Neighbourhoods Matter Inside This Issue: • Time and Change As Neighbourhood Allies Jane Jacobs • Rebuilding Communities Garland Yates, Annie E

Volume 3, Number 2 www.ideasthatmatter.com

Neighbourhoods Matter Inside this issue: • Time and Change as Neighbourhood Allies Jane Jacobs • Rebuilding Communities Garland Yates, Annie E. Casey Foundation • The Revitalization of a Neighbourhood: Regent Park

A quarterly to stimulate public discourse .... Editor’s Notes Ideas That Matter Volume 3 Number 2

his issue of Ideas that Matter Foundation, a national philanthropic Executive Publisher: Alan Broadbent. C.M. provides our readers with a organization, has been involved in Editor: Mary W. Rowe [email protected] glimpse of a remarkable com- T long-term efforts of community build- Assistant editor:Ann Peters munity in transition. Last year Ideas ing in deprived urban neighbourhoods Layout/design: Sarah Gledhill that Matter was engaged by the in the U.S. Then there is extensive Copyright:All articles © the author, 2004 Toronto Community Housing material on the challenges, and Permission to reproduce should be requested Corporation (one of North America’s opportunities, in Regent Park, and an through the publisher. largest public housing landlords) to overview of urban revitalization Contributors to this issue include: convene a broad-based city-wide efforts in other jurisdictions. We’ve Laurie Green, Jane Jacobs, John Stapleton, forum on the ‘revitalization’ process of included some additional ideas con- Garland Yates,Ann Peters, Mary W. Rowe one of their largest holdings, the com- cerning poverty alleviation both on a munity of Regent Park. national level and through neighbour- Submission information: hoods. We want to hear from you. Readers are We took this assignment on because encouraged to submit their opinions in letters to of our interest in and focus on city the editor. Published letters may be edited for We’ve also included in this issue a style or length. In addition, we welcome articles, autonomy. Over the last few years, speech given by Jane Jacobs a few and would prefer to receive them in an electronic we’ve been making the case in our years ago when she was awarded the format.The publisher cannot accept responsibility convening and writing that as cities first Vince Scully Prize in for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. go, so too the regions, even countries Architecture from the National Subscriptions: in which they are located. We’ve been Building Museum. In it she discusses Subscribe online at: www.ideasthatmatter.com interested to take this down to the how time can be an ally to a neigh- • In Canada, $26.75 Cdn (includes GST) for most basic level, to the most local, of bourhood; we thought it was apropos, four issues. • In the US, $32 for four issues. what comprises a city: its neighbour- and provided a larger context for the • Elsewhere, $40 for four issues. hoods. Here is a prime example of one ideas here. In addition, at the end of Call (416) 944-1101 to subscribe using your credit about to be set loose from the confines this issue is an essay by John card; otherwise send your cheque or money of a single authority. In this case, the Stapleton, a senior civil servant and order, payable to Ideas That Matter, to the address entity holding the power (the Housing policy expert in the provincial gov- listed below. Corporation) espouses an aspiration, ernment, who became a sort of “artist- Ideas That MatterTM is a quarterly to stimulate at least, of wanting to loosen its con- in-residence” with a social service public discourse published by: trol and provide the framework for a agency. Some of his reflections are Zephyr Press 170 Bloor Street West, Suite 804, more organic evolution of the neigh- relayed here. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1T9 bourhood. P: (416) 944-1101 We invite your comments. F: (416) 944-8915 This issue includes excerpts from a E: [email protected] Web: www.ideasthatmatter.com presentation by Garland Yates, a Mary W. Rowe senior advisor at the Annie E. Casey Editor Ideas That Matter ©TM is a registered trademark Foundation, who was the keynote [email protected] of Avana Capital Corporation Inc. speaker at the spring forum. The Cover: Photo by Ann Peters, Design by Sarah Gledhill

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2 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Contents

4 Time and Change as 37 Asset-Building: Neighbourhood Allies Addressing Poverty in By Jane Jacobs Canada

8 Neighbourhood 38 Urban Development Revitalization: An Overview Agreements: The Vancouver By Laurie Green and Ann Peters Agreement - Downtown Eastside 12 Rebuilding Communities 39 Connecting Public By Garland Yates Policy with Frontline Experience The Dudley Street 19 By John Stapleton Neighbourhood Initiative 43 Neighbourhood 20 Background on the Revitalization Resources Neighbourhood of Regent Park, Toronto By Mary W. Rowe

23 The Present Community at a Glance

27 Community Resources

29 Experiments in Social Innovation: Pathways to Education

30 Regent Park: A Brief History By Laurie Green

35 The Toronto Context: Poverty by Postal Code

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 3 Time and Change as Neighbourhood Allies Jane Jacobs

The following is excerpted from an address made by Jane Jacobs on the occa- sion of her receiving the 2001 Vincent Scully prize from the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

e take it for granted that some things improve or are Wenhanced by time and the changes it brings. Trees grow larger; hedges grow thicker; fine old buildings, put to uses not originally anticipated, as this building has been, are increasingly appreciated as time passes. But some other things are too seldom enhanced or improved by the workings of time. On the whole city and suburban neighbourhoods have very chancy records of dealing well with time and change. I’m going to discuss briefly four common kinds of failure for city neighbourhoods and make That Matter a few suggestions. ight Ideas yr

My first suggestion concerns immi- cop

grants. Right now, in locations extending rusz, T from the Virginia metropolitan fringes of

Washington and the Jersey metropolitan y Mark fringes of New York to the Los Angeles Photo b fringes of Los Angeles, striving immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, the Philippines, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, are settling in woebegone city suburbs to which time has been unkind. Right now newcomers sequel for the bottom of the ladder is hoods that succeed in holding onto their are enlivening dull and dreary streets probably followed by yet another popula- striving populations are neighbourhoods with tiny grocery and clothing stores, tion. Ample experience informs us that that improve with time, becoming civic second-hand shops, little importing and neighbourhoods serving only as immi- assets in every respect: social, physical craft enterprises, skimpy offices and mod- grant launching pads repeatedly take a and economic. Progress on the part of est but exotic restaurants. step or two forward, followed by two or the population is reflected in the neigh- three steps backward, while dilapidation bourhood. Increasing diversity of Either of two fates can befall these inexorably deepens with time. incomes, occupations, ambitions, educa- newly minted immigrant neighbour- tion, skills and connections are all hoods. On the one hand, if members of In contrast, as many a Little Italy and reflected in the increasingly diversified the new populations and their children Chinatown attest, along with less cele- neighbourhood. Time becomes the ally, melt away as they find their feet, the brated examples, immigrant neighbour- not the enemy of such a neighbourhood.

