitarianism

Building off an analysis of Woodgreen’s use of entrepreneurial fundraising and corporate building acquisition, in addition to their belief in ‘social mix’ within the inner-city, I will continue to highlight the ways in which these place-based practices are not simply recent responses to neoliberalism, but rather part of a longer tradition of community work. In this chapter I examine how Woodgreen conceptualizes its role within the process of gentrification in Riverdale as a ‘mediator’ of class conflicts, and how while this approach helped garner philanthropic and public sector support for the redevelopment of the Edwin Hotel, it ultimately required a degree of synergy with wider processes of neoliberalism and gentrification. Specifically, the notion of ensuring ‘good neighbourliness’ between the residents and clients of the New Edwin and the wider community is presented as a way to ensure a ‘social mix’ within the neighbourhood, ultimately maintaining Woodgreen’s role as an apolitical actor. I explore how Woodgreen’s efforts to remain a neutral mediator throughout the contemporary climate of gentrification is demonstrated in the organization’s discourse around being a “good neighbour”, and how this further reinforces their neoliberal communitarian approach. Rather than resist the increasing gentrification they ultimately contradict their place-based approach. I utilize DeFilippis’s (2004) concept of neoliberal communitarianism to examine the ways in which Woodgreen has taken a “conflict free” approach to their work.

While the scholarship on neoliberal communitarianism is largely framed as a strategy borne of the 1980s and the shifts made within community development due to neoliberal cooptation, or the constraints brought about by government austerity, I seek to demonstrate how many of the ways organizations like Woodgreen fall under this approach is due to longer histories of operation. I make the case for building upon this framework to consider the ways in which apolitical and conflict-free community development work often pre-date neoliberal shifts and continue to be reinforced within the contemporary neoliberal conditions. Woodgreen’s ability to present itself as a service-oriented, non-controversial agency, in addition to their reputation within Riverdale, helped them gain access to philanthropic generosity, which in turn helped unlock state funds for the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel. This organizational form as an agency which does not engage

in overt political advocacy is long standing, as demonstrated through the early intentions to mirror the settlement homes and their history as a faith-based agency with the support of wealthy patrons. Thus, the effort to mediate neighbourhood change, rather than take a definite stand against gentrification, falls in line with this tradition of conflict-free work. Interviews with the senior staff reveal the organization’s explicit goal to act as a ‘mediator’ between their clients and gentrifiers, while it is also evident that the organization’s long standing presence is part of what afforded Woodgreen legitimacy to access resources and capacity from both public and private sectors, in order to redevelop the Edwin hotel. However, I discuss in this chapter that despite Woodgreen’s attempt to mitigate gentrification, the wider context of rising property values, and limited investment in affordable housing, have resulted in a shift to the organization’s future expansion beyond the neighbourhood.

The neoliberal communitarian approach to community development fits with consensus organizing, and theories such as John McKnight’s “community-based assets” and Robert Putnam’s ideas on “social capital”. Furthermore, these communitarian frameworks often view individual gains to be of collective benefit, and define communities by the attributes within them, and align with market- based governance of community development. Thus, these aspects form a type of neoliberal communitarianism which espouses depoliticalized community development practice and views community development work in society as ‘conflict free’ (DeFilippis, 2004). I aim to build upon the existing literature on social economy to illustrate how forms of ‘neoliberal communitarianism’ should actually be understood outside the prism of the neoliberal era, or of previously ‘radical’ movements which were co-opted. Rather, analyzing the contradictions brought about by long standing legacies of mainstream and formerly faith-based organizations reveal how organizations like Woodgreen present themselves as mediators rather than resisters; I seek to show that it is not that they are ultimately unable to prevent the impact of this process, but in fact they are mediators of gentrification, temporarily smoothing it’s hardest edges.

Newspaper articles from the United Church archives dated to 1961 describe Woodgreen’s ability to reach out to various groups in the community in ways which were out of the ordinary for United Church practices, while still promoting dialogue and ‘neighbourliness’. Stephenson (1961) wrote about how in the context of a neighbourhood where salaries remained low as rents were raised: It’s in the labor field that Woodgreen probably diverges most widely from standard United Church thought. Realizing that many Canadians associated the United Church with big business and that it seems to avoid labor disputes as “not the church’s affair”, Woodgreen is now pushing into all phases of labor-management relations. Woodgreen hopes to act as a mediator in disputes, thinks it might possible substitute “Love Thy Neighbor” for “Dog Eat Dog” as a working basis for settlement of such arguments. (United Church of Canada Archives) In this instance, Woodgreen did not choose to advocate for workers, nor did it side with industry. Rather, the organization is described as acting a neutral mediator within such class conflicts. Similar to Woodgreen Community Centre and the Woodgreen United Church in the 1960s, Woodgreen Community Services today continues to remain within its ‘mediator’ role within the context of gentrification and tensions arising from neighbourhood change.

Leading up to the redevelopment of the New Edwin, Woodgreen spent a large amount of time conducting community outreach and actively engaging stakeholders and neighbours around the area of the building in the process. A key theme within the interview data was that this helped quell potential NIMBY voices, and that the local business community was relatively supportive. As former head of the Woodgreen Foundation, Suzanne Duncan described: we did a lot of on the ground work…I did a lot of positioning work with this, to really think about how to position this, how to talk about the men who would stay there, how to talk about what the space used to be like, and, and really get the community quite warm to the idea…But part of what made that community really special was that it was a real mix of Toronto, and Woodgreen is a major property holder, and owned a lot of property before the community started to change…Now, first step to home was a little bit different in that it was a building we were buying. So it was a purchased building. And in some ways, it got gentrified itself… So I don't know if you know what that space was prior to… dismal, super, super dismal… Woodgreen has a rooming house project where they went out and did inspections. And this is one of the worst buildings they'd seen. Walls were plywood, extension cords running, no windows, no light, horrible infestations. And so, you know, the very act of putting transitional housing into that space, made that space, a much better space. So in one way, it was like, great, because it's really keeping folks in the community who deserve to be in the community. But another hand, it also was like fancying up, you know what I mean?

Demonstrating how the purchase and redevelopment of the Edwin hotel - which inadvertently displaced a certain number of tenants from the neighbourhood - actually revitalized the building was part of how the project was sold to the community. Despite the dilemmas this may have presented for Woodgreen, the ‘positioning’ described by Duncan illustrates how the New Edwin further reinforced Woodgreen’s efforts to appease various actors within the neighbourhood. Senior Woodgreen staff and management I spoke to all emphasized that though it was important to maintain their existing affordable housing stock, as well strive to find new opportunities for housing in the area, they often remarked on their role in ‘mediating’ neighbourhood change. As the Vice President of Housing, Mwarigha, described the organization’s response to NIMBYism:

the extent that, you know, what we're telling people is, you're new in the neighbourhood. But these people have always been here, they kind of came first. Right? …So we can support a process so that they get to understand better how to live in the in the same neighbourhood with homeless people. Right. And that's what I mean, we're starting to put ourselves in this position of being a mediator for these kinds of issues.

Again, here Woodgreen’s role as a neutral mediator requires positioning projects such as the New Edwin in a way which can reduce tensions between residents of different classes within the neighbourhood, similar to the historical role of Woodgreen Community Centre and Church as a neutral arbitrator during labour disputes. Woodgreen’s efforts to act as a neutral arbitrator are reflective of the organization’s overall non-confrontational approach, as Mwarigha continued to explain: …we're under pressure from the community, right? To make a difference. You know, they look at us, and they say, ‘How come? These people are still loitering? …Is your service not effective? What is it that's not working here?’ And on the other side, we're trying to say, ‘Well, actually, that's not what it is. Yeah, these people live have lived in this neighbourhood all this time.’ Right. So, but in the middle of that piece, I think there's a mediation piece there that we're trying to figure out in order to stay in the neighbourhood.

He went on to describe “Or, you know, you just join the anti-nimby advocacy…I think we have to avoid polarization or getting into the polar opposites. And that’s why I’m using the word mediation.” Thus, this effort to remain neutral throughout the processes of gentrification and within the discourses of class conflict and activism perpetuate Woodgreen’s neoliberal communitarian approach.

Diane Dyson, Director of Strategic Research, also reflected on a specific scenario which was illustrative on how Woodgreen sought to ‘mediate’ debates around gentrification in the neighbourhood: And I remember one specific story told to me of housing worker getting into a yelling match with a mother, who was against Walmart, and their housing client really wanted it. And so suddenly, they were on the terrain having to meet and interact with each other, which they wouldn’t have if we weren’t there, staff helped intervene and calm things down. But it was an interesting example of how a difference could meet in a community center… there’s always backlash... But it is the same discussion, reminding people that that we are all neighbors, right.

Similarly, Diane Dyson highlights Woodgreen’s need to remain neutral arbitrator both in the context of larger political debates, which are increasingly polarized and hostile, as well as on the neighbourhood scale of competing resident interests brought up by gentrification. She described Woodgreen’s emphasis on facilitating dialogue:

It depends, I guess what the political debates of the days are increasingly saying things like you should feed the hungry, and house the poor and care for the sick? Those have suddenly become very political things to say…those are things that have been said for thousands of years. Yeah, so it's not, it's a bit of a shock, but it's part of the reframe that's going on. And so we're always, I guess, conscious of defining who is us… we have a couple of roles we have, as civic leaders, and speaking out on these issues talking about community building are really important. But we also, at the granular level, should be able to provide enough opportunities for the housing tenant to meet with the daycare mom, and to actually have a constructive conversation where in the end, they can understand each other's point of view. So that the we are neutral arbitrators and can provide space for those interactions to happen to sort of forge dialogues.

Ultimately, Woodgreen’s position to remain neutral is part of a conscious effort to remain apolitical, while still being able to meet the basic needs of the community. This is done under the premise that dialogue between community members from various socio-economic background is an important part of the solution to tensions brought about by inequality and gentrification in the city. However, this approach is undertaken by avoiding resistance to the form of politics (i.e. NIMBYism) which could threaten the development of future housing provisions and services for a segment of their clients.

Woodgreen’s identity as a long-standing, relatively mainstream organization which is not perceived as “something that may become political” attracts corporate donors as part of their ‘conflict-free’ approach. As Sean Gadon explained, this non-controversial approach which Woodgreen has aided in Woodgreen’s success in gaining corporate donors and bringing about projects like the New Edwin. This is also connected to their values of creating a ‘mixed community,’ and their focus on ‘mediating’ the process of gentrification in Riverdale rather than resist it outright. A key point here, is in addition to attempting to balance conflicting interests of different residents within a gentrifying space, Woodgreen mobilizes non-hierarchical notions of neighbourliness as a method to mitigate potential backlash to its housing and homelessness work. As the current President and CEO Anne Babcock described: And I think we’re good neighbors, I mean, people will write to us and complain or call us and complain, our staff will go out and meet with them, and spend time and try to figure out, you know, you know, were they our clients or tenants? sometimes its visitors. So, we have to deal with that. But generally, it’s an ongoing relationship building…

Thus, part of their effort has not been to resist outright gentrification, but as an agency with a long-standing tradition in the neighbourhood, cultivate an environment where neighbours, businesses, newer (presumably wealthier) and older residents alike can co-exist. This not only reinforces the belief in ‘social mix’ as a project, but also demonstrates how Woodgreen continues to portray itself as a mediator of class conflict which is the inevitable outcome of these conditions. This also includes managing the residents of the New Edwin and emphasizing the importance of these residents ‘neighbourliness’ within the wider community.