4 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Jane Jacobs Time and Change as Neighbourhood Allies

Self-respecting people, no matter what Let’s think a minute about the natural Now for the related problem of com- their ethnic origins, abandon a place if it anatomy of community hearts. Wherever mercial or institutional facilities intrud- becomes fixed in their minds that it is an they develop spontaneously, they are ing into inappropriate places. From time undignified or insulting place to be. almost invariably consequences of two or to time I glance at plans and artists’ ren- Here’s my suggestion: smart municipali- more intersecting streets, well used by derings for charmingly designed resi- ties ought to contradict those percep- pedestrians. On the most meager scale, dences with their yards, and I wonder tions before they take firm hold – no we have the cliché of the corner store or where future overflow of commerce can time to lose – by making sure that newly the corner pub that is recognized as a be pleasantly accommodated. Perhaps minted immigrant neighbourhoods local hangout. In this cliché, “corner” is this consideration doesn’t matter in a vil- receive really good municipal housekeep- a significant adjective. Corner implies lage which is destined to remain a vil- ing, public maintenance, and communi- two streets intersecting in the shape of an lage. But it matters very much in a city ty policing and justice services, along X or a T. In traditional towns, the spot neighbourhood or in a town or village with some respectful amenities. Traffic- recognized as the centre of things surpris- which becomes engulfed by a city. In taming and street trees come to mind, ingly often contains a triangular piece of cities, successful hearts attract users from and especially quick, hassle-free permis- ground. This is because it is where three outside the neighbourhood, and they sions for people to organize open-air mar- main routes con- kets if they ask to, or run jitney services, verge in the shape or make whatever other life-improving of a Y. In commu- The object is to nurture locales where people on adaptations they want to provide for nities where his- foot will naturally encounter one another in the themselves. torically much traffic was water- course of shopping, doing other errands, pro- Simple, straightforward municipal borne, a heart moting their causes, airing their grievances, investments of the kind just mentioned, often located catching up on gossip, and perhaps enjoying a and sensitive, flexible bureaucratic itself at the inter- coffee or beer under pretty coloured umbrellas. adjustments are minor in comparison section of a main with costs and adjustments demanded by waterfront street city megaprojects. But if those minor with the exit from a busy dock where pas- also attract entrepreneurs who want to costs and adjustments attach newcomers sengers disembarked; when water travel be where the action is. These things hap- to neighbourhoods in which they can declined, the heart moved elsewhere. pen. In fact, if these things didn’t happen feel pride and proprietorship as they are Large cities of course have typically cities would be little more advantageous finding their feet, and afterwards, they developed not only localized neighbour- economically and socially than villages; carry a potential of huge civic pay-offs. hood or district hearts, but one or sever- they wouldn’t generate urban surprise, Time and change will then have been al major hearts, and these also have pizzazz and diversity. enlisted as allies of these neighbour- almost invariably located themselves at hoods. busy pedestrian street intersections. All So with time and change, originally but the very smallest hearts – the corner unforeseen commercial and institutional My second suggestion has to do with store – typically provided splendid sites overflows can occur in city neighbour- communities’ needs for hearts or centres for landmark buildings, public squares, or hoods. Where do they go? They may and with a related problem: damage done small parks. have to find and convert makeshift quar- to neighbourhoods by commercial incur- ters. Occasionally the makeshifts are sions where they are inappropriate. The The converse logic doesn’t work. delightful, but most commonly they reg- desirability of community hearts is well Living, beating community hearts can’t ister as ugly, jarring, intrusive smears into recognized nowadays. Much thought be arbitrarily located, as if they were sub- residential streets where they were never goes into designing them for new com- urban shopping centres for which the meant to intrude. Watching this happen, munities, and inserting them into neigh- supporting anatomy is a parking lot and people think, “the neighbourhood is bourhoods that have lost community perhaps a transit stop. But given the going to the dogs.” So it is visually – and hearts or never had them. The object is anatomy of well-used pedestrian main soon, as a sequel, perhaps socially; in the to nurture locales where people on foot streets, hearts locate themselves; in fact end, perhaps economically as well. So will naturally encounter one another in they can’t be prevented from locating much is this form of deterioration dis- the course of shopping, doing other themselves. Of course good design can liked and feared, that one of the chief errands, promoting their causes, airing greatly enhance or reinforce them, as I purposes of zoning regulations is to pre- their grievances, catching up on gossip, implied with my remark about landmark vent it. Even if the regulations succeed at and perhaps enjoying a coffee or beer buildings and public squares. holding time and change at bay, as ene- under pretty coloured umbrellas. mies, any success they have comes at the

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 5 Time and Change as Neighbourhood Allies Jane Jacobs

cost of squelching city potentialities, new people want in on a place now gen- safe for pedestrian use and many ordinary meaning convenience and innovations. erally perceived as interesting and fash- conveniences are within pedestrian ionable that gentrification turns socially reach and neighbours are tolerant of dif- Here is where the anatomy of natural and economically vicious. It explodes fering life-styles. It is pitiful that so many neighbourhood hearts can come to the into a feeding frenzy of real-estate specu- city neighbourhoods with these excellent rescue. One important adaptive advan- lation and evictions. Former inhabitants basic attributes have been destroyed for tage of open-ended main pedestrian are evicted wholesale, priced out by what highway construction, slum clearance, streets forming intersections is that these Chester Hartman, urban planner and urban renewal and housing projects. streets are logical places to locate con- author, aptly calls “the financial bulldoz- Nevertheless, some currently bypassed vertible buildings before there is a need er.” Even the artists, who began the civic treasures do remain, and where they to convert them. They can be a designed process, are priced out. do, moderate gentrification – I empha- form of neighbourhood insurance, so to size moderate – could be deliberately speak. For example, row houses can be The eventual ironic result is that even encouraged to help take the heat off designed to convert easily and pleasantly the rich, the people being priced in, are other places being excessively gentrified. to shops, small offices, studios, restau- cheated by this turn of events. They were Another way of adding to supply could rants, all kinds of things. Several joined attracted by what they perceived as a be by encouraging judicious infilling of together even convert well to small lively, interesting, diverse and urbane housing in neighbourhoods with human schools and other institutions. And of city neighbourhood – in short, by the scale but not excessive compactness or course many buildings originally put up results of gentle and moderate gentrifica- density. for work, especially loft buildings, con- tion. This kind of urbanity is killed as the vert pleasantly to apartments or living- place becomes an exclusive preserve for However, more than increased supply and-working combinations. In sum, I am high-income people. of desirable city neighbourhoods is need- suggesting that urban designers and ed to combat socially vicious municipalities should not think about Urban designers and municipalities should not the street anatomy without also provid- evictions of existing or encouraging easily convertible think about the street anatomy without also ing inhabitants. buildings on those streets as opportunity providing or encouraging easily convertible Artscape, a to do that arises. This is a practical strat- buildings on those streets, as opportunity to do Toronto organization concerned egy for dealing with time and change as that arises. This is a practical strategy for deal- specifically with allies, not enemies. ing with time and change as allies, not enemies. protecting and promoting the My third suggestion concerns gentri- interests of artists, fication of low-cost neighbourhoods to has come to the conclusion that the only which time has not been kind but which Time is not kind to high-income pre- sure way of preventing artists from being have valuable assets. Typically, the first serves in cities, unless they are small and priced out of their quarters is ownership outsiders to notice those assets are artists cheek-by-jowl with livelier and more – in this case, ownership by nonprofit and artisans. They are joined by young diverse neighbourhoods. One need only organizations. The same is probably true professionals or other middle-class peo- notice that many a poor and dilapidated for many other existing inhabitants – ple whose eyes have been opened by the neighbourhood contains once-beautiful, ownership by cooperatives, community artists’ discoveries. For a time, gentrifica- proud and ambitious dwellings, to see development corporations, land trusts, tion brings heartening renovations and evidence that exclusive preserves of the nonprofit organizations – whatever inge- other physical improvements into a rich do not necessarily hold up well in nuities can be directed to the aim of neighbourhood that needs improve- cities. The rich it seems, grow bored with retaining neighbourhood diversity of ments, along with new people whose undiverse, dull city neighbourhoods, or population. connections, life-skills and spending their children or heirs do. This is not sur- money can be socially useful to the prising because such places are boring. My final suggestion concerns the haz- neighbourhood’s existing inhabitants, ards of a somewhat different form of pop- ularity. As I mentioned earlier, some and often are. As long as gentrification When gentrification turns vicious and community hearts and their associated proceeds gently, with moderation, it excessive, it tells us, first, that demand street anatomies attract many outsiders for moderately gentrified neighbour- tends to continue to be beneficial, and and are widely enjoyed. This is not a bad hoods has outrun supply. By now, experi- diversifying. thing; on the contrary. The hazard is this: But nowadays especially, a neighbour- ence has revealed the basic attributes of as leases for commercial or institutional hood’s period of what might be called its such places – attributes artists discover: spaces expire, tenants are apt to be faced golden age of gentrification can be sur- the streets have human scale, buildings with shockingly increased rents. Property prisingly short. Suddenly, so many, many are various and interesting, streets are 6 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Jane Jacobs Time and Change as Neighbourhood Allies taxes on the popular premises can soar long-term mortgages, small down pay- These four suggestions may seem triv- too, instigating even further increases. If ments, and mortgage acceptance agen- ial compared with other municipal con- zoning prevents commercial overflow, so cies, primarily the Federal Housing cerns such as racism, poor schools, traffic, much the worse. The upshot is that many Administration (FHA), proved success- unemployment, illegal drugs, inadequate facilities are priced out of the mix. The ful at promoting the policy. Tract hous- tax revenues, crime, persistent poverty, hardware store goes, the bookstore closing sold to homeowners under these what to do with garbage, how to lure es, the place that repairs small appliances arrangements was sprawling and other- tourists, whether to build another stadi- moves away, the butcher shops and bak- wise ill-conceived for fostering much um or a convention centre, and so on. eries disappear. Nevertheless, neighbourhoods that decline are pret- As diversity diminishes, into its place comes a kind ty serious too. Two steps of monoculture: incredible forward, followed by repetitions of whatever hap- three steps back, is no pens to be most profitable way for a city to progress, on that street at that time. and it doesn’t help solve Of course these optimists other municipal prob- don’t all succeed. Six of the lems either; the pattern

seventeen new restaurants, That Matter makes them more say, die off rather rapidly, intractable.

and five of the seven gift ight Ideas yr shops don’t make it through cop The pattern isn’t new. the next Christmas. Into It has practical causes their places come other

ah Gledhill, and unless these forms of optimists who hope some-

y Sar civic ineptitude are thing will be left in the till faced and overcome, after the debt costs on reno- Photo b North American city vations and the incredible neighbourhoods are as rents are paid. But starting unlikely to deal well with gradually while times are The Annex Neighbourhood, Toronto good, and rapidly when they time and change in the future aren’t, the street becomes dotted with sense of community, but that is another as they have been in the past. The sug- vacancies. The old conveniences don’t matter. At least, fostering ownership gestions I’ve made may not be politically return to fill them. They can’t afford to. worked. Today some 65% of American possible. There may be better, or at any All this is not owing to competition from households own their own houses or rate different, means of accomplishing malls or big boxes - but because success apartments, the highest percentage in similar aims. My purpose is to help stir up has priced out diversity. the world. some creative thinking, now lacking, about effects of time and change on city A popular main pedestrian street run- This has made me wonder whether neighbourhoods; above all to stir up ning through my own neighbourhood is similar techniques would enable or thinking about how to enlist time and now afflicted by this dynamic. However, encourage small businesses – especially change as practical allies – not enemies fortunately the hardware store remains, those whose success depends heavily on that must be regulated out and fended off so does the book store, one butcher shop location – to own their own premises. Of on the one hand, or messily surrendered with its associated European grocery, and course not all would want to, and among to on the other. We might as well learn a large general bargain and outlet store. those that did, all would not be able to; how to make constructive alliances with Not only do these remain, they flourish; but that is also true of households. Why the workings of time because time is one – the hardware – has doubled its shouldn’t it become public policy to fos- going to continue happening; that’s for space. The secret of their stability is that ter business stability, and stability of city sure. they own the buildings where they do streets and neighbourhoods, by enabling business, so were not vulnerable to being enterprises to protect themselves, For more information on the Vince priced out by soaring rents. The banks through ownership, against abruptly ris- Scully Prize and the National Building also remain; they own their buildings. ing rents? In other words, I’ve arrived at Museum, see www.nbm.org. Jane Jacob’s much the same conclusion as Artscape: most recent book is Dark Age Ahead. This has caused me to think about that ownership is the surest protection home ownership. When it became public against being priced out of a place of policy in the United States to encourage work. home ownership, financial devices such a