5.1 The New Edwin and Woodgreen’s Limitations to Mitigating Gentrification

As an organization which has a long-standing relationship to place and neighbourhood, Woodgreen’s opportunistic and adaptable approach, under the conditions of state withdrawal from housing investment and an increasingly gentrifying neighbourhood, has led to various moves and shifts. The senior management at Woodgreen and others who have worked closely with the organization in the field of housing express a similar sentiment about Woodgreen’s reputation and identity. The organization has maintained its presence,

legitimacy, and capacity to work in the neighbourhood through emphasizing service delivery and avoiding polarizing political debates, one of which being gentrification. Through acting as a neutral ‘mediating’ force in neighbourhood change, Woodgreen’s emphasis on maintaining a ‘healthy mix’ in Riverdale may lead to a situation which Slater (2018) describes as ‘social tectonics’ rather than ‘social mix’ in Parkdale. Slater’s (2018) critique of the sentiments of social mix within the discourses of gentrification critiques what he views as attempts to portray ‘social mixing’ through gentrification as ‘emancipatory’. Rather, he describes how social mixing, in neighbourhoods such as South Parkdale, rather than truly creating a mix creates ‘social tectonics’ where people of different socio-economic groups within a neighbourhood overlap or run parallel without actual integration, resulting in limited interactions or conflicts (Slater, 2018). I argue that similarly in South Riverdale, Woodgreen’s ability to redevelop the Edwin Hotel, within the wider context of unchallenged gentrification, has produced this form of ‘social tectonics’. However, the ethos of a socially and economically “mixed” neighbourhood have appeared to dwindle as there is little opportunity for clients who complete transitional housing programs at Woodgreen to move into the area. Although Woodgreen does not outwardly reject gentrification and their own possible mobility beyond the neighbourhood, they have not allowed their agency to abandon the significance of neighbourhood completely, as they continue to maintain their social housing stock in the neighbourhood. However, as the case study of the New Edwin demonstrates, this negotiation of piece-meal and project-based maintenance of housing requires an overall lack of resistance to the processes of gentrification demonstrated through Woodgreen’s apolitical and conflict-free approach.

Though the redevelopment of the Edwin hotel was successful due to the organization’s neoliberal communitarian approach, the current president of Woodgreen admitted that a transitional housing site is not sufficient to mitigate the potential displacement of marginalized community members, “Unless you're flexing that into some other buildings, then it's a waste…It used to be easier than it is now. Of course, it is much more difficult to find housing in the neighbourhood that they could access. You know, with the incomes that they have”. Although Woodgreen was successful due to their approach and strives to pursue opportunities to develop housing in and around Riverdale, the context of neoliberal housing

policy and rising property values limit the future possibility to increase affordable and social housing stock in the neighbourhood.

The rising property values in Riverdale make it difficult for any non-profit or co-op to purchase and develop housing without significant partnerships with the private sector. A recent analysis conducted by the Toronto Star (King, 2016), mapping gentrification across Toronto named South Riverdale and Leslieville as one of the dissemination areas which were categorized as ‘gentrified’ between 2005 and 2016. The article highlighted rising incomes and the demographic shift of South Riverdale: In 2006, the average household income in South Riverdale/Leslieville was $70,093, placing it in the bottom 40 per cent of neighbourhoods in the city. By 2015, that figure had leapt to $103,384 — a 47 per cent increase that placed the neighbourhood in the top 35 per cent by income in the city. On some blocks, incomes rose as much as 76 per cent.

Meanwhile real estate data shows that in Riverdale, Greenwood, and Blake-Jones neighbourhoods the property value of a detached house rose by 15.2% between 2018 and 2019 (Remax-Toronto Real Estate Board, 2019). In addition to the overall Toronto housing crisis, rising rents, influx of wealthier residents within Riverdale, the high property values and limits in state funding signal the need for greater mobility in Woodgreen’s initiatives. The move to considering expanding beyond their usual catchment area began with the expansion of their services into Scarborough, now they are considering building housing in other parts of the city as well.

The current policy terrain is drastically different than when organizations like Woodgreen began building social housing decades ago. With emphasis on ‘revitalization’ of existing housing which has faced years of disinvestment and disrepair, partnerships with the private sector have become essential to building any affordable housing. Through the paradigm of ‘mixed-income’ communities, partnerships with developers are in effect the new policy goal. Sean Gadon describes the recent partnership between the Riverdale Co-op and a developer: …the developer who's building across the street from the new Edwin is going to build the addition for the Riverdale Co-op and make a $5 million contribution…So the developer got permission to build 800 units of condos. As a part of that they have to make a contribution towards …Section 37 [benefits]. And the counselor directed all of it to affordable housing. So, the co-op already owns the land, they have the building, and that

will be built in behind. …It's another example of how do you leverage private sector funds…to work with a group that isn't starting from scratch.

Section 37 is the current policy allowing municipalities to negotiate density on developments which surpass zoning regulations, in exchange for community benefits from the developer, often resulting in the guarantee of a certain number of affordable units in a building. Thus, one of the few opportunities to securing and funding affordable housing in the city’s core is reliant on partnerships with the private sector, just as the revitalization of social housing into ‘mixed- income’ communities is reliant on private developers. As CEO Anne Babcock described Woodgreen’s current approach: We also, we also have been building up a pot of money, so that we have funds to be able to do this work as well. And our looking at new models. So we’re working with the private developers to see how we might be able to find ways of working together that would get enough units for us, as well as them. But in a better partnership, not just sort of an afterthought, right, we’re working on a different model. With a number of developers, we’ll see how it goes. The purchase and rehabilitation of the Edwin hotel for Woodgreen’s transitional housing program, “First Steps to Home”, demonstrated the necessity for organizations to shift their ‘business model’ and partner with private funders.