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 7

Neighbourhood Revitalization An Overview Laurie Green and Ann Peters

hat does it mean? tives, ‘community’ is usually defined at The United States ‘Neighbourhood revitaliza- the neighbourhood level. Literature per- In the United States neighbourhood- W tion’ is a term increasingly taining to both North American and based, comprehensive revitalization heard in relation to projects aimed at European efforts has suggested that there strategies have been taking place since reinvigorating urban communities that is no single definition; what is needed is the early 1990s. Launched in 1992 and have experienced concentrated poverty the flexibility to allow a community to be 1993 respectively, the HOPE VI and and marginalization. It also reflects a shift identified by the needs being addressed, Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Com- away from what have been traditionally and the people experiencing those needs. munity programs are initiatives of the top-down, issue-specific approaches, to U.S. federal government that marked sig- locally-based, comprehensive, communi- The Caledon Institute of Social Policy nificant shifts in policy. HOPE VI, fund- ty-building strategies to achieve sustained has identified a number of ‘key features’ ed by the federal Department of Housing economic and social neighbourhood which characterize comprehensive com- and Urban Development, combined transformation. munity initiatives: grants for physical revitalization of older, ‘severely distressed’ public housing devel- In North America, these efforts, also •They are comprehensive, address- opments with funding for management known in the field as ‘comprehensive ing local quality of life issues, build- improvements and supportive services, to community initiatives’ (CCIs) represent ing new social and economic infra- promote the self-sufficiency of residents. a new methodology in which funders, structure and addressing the broad- The program addresses both the tradi- policy-makers and program designers er social and economic policy con- tional ‘bricks and mortar’ concerns as explore a range of approaches to revitaliz- text; well as more complex needs of low- ing distressed neighbourhoods by address- •They are holistic, engaging diverse income neighbourhoods to improve over- ing a number of inter-related issues such sectors to break down artificial all conditions. One of the chief objectives as housing, health and unemployment. boundaries of bureaucratic com- of HOPE VI programs is to decrease or One of the common threads running partmentalization, and to identify avoid the concentration of very low- through efforts in various jurisdictions is links among various issues; income families in one area in a bid to the recognition that community condi- •They are multisectoral, encourag- end stigmatization, and to increase the tions, also called ‘neighbourhood effects’, ing partnering and collaborative sustainability of the neighbourhood. play a significant role in either perpetuat- work and funding arrangements; Evaluations of HOPE VI initiatives are ing or reducing poverty. In other words, taking place in an attempt to questions ‘place matters’. Factors such as educa- •They are long-term; such as the extent to which HOPE VI has tional attainment, income level, and • They are developmental, address- achieved its intended benefits, the access to social services and resources ing the need to build community impact these programs have had on origi- intersect within given geographic bound- capacity; nal public housing residents, and the aries in ways that circumscribe the ability •They are inclusive; lessons HOPE VI has for other public of residents to prosper. housing projects and policy in general. • They are concerned with process As this program has evolved in legisla- and outcome. The terms ‘community’ and ‘neigh- tion, regulation, implementation and bourhood’ are often used interchangeably practice over the last decade, answering in the literature of revitalization strate- Experience in other countries these questions is difficult. Some objec- Neighbourhood or community revital- gies. ‘Community’ may be delineated by a tives have been met, for example, sub- ization efforts have developed at different local geographic boundary, territory rele- stantially improved physical structures, rates in Canada, the United States, the vant to regional government as in the good urban design promoting safety, the United Kingdom and in Northern case of amalgamated cities, or a commu- de-concentration of poverty through a European countries such as Germany and nity of specific interest such as a visible mix of income levels, the leveraging of France among others. Responses to the minority population or persons with dis- additional funds for community infra- need for urban regeneration have varied abilities. However, in the context of structure, and experimentation with a due to the diversity of national gover- urban revitalization, and particularly the range of management techniques. nance structures, funding and local cir- U.S. comprehensive community initia- However, there is some evidence indicat- cumstances.

8 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly

Neighbourhood Revitalization

ing that the original residents of HOPE tion, through the creation of nonprofit United Kingdom VI neighbourhoods have not always ben- community development organizations. British cities were among the first in efited from redevelopment. This has Subsequently, EZ/EC initiatives have Europe to experience a wave of econom- been partly attributed to a lack of mean- brought the issue of neighbourhood- ic restructuring and social change, partly ingful resident participation in planning, based development to the policy arena, as a result of poor industrial competitive- insufficient focus on relocation strategies supported locally through partnerships ness, outworn infrastructure and social and revised screening criteria which among municipal and county or state tensions in inner cities. In the 1980s the have made it difficult for ‘hard to house’ governments, local corporations, local UK was the first Western European to households to qualify for the new devel- nonprofits, and residents from the com- initiate a dedicated program to deal with opments. munities involved. The initiatives share inner city issues. This program was several elements in their approaches to strongly influenced by policy dissemina- The program is currently operating revitalization: identification of a geo- tion from the US, and growing recogni- with substantially reduced federal fund- graphically delineated community; a tion of economic competitiveness ing, after the Bush administration had focus on comprehensive development between cities as part of the creation of a proposed eliminating funding altogether. that links economic, physical, and single European economy and general Meanwhile, housing advocates, cities, human development activities; support economic globalization. and housing authorities continue to sup- for a process of strategic planning based port the program; significantly, HOPE VI on community assets and available In 1998, the Urban Task Force chaired is currently the only major source of resources/needs; and resident participa- by Lord Rogers of Riverside, examined redevelopment funding available in the tion in the governance structure for the causes of urban decline in England U.S. Empowerment Zones/Enterprise planning and implementing activities at and made recommendations to deliver an Com-munities (EZs/ECs) is a 10-year the local level. ‘urban renaissance’ through the creation federal community development pro- of a co-ordinated cross-government program, begun in 1994, with legislation The Rebuilding Communities gram under the Office of the Deputy providing an array of performance grants Initiative (RCI), launched in 1994 by Prime Minister (ODPM) and through and tax credits to designated distressed the Annie E. Casey Foundation, contin- local strategic partnerships. The Neigh- urban neighbourhoods and rural commu- ues the evolution of urban revitalization bourhood Renewal Fund enables funding nities to create job opportunities and strategies in the U.S. and is an example to the country’s most deprived neighbour- expand business opportunities. The of several major long-term philanthropic hoods, eighty-eight of which have been inclusion of rural communities makes initiatives currently underway in the targeted through an index of social and this program unique among other revital- U.S. RCI was a seven-year initiative economic indicators. The local strategy ization initiatives mentioned here. All of supported by partnerships with commu- can include better outcomes in a broad the communities are eligible for tax- nity-based organizations in five urban range of areas including employment and exempt bond financing that offers lower communities to re-build ‘deeply dis- economic performance, crime, educa- rates than conventional financing to tressed’ neighbourhoods. The develop- tional attainment, health and housing. finance business development opportuni- ment of RCI signaled a departure from ties. There was considerable flexibility earlier strategies in three significant Some of these principles are in evi- given by the federal government to pro- ways: a neighbourhood versus city focus, dence in Scotland’s South Lanarkshire gram requirements and distinct differ- a comprehensive initiative not defined Community Planning Partnership ences among the designated sites due to by a single, specific issue (i.e. affordable (SLCPP). Membership of the SLCPP varying strategic plans developed at the housing), and the acknowledgement and was widened to include direct service local level. inclusion of local participation by com- providers following the preparation of a munity residents. Local self-determina- community plan in an effort to achieve While the concept of ‘enterprise tion was regarded as an essential compo- broader and more representative commu- zones’ was initially conceived as a vehi- nent of RCI. These features produced nity planning partnerships. A basket of cle for comprehensive community devel- strategies that were less ‘top-down’ in issues reflecting the social determinants opment, it is now associated primarily nature and by putting more emphasis on of health, e.g. community safety, social with economic development. The building community capacity, combined inclusion and health, is being addressed National Community Development the concepts of individual and communi- through seven theme-based partnership Initiative, a separate program in place ty ‘empowerment’ with neighbourhood groups, each of which deals with a specif- since 1992, as a joint effort between large revitalization. A second ten-year initia- ic issue affecting overall community philanthropic foundations, major finan- tive, Making Connections, began in well-being. Various mechanisms have cial institutions and the federal govern- 1999 in ten communities across the U.S. been used to cultivate increased commu- ment had focused attention on notions building on lessons learned from RCI. nity capacity, including the use of a peer of local determination, civic participa-

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 9 Neighbourhood Revitalization

education program for youth to deal with to develop strategies for areas in need, The main actors in urban regeneration health and substance abuse issues, and backed up by an agency geared to deliv- here are the municipalities, which have the integration of opportunities for train- ery, with the skills to negotiate, coordi- been given special powers under the ing and employment by two companies nate and assure the finances required to Federal Building Code to extend their in the neighbourhoods involved. Initial make things possible. It has not been activity beyond its original remit for slum feedback suggests that there are a num- necessary for municipalities to wait for clearance and war damage repair to ber of ongoing challenges such as the an initiative to come from somewhere broader goals of regeneration. In order to administrative workload with respect to else. In some cases a need to broaden the accomplish this special redevelopment, meeting performance indicators and cre- base for collaboration has generated the agencies are often created, known as ating a culture of openness and trans- creation of management organizations Stadtebauliche sanierungsmafnohnohmen. parency across organizations operating in called SEMs (societe d’economie mixte). These agencies, for example the STEG the joint partnerships. These bring in a range of other financial agency in Hamburg, are granted wide agencies such as private banks, chambers powers that allow them to acquire land France of commerce and local agencies to an in order to implement projects. The goals The experience of neighbourhood integrated team. of regeneration in Germany are multi- revitalization in France has differed from faceted: to improve or replace housing that of the UK and the US in some sig- Funding for French urban regenera- stock, to provide new amenities, to pro- nificant respects. For example, perhaps tion projects comes primarily from the vide public infrastructure, and to the clearest model of large-scale state Caisse des Depots et Consignations, par- improve transport systems. One element intervention is its area-based social ticularly its Urban Regeneration Fund that may set Germany apart from other regeneration program, as demonstrated and its system of low-interest loans for jurisdictions, is the degree to which its by former president Francois Mitterand’s, major urban projects. Founded in 1816 as regeneration initiatives are democratic; “Developpement Social des Quartiers” a state institution, this public sector bank at all stages from plan formulation to which deals with peripheral social hous- has the ability to plan and invest in long- final implementation, efforts are made to ing and older neighbourhoods in need of term strategies linked into national involve every potentially affected person revitalization. Both France and the UK finance plans. or group in consultations. Any relocation have leaned more strongly toward target- expenses or other social effects of pro- ed compensation for cities in decline The Loi de Solidrite et grams are dealt with by a strong than other democratized nations; grow- Renouvellement urbain (SRU) estab- Sozialplan, to which the program is ing urban protest movements, particular- lished in 2001 is the latest legislative linked. Other levels of government con- ly in France and the UK, have been very program aimed at regenerating French tribute to the financing of plans, but are influential in this regard. cities. SRU pulls together various initia- not intimately involved in the process. tives of the 1990s, steering them toward The concept of regeneration in France more comprehensive ways of grappling The Canadian context has evolved from one of ‘renovation’ with social exclusion, a primary objective In Canada, neighbourhood revitaliza- with a physical or economic bias, to of the new renouvellement urbain. Strong tion, particularly in an urban context, ‘renouvellement’, with a much wider mechanisms have developed to ensure has been recent and limited in scope. scope. The process has also moved from the integration of policy between the Accordingly, Canadian initiatives have being one that is publicly-led and man- various government departments. had the advantage of gleaning lessons aged, to being a more varied and cooper- from revitalization projects in other juris- ative process, fostering partnerships with Germany dictions. The Regent Park Planning private and communal agencies and Because of damage suffered during the Team, for example, has been able to draw placing an increasing emphasis on social Second World War and subsequent from the experiences of neighbourhood and cultural aspects and on the encour- rebuilding, German towns do not exhib- revitalization projects in the U.S., partic- agement of innovation and participa- it the physical decay evident in the cities ularly the HOPE VI program which tion. One regeneration project in Lille, of other industrialized countries. shares some significant similarities in its the Roubaix project, is an example of However a combination of the decline of focus on the large-scale re-building of renouvellement, comprising an assort- the industrial base, and the need to public housing. ment of ventures that have required flex- improve housing standards in the proper- ible collaboration between actors, and ties built in the immediate post-war era Other Canadian neighbourhood revi- extensive consultation and negotiation. has resulted in urban regeneration in talization initiatives include projects in Germany having a more economic and both Winnipeg and in Vancouver’s The mayors of French cities involved social dimension than in other countries. Downtown Eastside (using the joint fed- in regeneration projects have been able eral/provincial/municipal approach of an

10 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Neighbourhood Revitalization

Urban Development Agreement) and many revitalization efforts, it highlights involved in revitalization efforts. Canada the Vibrant Communities project. As in the importance of building partnerships. does not currently have a federal pro- the case of most revitalization strategies, An important component of Vibrant gram that allocates funding specifically the Vancouver Agreement is focused on Communities is its linkage of up to 15 for urban regeneration projects, as does strategic initiatives that are comprehen- communities across Canada to facilitate France; it also lacks a federal housing sive in scope, striving for increased com- the sharing of experiences from different program to assist with the revitalization munity capacity and expanded collabora- projects, thereby creating opportunities of social housing, unlike the American tions and partnerships among stakehold- for different communities to learn from HOPE VI program. Instead, a greater ers. It is also marked by the development each other. Four key approaches con- reliance on creative partnering with of ‘horizontal’ teams across the partner- tained in Vibrant Communities projects municipalities, the private sector, foun- ship organizations, and a structure that are: comprehensiveness and locally- dations, and nonprofit organizations will encourages the strategic targeting of based initiatives, cross-sectoral grassroots be necessary to undertake revitalization resources. collaboration, identifying and develop- projects. Significantly, Canada’s munici- ing community assets, and a commit- palities are also lacking the degree of The Vibrant Communities project, an ment to learning and evaluation. All of autonomy possessed by those in other initiative of the Tamarack Institute, the these contribute to the goals of compre- places, such as Germany. Though talk of Caledon Institute of Social Policy and hensiveness and enhanced community ‘a new deal for cities’ to find new sources the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, capacity. of revenue and powers for municipalities is focused on poverty reduction through Canada differs in some significant has been taking place at both federal and community-driven initiatives. Like respects from other jurisdictions provincial levels, concrete actions have yet to be taken to provide local governments with greater independence in developing their own strategies to The address urban issues. Since neighbourhood revitalization is a newer phenomenon in Canada than in the U.S. and Europe, there are still many power questions yet to be formulated and of community answered regarding policies and practices being used. Canadian initiatives will potentially benefit from best practices taken from these other jurisdictions, as The well as knowledge gained from within the Canadian context. Common to Canadian, American, British and promise German contexts is recognition of the importance of comprehensive approach- of community es, multi-sectoral involvement, creative partnering, and community/resident par- engagement ticipation in community-based projects. The extent to which these neighbourhood- or ‘place-based’ strategies can be Build the kind of successfully combined within a broader context of national and provincial social communities you want. and economic policies and programs to achieve significant impact will be tested Find out how! Join us at in Canadian neighbourhood revitaliza- www.tamarackcommunity.ca tion efforts.