However, as the organization’s Vice President of Housing and Homelessness, Mwarigha, described, there is little opportunity for Woodgreen to complete another project like the New Edwin in the neighbourhood going forward, “I can tell you, for example, that the Edwin hotel, which was bought and then provided funding from the city, capital funding from the city to build it. Right where it's located now. We could not afford [to do purchase this kind of property in Riverdale] at this moment.” Thus, the organization also is looking to shift where they operate to less expensive neighbourhoods. As Mwarigha explained: But in this area that we are in now I would say it’s four times more expensive than 15 years ago… then now you're starting to go up and you need to renew the lease. And, you know, it's from $20 to $30 per square foot. And they're saying now you're using all the money for the location, where is the money that needs to go to the program? Right. So that kind of pressure is now beginning to be real for our programs. So, so part of the strategy, of course, is to accept the notion of moving that way [further east in Toronto]. The other part of the strategy is to then say, ‘Where can we buy cheap?’ Woodgreen still owns 19 properties in the central areas of Riverdale and the East End. The map (see Figure 6) below illustrates Woodgreen’s current property owned (blue), clearly clustered

across Riverdale, the Danforth, and parts of East York. Whereas some of the more recently leased properties have expanded to the outskirts of the city. Woodgreen already offers employment and other services in parts of Scarborough, when asked if the effort to expand housing here is driven by rising costs in the core, current CEO Anne Babcock explained, “it's also opportunity…So some of the Housing Now program has properties all over. And so those are free. Those are free property.” Thus, in taking advantage of the City’s newly announced ‘Housing Now’ initiative, Woodgreen in its continued opportunistic approach looks forward to accessing public owned land provided by the city for the purposes of affordable housing. The eleven city-owned sites under this initiative are mainly located across Scarborough and North York, with the city hoping to develop 10, 000 new residential units, only 3700 of which will be affordable (City of Toronto, 2019). In a similar fashion to shifting services to neighbourhoods where there the need is, the organization may now also have to build housing where the opportunity is.

Figure 6- Map of Woodgreen Properties

In addition to limited state funding, high property values and the change in demographics due to increasing gentrification in the neighbourhood are now key challenges to Woodgreen’s place- based model of developing housing. It has shifted the organization’s thinking around the need in the areas they serve. As Diane Dyson put it, “part of the function of demographics is that we’ve almost put ourselves out of business in this neighbourhood.” Given that Woodgreen has a long- standing and place-based reputation across the east end, which helped their success with the New Edwin, she went on to describe the tensions around now ‘moving to where the need is’:

So definitely, that sort of sense of place was really important. I think that's probably in the past five years, that's beginning to change that we have we reach a size and scope

things like Homeward Bound draw people from outside the province the even… so we are lifting our head up out of the neighbourhood, and we are offering services big enough. So let's we try and straddle both, I guess. Yeah…there are the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force out of United Way definitely mapped out sort of where the higher need neighbourhoods, and so we can see that too. And so there's a sense that we need to start farther afield. This notion that there is an inevitable need to go further to “higher need neighbourhoods” is in part the outcome of the displacement faced by lower-income residents Woodgreen has historically served in the east end. Despite the fact that Woodgreen’s place-based reputation lent to their success thus far, they are forced to balance maintaining this place-embeddedness with the realities of gentrification and shifting away from the neighbourhood-based approach.

Although the current rising property values and marginal state supports make the prospects of developing further supportive housing projects, like the New Edwin, in the neighbourhood unlikely, Woodgreen has not abandoned the importance of access to housing in Riverdale. As the current CEO, Anne Babcock, described: We are continually developing housing so we have a new property on Gerrard that we are just building in our original building on Queen Street, we will also redevelop into housing. So our expectation is that over the next number of years, next 10 years that are hoping to develop up to 3000 units. Okay, not all in the east, it'll be more broadly spread out. But it just the idea that housing is a major component of social determinants of health. And so we think it anchors the programs.

Although the organization has conceded to expanding beyond its neighbourhood, it continues to look for opportunity where it becomes available. Documents submitted to the city in 2014 indicate that Woodgreen did intend to demolish and redevelop its building at 835 Queen Street East for the purpose of a community hub, and replace the existing 36 bachelor units with larger units one-bedrooms at a location at 1119 Gerrard Street East (City of Toronto, 2014). However, the fate of this building appears to still be in question, as the project was not approved or finalized. Anne Babcock went on to describe: And so we are continuing to find ways to maintain our build housing in these neighbourhoods, and an advocate for that as well. So there is a redevelopment happening on Danforth at Coxwell, it's owned by the City of Toronto. It's the TTC lands…we were sitting on the advisory committee and obviously pushing for affordable housing …Similarly, you know, we have opportunities to build on our own properties... we will continue to push for and, and actually deliver on housing that people can live in.

Woodgreen continues to value the importance of affordable housing in the neighbourhood in which they have primarily operated. However, this is limited to the extent of the current landscape of the housing market, city policy, and funding mechanisms. With the case of the Edwin hotel, Woodgreen’s shift to corporate philanthropy and fundraising helped bring about necessary housing and services for vulnerable people in the neighbourhood. Indeed, it is due to the very nature of the organization, as a non-adversarial, and at times entrepreneurial, non-profit which prides itself on the importance of having a ‘mixed’ neighbourhood, that has led to Woodgreen’s successes. However, although the New Edwin demonstrates Woodgreen’s success within the neighbourhood, it also reveals how the organization’s engagement with gentrification limits their ability to resist it, resulting in their future mobility beyond Riverdale. Despite the fact that their place-embedded reputation and place-based practices, which aligned with neoliberal communitarianism, contributed to their success, this is ultimately contradicted by their concession to shifting geographically to other parts of the city.