For more information: For background documents, see Neighbour- hood Revitalization Resources, p. 43

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 11 Rebuilding Communities Garland Yates

Edited from a presentation by Garland justice and injustice. So you can envision Our work in this area started with the Yates of the Annie E. Casey Foundation to that when you’re through this process, Rebuilding Community Initiative in the “Creating a Community of you’re really not the same any more. We 1994 which worked with five communi- Opportunity” conference convened by are not the same foundation. We think ties across the country: Boston, Detroit, Ideas That Matter and held in Toronto on about our mission and our work and our Philadelphia, Denver and Washington, March 26th, 2004. relationships with families quite differ- D.C. The idea was to focus on helping ently. I want to emphasize that point; it each community build its capacity to started working at the Annie E. Casey isn’t just about how we sit down and cre- lead the change process within their Foundation nine years ago managing ate a partnership to get something done community. After investing about $25 to Iinitiatives which were committed to but how we embark upon a journey $30 million in this process, our evolution building capacity within their communi- together that will end up changing how as a foundation brought us to the frame- ties to be the driving force behind their we see the world. work of Making Connections, our second own change and revitalization. We’re not ten-year initiative. An organized com- really talking about building a communi- The Casey Foundation was founded in munity can do a lot of things better: it ty in the physical sense but about engag- 1948 by a man named Joe Casey, who can build self-esteem, for example, but it ing in a process as partners and in was the primary founder of the United can’t do the task alone. How do we keep alliances with people in a transformative Parcel Services (UPS). When he turned creating an environment for this orga- way. What we try to illustrate is that his attention to being a philanthropist, nized, capable and, hopefully powerful when, as a foundation, we enter into he wanted to really focus on helping community to be able to build alliances partnership with a community, in order children who were disadvantaged, chil- and relationships with other partners and to be an effective partner, we have to pay dren who were vulnerable, children who stakeholders in a way that actually particular attention to shifting the power were at risk. He named the foundation reflects a local movement? Not a local dynamics that are inherent in coming to after his mother, in part because he want- organization or a local strategy, but a the table with a lot of money and trying ed it to reflect what had happened in local movement that is committed to to work with people who have a lot of their family as they were growing up and improving the welfare of children and need. It isn’t so much writing a cheque the knowledge and the passion that they families by improving the environment any more, the state can do felt for their mother and their siblings. in which they live. that. It’s failing togeth- The foundation now has about $3 bil- er, it’s succeeding lion in assets and we make about The Underlying Framework and together, it’s learning, $200 million a year in grants. That Principles it’s fighting when number probably puts us near the top we’re disagreeing, it’s The Making Connections theory of of the list in terms of domestic foun- change is based on the fact that the envi- struggling around dations in the US that focus exclu- notions of equity and ronment in which children live matters a sively on children, lot to their growth and their positive which is our real development. Families also matter concern. tremendously. When you listen to the ‘clanging’ of the media and the noises coming out of scholars and research, as a family you can feel under siege. We don’t That Matter have very much positive, at least in our country, to say about low-income fami- ight Ideas yr lies; they are dysfunctional, they’re drug cop addicts, they’re uneducated, they don’t rusz, T care, they’re unsophisticated. Well, inas-

y Mark much as a child is going to rely on this Garland Yates family unit for basic survival, these mes- Photo b

12 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Garland Yates Rebuilding Communities

sages are very difficult to navigate and to help those communities and their fami- takes to be able to look your children in find some kind of positive involvement lies make those connections to their the face and say, “I’m going to have to get in the relationship. So we’ve concluded communities, to the kind of family sup- this one a pair of shoes this week and that there isn’t any way for us to con- ports they need and to each other maybe next week, I’ll get somebody else cede, after a lot of years of experience through social networks and organiza- a pair.” To me, there’s power, there’s a with child welfare, that children are less tions that will help them become capacity and the assets are there. stronger. A very important overriding principle is that resi- What we’ve witnessed too often in our Our long-term country is that we go in and expend a lot dents and other representatives of those affected outcome is that if of resources and money to rebuild a com- most by community conditions should be primary families were munity only to see it 10 years later back actors in efforts that are designed to change these stronger and able in the same position. So sustainability is conditions. to provide eco- critical and then there isn’t any way to nomic, social and avoid the fact that residents must play a than the family unit that is strong physical safety, children will be healthier primary role. We learned that from work- enough to help them. The state cannot and prepared to learn when they go to ing with Rebuilding Communities but raise kids. In our country we have a lot of school, and neighbourhoods will be safe, we’ve also learned that from the last 30 evidence that suggests that inexperi- nurturing places in which to live. To or 40 years of trying to do serious urban enced or unenlightened social workers achieve this we are committed to a strat- development. We always ask ourselves, can’t go in and decide in a very complex egy that says, “Empowering and mobiliz- “Why didn’t we give more?” or “Why do situation – whether it be cultures and ing local movements that are dedicated these things seem to never change?” diversity or thought and ideas - what is to these notions.” We’re saying probably the missing part of really right in the long run for children. the equation is that the capacity of the So the idea is that for the immediate A very important overriding principle community is not [developed] so they safety of children, community infrastruc- is that residents and other representa- didn’t get to be a player. And I’m looking ture is absolutely critical. And in that tives of those affected most by communi- at the distinction between being a player context, families are essential. ty conditions should be primary actors in and being a participant. When we have efforts that are designed to change these processes that invite people to give their Our notions are, let’s focus on revital- conditions. Now why would we conclude input, we need to help them build the izing the neighbourhood that children that? One, families really have the most capacity to be a player in the implemen- have to grow up in and then let’s provide to lose. They also have many strengths tation (the planning and design) and the the kind of strengthening support to fam- and assets. I don’t think it’s too difficult ilies as they engage in raising children. to plan what to do when you have That’s the place we’ve come to as a enough resources to do it. My respect framework of the theory: children do bet- is for people who have to do things ter when families do better and families that they don’t have resources for. do better when neighbourhoods are They have three kids that need strong. This framework is also based on shoes and they can only buy one. the premise, from our own research and The light bill, the telephone bill the research of others, that families who and the rent need to be paid live in these very vulnerable neighbour- but they can only pay one. hoods are basically isolated and discon- They need to buy groceries nected. They are disconnected from the for a whole week but they economic opportunities that they need can only buy for a few to build wealth and assets and to gener- days. How could you face ate income. They are disconnected from those challenges each other because of culture, because of day in, day out? language, because of all kinds of orienta- You grow to respect That Matter tion. They live in the same spot but they their playing skills, ight Ideas don’t relate to each other often beyond a their strength to yr very small circle. They are disconnected face things cop rusz, from the kind of services and supports or that they can’t T

institutions that provide them their well- get done. The y Mark being. So our commitment ought to be to power that it Photo b