6: Conclusion

In this chapter I aim to review the key arguments and contributions made throughout this thesis, as well as this study’s limitations and directions for future scholarly work. The central objective of this research was to examine the response of local non-profits to gentrification in their neighbourhoods, in order to understand how these actors who provide housing navigate the processes of state withdrawal and accelerating gentrification. This was conducted through an in- depth case-study analysis of Woodgreen Community Services in the neighbourhood of Riverdale, and their redevelopment of the former Edwin hotel into transitional housing and programming. This research revealed key insights around the tactics used by non-profit agencies, and the implications of their strategies to develop housing within the context of neoliberalism and gentrification.

Throughout the thesis I utilized De Filippis’(2004) notion of ‘neoliberal communitarianism’ to unpack how Woodgreen’s approach is line with a tradition of non-confrontational and apolitical work within the organization historically. In Chapter Three, I utilized the historical significance of settlement homes in inner-cities to understand the genealogies of Woodgreen’s as a faith- based organization in Riverdale. My main claim here was to highlight the ways in which the organization’s contemporary orientations towards gentrification are part of a historical legacy of valuing the proximity of different social classes within working-class neighbourhoods. Woodgreen’s reinforcement of contemporary neoliberal planning policy around ‘social mix’ in the context of neighbourhood revitalization was rooted in their historical connection to settlement homes. Thus, these values are not simply shifting due neoliberal reforms, but part of a longer legacy of social service work which does not fundamentally challenge power dynamics.

In Chapter Four, I discussed the tensions and contradictions around Woodgreen’s partnerships with corporate philanthropy, while also placing this within the historical context of philanthropy’s role both with the agency, as well as more generally as a provider of housing prior to the establishment of social housing by the welfare state. Woodgreen’s partnership with corporate philanthropy to secure the Edwin building was what made the organization “shovel ready”, thus able to secure limited government funds under the HPI. I demonstrated how the

process undermined the principles of the “Housing First” policy, a principle which asserts housing as a non-conditional human right, and reinforced notions of the “deserving poor”. Furthermore, Woodgreen’s ability to gain the support of private philanthropists, as well as limited government funding, was attributed to their non-confrontational nature. Thus, revealing the ways in which private capital, in addition to actors in the non-profit sector which operate within traditions of service-oriented and apolitical work, are able to steer housing investments in the context limited state investments.

In final section of Chapter Five, I demonstrated how Woodgreen conceptualizes its role within the process of gentrification in Riverdale as a ‘mediator’ of class conflicts, and while this approach helped garner philanthropic and public sector support for the redevelopment of the Edwin Hotel, it ultimately required synergy with wider processes of neoliberalism and gentrification. I traced this approach of ‘mediation’ to Woodgreen Community Services, and the work of their predecessor, Woodgreen United Church, as part of a history of acting a mediating force within the neighbourhood. I also discussed how despite the organization’s efforts to mitigate the impact of gentrification, it does not actually explicitly “resist” gentrification, and with the current conditions of gentrification and housing policy, this has resulted in Woodgreen’s interest in more affordable areas of Toronto. This is at odds with their place-embeddedness in the Riverdale neighbourhood which has helped build their reputation and legitimacy. Interviews with the senior staff revealed the organization’s explicit goal to act as a ‘mediator’ between their clients and gentrifiers, while it is also evident that the organization’s long standing presence is part of what afforded Woodgreen legitimacy to access resources and capacity from both public and private sectors, in order to redevelop the Edwin hotel.

This thesis contributed in three ways to the literature on welfare state retreat in urban setting and non-profits’ response to gentrification. Through tracing the history of the “Settlement Homes” movement, and the ways in which the Woodgreen founders were inspired by this, I argued that their contemporary view and engagement with gentrification is part of a longer legacy of work which values “social mix” in the neighbourhood but does not seeks to address systemic inequality, rather relieve suffering. I positioned De Filippis (2004) framework of the ‘neoliberal communitarian’ approach as not only indicative of the organization’s malleability in the context

of state withdrawal, but also part of a much longer tradition of service-oriented apolitical work, rooted in a history which predates the public welfare state. Woodgreen’s entrepreneurial approach in turning to corporate philanthropy is not only due to the vacuum left by neoliberal reforms to housing funding, but I argued is indicative of longer place-based practices of partnering with wealthy philanthropists. In addition, the organization’s long-standing reputation as an apolitical actor in the neighbourhood aided in facilitating philanthropic and public sector support. Furthermore, I outlined how the organization’s place-based reputation is ultimately at risk due to the future impacts of gentrification. De Verteuil (2015) utilizes the framework of resilience to demonstrate how incremental actions by the voluntary sector can maintain the residuals of the Keynesian arrangement of the welfare state under gentrification. In this thesis I have illustrated how in the case of Woodgreen, this incrementalism actually works to uphold and reinforce neoliberal logics through their own contradictory moves.

However, this study had multiple limitations in scope, time, and analysis. For one, certain key individuals who could have potentially contributed meaningfully to this study were simply unavailable or unreachable. The time limit of a one year Master’s program requires a very specific scope , hence this factored into the decision to focus on the Edwin hotel case study as an entry point to examine the dynamics around non-profit agencies who provide services and housing in gentrifying spaces. However, in no way is the analysis generalizable to all cases of non-profit housing providers in gentrifying areas of Toronto. There are many facets of this thesis which require further investigation and are unfortunately outside of the scope of this study. Furthermore, the Edwin hotel is used as a platform to discuss many of the important dynamics analyzed through this study. This thesis uses a very narrow case study to make specific context- based arguments, however, the specificity of this case study also limits the sources for primary data. Although historical analysis and archival data was provided here, further in-depth research for evidence demonstrating Woodgreen’s history in relation to philanthropy and their everyday community work would have further strengthened each claim. Thus, it is important to draw lessons understanding the specific context discussed here.

Future directions for study include research which takes seriously the need to focus on everyday practices and responses to gentrification by non-profits, and to pay heed to the longer

genealogies of community organizations in place and space. I propose positioning neoliberal communitarianism, as a framework to understanding the contemporary logics of organizations like Woodgreen, in conversation with a historic institutional approach to understanding these logics as part of the original practices of Western liberalism as implemented by faith-based institutions in the early 20th and late 19th centuries. As scholars investigating the role of the Protestant church in setting the foundation for interventionist and welfare state policies have argued: Richard Allen has defined the "social gospel" in terms of intellectual changes within Protestantism itself. By contrast, we place the movement for social service, with its recognition of the increasing complexity and interdependence of modern society and its redefinition of the individual in terms of social experience, in the wider transatlantic context of the reinterpretation of liberalism in the early twentieth century. (Christie & Gauvreau, 1996, p. 14) Although the authors here argue that the movement towards social services by the Protestant Church in Canada was underpinned by philosophies which challenged the individualistic nature of liberalism, my analysis of Woodgreen suggests a lesser degree of collectivism from some historically faith-based institutions. Thus, potential avenues for future research could include gaining a better understanding for how much the neoliberal institutional politics of non-profit agencies are derived from histories of liberal ideologies, and how these ideologies interact to impact the actions of each organization. Other potential opportunities for investigation include the specific role of financial actors as both funders of supportive housing projects, such as the New Edwin, and their dual role as drivers of the financialization and commodification of housing. Unfortunately, this could be a separate research project onto itself, and is not adequately addressed through this project.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Policy Chronology

Authors Date Action Notes

City of Toronto 1981 Plan proposals on South Discussing history of Riverdale gentrification and planning in the neighbourhood.

City of Toronto Affordable November 13th Agenda- included discussing Housing Committee 2007 transitional housing projects one of which was Woodgreen’s RFP submission of 650 Queen Street East

City of Toronto Affordable November 13th Minutes- outlines motions Housing Committee 2007 and deputations

City of Toronto Affordable November 13th Decision Document: Housing Committee 2007 councilors on committee recommend for executive committee to approve

City of Toronto Executive November 26th, Affordable Housing - Recommendations to the Committee 2007 Funding Recommendations Executive Committee Request for Proposals include approval for two 9155-07-7200 for the transitional housing projects Development of Transitional selected through a Request Housing and Supportive for Proposal under the Housing federal HPI. One of them is Woodgreen Community Housing Inc.’s site at 650 Queen Street East (former Edwin Hotel).

Total Project Cost according to the City of Toronto: $5,035,539 (Affordable Housing Committee, November, 2007)

Toronto City Council Dec. 11, 12, 13, Decision Document Council approves the 2007 at 9:00 am selection of Woodgreen Community Housing Inc. for transitional housing at 650 Queen Street East.

Toronto City Council Dec. 11, 12, 13, Meeting Minutes 2007 at 9:00 am

To: Toronto Preservation May 30, 2008 Request for Designation of Historical overview on Board the Riverdale Phase 1 Riverdale attached to Toronto and East York Heritage-Conservation submission to the City for Community Council District under Part V of the Heritage designation Ontario Heritage Act From: Director, Policy and Research, City Planning Division

To: Community October 1, 2008 Staff Report- 2009 Federal City of Toronto Housing Development and Homelessness Funding: Administration outlines of Recreation Committee Authority to Negotiate a New funding to Woodgreen and From: General Manager, Federal Agreement and other housing/homelessness Shelter, Support and Manage the Transition to the initiatives. Housing Administration New Program From April 2007-Dec 2008: $3,150,000 allocated and

From Jan. 2009-Mar 2009 $784, 000 allocated for the purpose of purchasing/renovating the New Edwin Hotel into 28 bachelor units with ground floor program support space located at 650 Queen St. East under the HPI.

City of Toronto (Cleared 2008-11-27 HVAC - permit for interior Building Permits) alterations and addition to Issued on 2009- convert existing rooming 01-02 house - to alternative housing - 28 units with program space on ground floor. (650 Queen Street East)

Evaluation Directorate, July 2009 Evaluation of the HPS Details of the former federal Strategic Policy and Summary Report strategy to combat Research Branch Human homelessness. Resources and Skills Development Canada (federal)

City of Toronto (Adopted by City Housing Opportunities Woodgreen noted as one of Council) August Toronto: An Affordable the organizations which 5, 2009 Housing Action Plan 2010 - hosted consultations in 2020 preparation for Housing Opportunities Toronto Action Plan

Woodgreen Community 2010/11 Annual Report Details of the First Steps to Services Home program/opening of the renovated Edwin Hotel

From: Deputy City Manager May 17, 2010 Staff Report: City Council approves to Affordable Housing Providing City Incentives to federal funds to Woodgreen Committee Support 1,100 Homes in Five for the development of 44 Approved Affordable Non- affordable housing units at Profit Rental Developments’ 270 Donlands Avenue

City of Toronto (Toronto 2011 1313 existing social housing Raw data from the city. Affordable Housing Data) units in South Riverdale , Although # of existing units 836 on social housing increased between 2008 and waitlist 2011, number of people on waitlist also increased by 91. Turnover rate also increased