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 13 Rebuilding Communities Garland Yates

evaluation (an overall way of judging bilities and the kind of relationships we we would refer to as ‘comprehensive which lessons will be gleaned and what need and to establish a mechanism that community change initiatives’. In reality successes are ultimately achieved). can help ensure mutual accountability of these initiatives are quite diverse and Many of the community change initia- all the players. It also means creating exist across a wide spectrum of possibili- tives in our country have not been com- opportunity through practice and cele- ties. We, along with most other people munity-driven or have not been done in brating the kinds of individual transfor- in our country, started out trying to figure partnership with the community. For the mation, community transformation and out what is the magic bullet for poverty. most part, they’ve been either funder-dri- institutional transformation that will be We came up with things like,’if the ven, which means they’ve been founda- needed. Also, we’ve got to be committed neighbourhood is safe’ -so we'll concen- tions, government or other powerful to learning as a part of the success before trate on neighbourhood safety. Or, ‘if the external organizations to the community you begin. And again, we’ve got to main- education system is functioning well’ - so or they’re professionally-driven, led pri- tain a strong commitment to results. we’ll concentrate on education. And I think we have reached a point of accept- We try to make guiding principles serve as a As a way of ing that there isn’t any one magic bullet. covenant; an agreement between the participants bringing into play The idea is relationships and alliances these notions, and accountability and respect and work- and the players... Are we going to be transparent in you’ve got to ing together to achieve a common set of a power analysis and the inequities that exist with- have a strong set outcomes. in the initiative itself? of guiding principles. Often guid- Community-change initiatives are marily by planners or other professionals ing principles emerge from an exercise of dynamic initiatives. They are in a con- relying on professional skills and capaci- just talking about it. But we try to make stant state of flux. The sheer number of ties, purchased or funded, external to the guiding principles serve as a covenant; an participants, activities and projects in community. agreement between the participants and and of themselves result in constant the players, not about what we’re going change. If it is always changing, it is very So we have these principles about the to do outside the room, but how we’re hard to predict what's going to happen. value of community, we’ve got these going to interact with each other. Are we So the notion that you can start out say- principles that relate to us being trans- going to be transparent in a power analy- ing, “We will do A and that will lead to formed in this process and at the core, we sis and in the inequities that exist in the B and that will lead to C and that will are about taking action and mobilizing initiative itself? lead D,” has been dispelled by our expe- for results. In our country the trend that’s rience. What happens more is that there emerging is a focus on outcomes and We try to use use principles and values are these spheres of activities and results. The irony for me is that our insti- to answer three fundamental questions. processes that happen and they happen tutions have now reached this conclu- How do key players interact with one when they need to happen, not in a lin- sion and so now results and outcomes are another in the process of creating this ear way. So something that you think important. But they weren’t when I start- change? What is the responsibility that should happen after B, may not happen ed working in community; it was the we have to each other in terms of sup- ‘til later in the process, or vice versa. So families that wanted outcomes and porting and owning the decisions that we what we've learned is to relax our results. In my very first job, in the early make collectively? How does the initia- notions about a linear process. ‘70s working with communities, people tive model become democratic, that is, wanted me to produce. They wanted values that we espouse around equality, Community-change initiatives are housing. And I don’t mean they wanted fairness and justice? By emphasizing unpredictable. Change happens at every me to produce it alone, but they wanted these things, we attempt to lift the guid- point in time but not along predictable me to take some responsibility and be ing principle from a conversational paths. Movement comes in bursts or accountable for better housing and for process to a level of understanding that sometimes not at all. The moment in improved education. we refer to as the covenant. which something just clicks or someone just gets it, or an idea catches on, cannot So we want to make results and action Lessons Learned be claimed. I think in looking at some of the key cornerstone. This requires a new One of the most important lessons, if the activities around Regent Park, I sense knowledge about issues and the skills to you couldn’t tell already, is about the some of that reality. Somebody started 13 enact the changes that are needed. It centrality of residents to change in their or 10 years ago, and they wanted some- requires a strong, capable organization, community. It is formed by our experi- thing to happen. They might think not necessarily an entity but organization ences and a variety of initiatives that because it didn't happen in the next cou- to provide clarity of roles and responsi- have undertaken this work, all of which ple of years, that they were a failure. Yet

14 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Garland Yates Rebuilding Communities

I think continuous movement has gotten they don't go back. And so when the city prudentially as valuable, credible infor- the initiative to where it is. So even government and the community inter- mation for planning, and as evidence of though it may not have followed a plot- acts, for example, in a way to create the achievement of results. Traditional ted course, it's happening. And so we change and feel good about it, relation- practice would rely solely on community have to be open to that. ships are changed forever. They don't go indicator data. However this is typically back to being what they were. So being in relation to numbers, and resident wis- The elements of community change prepared for that is part of the communi- dom tends to add depth to understanding initiatives – people, groups, programs ty-change process. And in fact, looking what numbers alone cannot achieve. and organizations – are interrelated and forward to it can be a motivating factor. And as I said earlier, residents should be entwined. This often leads to a compli- among the primary actors in the process cated web of relationship behaviour and Control and order in community of imagining and realizing their own influences. The structure does not limit change initiatives are emergent. It's very future. So what we have to do is to itself to linear or hierarchical patterns difficult for them to be predetermined. remove this elite wall as a way of decid- but actually forms spheres of influence Community change initiatives self-orga- ing who has something to contribute or that have cause and effect. Community- nize allowing new patterns and structures not by figuring out how to quickly cre- chaired initiatives are transforming and to establish, replacing older ones that dential residents’ knowledge and wisdom their interactions result in irreversible become obsolete. These structural and to help them benefit economically change: new leaders are developed, skills changes cannot be designed necessarily from that credentialing. There is a depth are built, knowledge is gained. from the outside. In other words, a com- of understanding that numbers alone Participants can never go back to where mon saying that we use is, ‘trust the can’t achieve. they started. We’ve seen it happen when process’. Now that's very difficult for people are in a setting or in an initiative everybody for obvious reasons. But for us, I'm going to list a few examples that together and they start seeing each other acting together, thinking together, work- illustrate this. We’ve got to see commu- at a different place. In one of the coming together, playing together is for work. nities and residents as leaders, but then we have to work with them to help them grow and become leaders and not be threatened. We’ve got to provide opportunities – and this is an interesting one