Government of Ontario 2010 Ontario’s Long-Term Outlining the continued Affordable Housing Strategy commitment of the province, building off strategy and contributions from 2003/2004. Reports $2.5 billion has been invested to build & repair over 200,000 units of social housing. Specifically Ontario provided $430 million in annual operations funding for housing services and programs, including supportive housing 8500 units of affordable housing built by non-profit sector under federal- provincial joint program

Highlights need for adequate funding from the federal government, which is described as short- term/declining

Canadian Mortgage and August 11, 2014 Agreement with Ontario Housing Corporation Municipal Affairs/Housing to Extend Investment in Affordable

Government of Ontario 2016 Update on Ontario’s Outlines funding Affordable Housing Strategy commitment for Domestic Violence Pilot Project, Supportive Housing, Community Homelessness

Prevention Initiative, and Innovation/Capacity Building Fund.

Highlights continued decline in federal funding for social housing and limited capacity for both province and municipalities to fill this gap.

Province plans to consult with transitional housing providers and other stakeholders on amending the Residential Tenancies to facilitate transitional and supportive.

Government of Ontario- Sept 2016 Consultation on Legislative Housing Ministry framework on Transitional housing under the RTA (2006)

Appendix B: List of Interview Participants

Name/ Pseudonym Position Anne Babcock Current CEO/President, Woodgreen Mwarigha Vice President of Housing and Homelessness, Woodgreen Diane Dyson Director of Strategic Research, Woodgreen Suzanne Duncan Former Head of Woodgreen Foundation (during New Edwin fundraising campaign) Sean Gadon Director of Affordable Housing Office, City of Toronto Margaret Local Housing Advocate

Appendix C: Informed Consent Sheet

Informed Consent Study Name: Non-Profit Agencies and ‘Staying Put” in Gentrified Neighbourhoods: Woodgreen Community Services in the Riverdale Neighbourhood

Researchers: Helen Ketema, [email protected], 416-728-4969

Dear ______as part of your knowledge and expertise in your role as ______, you are invited to partake in an interview for a research study on Woodgreen Community Services and the community of Riverdale. The purpose of this study is to examine the strategies and models that non-profit agencies use to mitigate rising property values and rents, namely the case study of Woodgreen Community Services, in the context of rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods in Toronto. The objective of this project is to analyze how Woodgreen has continued to secure space for their own operations, as well as develop local affordable housing for the communities that they serve.

What You Will Be Asked to Do in the Research: For this study you will be asked to participate in an 1- 2 hour interview, which will be conducted in privacy, at a location and time of your convenience. In this interview I will ask you a range of questions about your experience at Woodgreen and/or with gentrification in the neighbourhood of Riverdale, and if applicable, your knowledge of the process of redevelopment of the former Edwin Hotel at 650 Queen East.

Risks and Discomforts: There is a slight risk some questions might bring up legal issues around confidentiality. You may let me know if you are unable or do not wish to disclose something for legal reasons. However, you will not be forced to answer any question that you do not wish to or that makes you uncomfortable in any way, without consequence.

Benefits of the Research and Benefits to You: There are no direct benefits of the research to you, but the study hopes to contribute to existing literature on gentrification, anti-displacement, and provide an effective case study of a model which demonstrates the potential role of the non-profit sector within gentrification. There could be potential benefit to the social services community through lessons learned from this case study.

Voluntary Participation: Your participation in the study is completely voluntary and you may choose to stop participating at any time before and during the interview process, with no negative consequences.

Withdrawal from the Study: You can stop participating in the study at any time until the end of the interview, for any reason, if you so decide. In the event you withdraw from the study during the interview, all associated data collected will be immediately deleted with no negative consequences to you. If you change your mind after the interview has concluded, you have the right to withdraw from the study or redact anything you have said during your interview, until August 1stt, 2019 with no consequences. You have the right to refuse to answer any question and you will not face any negative consequences.

Confidentiality: The interviews will be taped on an audio device, if you are consenting to this. If you do not wish to be audio recorded, you can ask that written notes be taken instead. If you do not wish to be

personally identified, you can choose your own pseudonym. If you are uncomfortable being quoted in the written thesis (with a non-identifiable descriptor and pseudonym) please let me know and your words will not appear verbatim. If you request full confidentiality, steps will be taken to ensure your privacy, such as the use of a pseudonym, thus your real name will not appear in any transcript, report, or publication of the research. The recordings on the device will be transcribed and deleted within one month, and the written transcript will be stored in a password-protected computer and a secure NextCloud folder system. The file will be labeled using the date of the interview and your chosen pseudonym, which only I have access to. The data will be retained for a year after completion of the study in September 2019 before being destroyed. If you would like a summary of the research results, I can email you a copy upon its completion.

Informed Consent Checklist

The interviewer must complete these steps in every interview:

Read and/or discuss verbally the participants’ information and consent sheet with the participant Answer questions participant may have Obtain verbal consent and mark on the informed consent sheet Participant chooses pseudonym – record on consent sheet Leave a copy of information sheet with the participant

Record of Consent

I have read/discussed the information and consent sheet with the interviewer and [ ] Yes [ ] No understand their contents. [ ] Yes: I consent to participate in an interview, for use [ ] No as confidential research data. [ ] with hand-written notes only OR [ ] with audio recording [ ] Yes: I consent to being directly quoted in the written thesis and/or potential publication of the [ ] With a fake name OR [ ] With my real name [ ] No research.

Legal Rights and Signatures:

I consent to participate in the study Non-Profit Agencies and ‘Staying Put” in Gentrified Neighbourhoods: Woodgreen Community Services in the Riverdale Neighbourhood conducted by Helen Ketema. I have understood the nature of this project and wish to participate. I am not waiving any of my legal rights by signing this form. My verbal consent marked below with my pseudonym, or signature below indicates this.

Participant Name OR Pseudonym ______Date ______

Appendix D: Interview Guideline

Preamble: The purpose of this study is to examine the strategies and models that non-profit agencies, namely the case study of Woodgreen Community Services, employ in the context of rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods in Toronto. I specifically am interested in the problem of how non-profits and social service organizations can both secure commercial space for their own services, as well as develop affordable housing to mitigate displacement of the residents they serve. I am focusing on the Riverdale area because of Woodgreen’s long standing presence in the neighborhood, despite gentrification. I have chosen the redevelopment of the former Edwin Hotel at 650 Queen Street East because it provides a unique case for a model where both social/assisted housing stock is increased in the same location of service provisions.

Intro Questions Tell me a bit about yourself and what you currently do?

What has been your professional role in relation to Woodgreen and/or the neighborhood of Riverdale/Leslieville?

For how long have you been with Woodgreen?

Background What has been your experience with Woodgreen? Are you currently still affiliated with the organization? If so, in what capacity? How did you get started?

How well served do you think the Riverdale/Leslieville areas are in terms of affordable housing and social services?

In your view, how was Woodgreen able to secure affordable commercial space for their own offices and services? In your view and experience, how has Woodgreen been able to acquire the amount of land they own?

What, if anything, is unique about Woodgreen as an organization?

Do you know anything about the formation of Woodgreen Community Housing Inc.? Who is the main funding body for this section of Woodgreen’s initiatives? Was the main funding source of Woodgreen’s other social housing and this site consistent?

Prior to the redevelopment of the former Edwin Hotel at 650 Queen East, what was the experience of Woodgreen like in Riverdale? What were some challenges they faced in the neighborhood?

What factors do you think made this specific model developed at the former Edwin Hotel possible? (i.e. funding mechanisms, donor support, political support, etc.) Context What was the political, funding/financial, policy climate like at the time of the 650 Queen East/Edwin Hotel redevelopment? How did this impact the process?

What was the impact of the Homelessness Partnership Initiative under the then Harper federal government? How about the joint federal-Ontario affordable housing program?

What were the main challenges posed at that time to continuing to work in that neighborhood and serve client interests? Were there any pressures faced by Woodgreen in the neighborhood (i.e. rising commercial rents, change in demographics, NIMBYism)?

How do you view Woodgreen/non-profits/service agencies relationship to place/neighborhood?

What do you think is the importance of non-profit housing providers who also provide social services?

What are your thoughts on the shifting role of non-profits in the past three decades? How do you think this has impact the housing sector specifically?

Case Study focused Do you see a connection between this particular site, the process of redeveloping it, and the construction/creation of other affordable housing sites by Woodgreen?

Tell me a bit about why the Edwin hotel was chosen in your view? How was Woodgreen able to acquire this property? What did that process look like? Do you have any knowledge about the process of submitting an application to redevelop the property?

Why do you think there was a decision to have both services and transitional housing in one location?

What was the community response at the time? Was this project undertaken in consultation with any community members or residents?

Do you believe Woodgreen had the capacity at that point to own and redevelop properties for their use? What do you think made this possible? Was there any impact or influence on this project from the province’s Long Term Affordable Housing Strategy launched in 2010?

Were there any partnerships with other entities required for this redevelopment, such as the selected architecture firm or new funders ? Can you tell me about it?

It has been a few years since the location at 650 Queen East has opened under Woodgreen. How would you evaluate it?

What were the motivations at that time and in that location for specifically targeting homeless senior men? Why not another demographic? In your opinion and experience, was there any correlation between the demographic housed at 650 Queen and the community reaction/sentiments?

In your experience, who is the hardest to house in terms of NIMBYism?

What are your thoughts on the impact of transitional housing as a long-term solution? Do you believe it has contributed to limiting the displacement of marginalized residents in the community?

What were the initial goals of that project? Would you say the organization met all of those goals?

What would you say were the limitations of this project? Does the current situation diverge from the initial goals at all?

What were the housing prospects for clients like after staying at the transitional housing location? specifically, what were their opportunities like for staying in the neighborhood in your opinion?

Conclusion What are your thoughts on the role of community organization/non-profits/service agencies in the case of gentrifying neighborhoods? Do you think their roles differ in regard to the type of organization they are ? In what ways are the decisions of urban non-profits political in nature ?

What are your thoughts on this specific model of service provision and housing stock within one built site?

Do you have any remaining thoughts you would like to share ?

November 5, 2019

Helen Ketema 5 Vicora Linkway, Apt. 804 Toronto ON M3C 1A4

Dear Ms. Ketema,

I am pleased to grant you permission to use the materials cited below for the master’s MA Thesis - University of Toronto Geography Department with the proposed title Gentrification, Social Housing, and Community Services in Riverdale, Toronto: The Case of Woodgreen’s New Edwin.

There is no charge for this permission; please ensure the materials are properly cited. For any usage of the materials outside this particular work, please contact the Archives.

1. United Church of Canada Archives, General Council Committees Collections, Records of the James Robertson Memorial Committee, Fonds501/8, 1982.007C Box 4 file 48. Rev. Ray McClearly, 1959. 2. United Church of Canada Archives, Local Church History files, Woodgreen. 2007.110L, box 205. Woodgreen, [n.d.].

Sincerely,

Robin Brunelle Acting Central Ontario Conference Archivist The United Church of Canada Archives 40 Oak Street Toronto, ON M5A 2C6 (416) 231-7680 ext 1102