That Matter that we’ve come to embrace and understand a little bit more –for residents to

ight Ideas challenge our knowledge, to challenge yr

cop the tools that we think work, and to rusz,

T challenge the solutions that we think ought to be in play, and at the same time y Mark create their own. We've got to actively

Photo b engage residents in issues of power and within that, the role of place, bias, culture and gender as a part of structurally changing the community. We're going to be constantly focusing on the achievement of meaningful and lasting results, recognized and celebrated in the community. So at the foundation, we may think that it’s a substantive issue, but if resi- Carolyn Acker, Executive Director of the Regent Park Community Health Centre asks a question dents don't share that belief, then we've got a caution, and we've got to question munities I work in, the Vietnamese start- Trust the process. And try not to orches- our definitions of success. ed seeing the Somalian group [different- trate it or fabricate it too much. ly]. The Somalians started seeing other Addressing Structural Barriers Asian populations differently. Wealthy We've got to be serious and seek very I want to mention some structural bar- people started then seeing people who creative and innovative ways to creden- riers that I think if left unattended, will are not as wealthy differently. Those tial resident wisdom. Resident wisdom is systematically undo the progress that we things are irreversible. These perceptions the intentional process of validating peo- might achieve. Individual transforma- will change as the relationships change, ple's experience and credentialing them tion is needed which means that people

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do need to think about what change they in the end, they become unorganized and other business and that equity is stripped need to be making within themselves. it becomes a lot harder for them to make away because someone made a predatory But that’s not the complete answer. If strategic use of our resources. loan, then we are building wealth on the you learn how to act better on a resume, front end and watching it be taken away if you become a better parent, all of that In terms of the patterns of institution- on the back end. To me this is a little bit is part of the equation, but it won’t make al disinventment in the community, can like putting water in a bucket with a hole racism go away. It will not make the it be reversed? In our country, if the local in it. inequities that we experience in terms of government is not delivering high quali- providing public services to these com- ty public services, not much can happen. So if we're talking about homeowner- munities go away. So we've got to think If banks or lending institutions are leav- ship, about micro-enterprises, about about these structural issues and then ing the community, we're going to have entrepreneurial activities, we’re going to part of the movement that is mobilized trouble building new houses and creating talk about the protections that we need to carry out the change initiative has to enterprise. So we can't ignore these to be putting in place so that people can grapple with these kinds of structural things as we think about long-term com- keep more of their wealth. In the end, a impediments to real change. munity change. Another separate struc- powerful community with leadership, tural issue, and I know you hear a lot skills and capacity is simply crucial to a [Support for] community develop- coming from south of the border on this community being able to sustain ment and anti-poverty issues, for the question, is that racial discrimination progress. most part in our country, is categorical - results in a powerlessness that perpetu- which often results in resources and ates poverty. So [if we are] talking about So in closing I guess our notion is that opportunities flown into the community rebuilding, strengthening and change, this whole business of community build- in fractional and unconnected ways. So and we are not willing to address these ing and community transformation is you think about that. What we've things, we are limiting our conversation. really about the transformation of heart. learned in building community initiatives, is that because these little pots of Another struc- Another structural impediment is the economic money and resources flow into the com- tural impediment munity around categorical ideas, they is the economic exploitation that happens in our communities create sub-constituencies or mini-con- exploitation that which prevents families building wealth and assets. stituencies in the community that have happens in our So if you built up some equity...and that equity is to compete with each other to survive. communities stripped away because someone made a predatory So in effect, what we've done with our which prevents loan, then we are building wealth on the front end resources from the outside source is we've families building and watching it be taken away on the back end. disorganized the community, contribut- wealth and assets. ing to its dysfunction and downfall. We've devised a Before we can really take a serious step kind of capital market into these kinds of It's really about us transforming ourselves towards reversing it or changing the tiers. The tier that operates in our com- as individuals, of our families transform- community on a permanent basis, we've munity is what we call a ‘sub-prime’ mar- ing themselves, helping people to trans- got to look at our own behaviour [as a ket. I have this image when I think about form their communities and transform- funding organization] in that regard. sub-prime market: the badlands in the ing the institutions that we work with so We've got to reduce the number of insti- West where anything goes. The justifica- that we can become a more useful part- tutions with outside resources, to reduce tion for a place to become a sub-prime ner. And in the aggregate, if we can the categorization of our support and market comes because you don’t have mobilize institutions and partners who encourage a collaborative effort at the any credit and economic ability, and if believe and share these notions about community level that rallies around an services do flow into your community how you build a community and sustain agenda, a framework for accountability, and everybody's willing to go along and it over time, and where the conditions and an elected authentic leadership base buy on these terms, so be it. Otherwise for children and family can happen, then that is empowered to partner with other these communities wouldn’t have we’ll have mobilized this local move- institutions. Otherwise, we never know resources. Well, in a very subtle perhaps ment to make change happen and make who we're working with. Everybody says but profound way, market activities and it permanent. they’re in the community, and in large behaviours like that end up stripping part this dynamic is fuelled by our behav- wealth and assets from the families that The following questions and answers have iour, not the community’s. The commu- have been able to accumulate them. So been selected from an extensive interactive ses- nity is distracted; they’re trying to orga- if you built up some equity in the hope sion which followed Garland Yate’s presentation. nize themselves to get our resources but that you're going to use it to invest in

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How can communities educate fun- So do you think there might be a could create these de-categorized pots of Qders? Funders have their own ideas Qtime when a community would say money to let that happen. I have not about what they want their money to do no to money? seen or read much information that sug- and maybe you luck out if the communi- gests that they are so successful at what ty is in line with that. But what if the I think communities always say, we're trying to do. We're really trying to community has a different understanding A“Don't lead with money.” In our reverse the notion and not just end up of what its goals are? How can we edu- initiative, people always say, “Don't start with the blended pot of money but cate each other so that the priorities the conversation by putting money on decrease the amount of influence that actually are the local organic ones. the table because you set off a mad outside institutions exert on that pot of scramble between organizations and resi- money. And so we're trying to creep at it One, I think that it is important dents who are trying to survive. Lead one bit at a time, so we're saying, “Okay, A to build alliances from the commu- with resources to help us get organized first, blend your program objectives with nity standpoint, with funders who may around our own agenda and let that cre- ours.” The idea is to have this money already get it. And then get those funders ate the framework for how investment is that really is designed to respond totally to help convene forums and events done.” to neighbourhood priorities. where there's interaction between community and funders. I think as we Since you've had experience with There’s an issue that has not yet become more conservative politically Qlots of cases in the past that worked, Qcome up today with respect to and as we need to start talking about the maybe you could give us one example of building assets. One of the most impor- return on our investments as founda- a funding model that’s worked with foun- tant points is that of financial literacy. tions, the environment is self-created. dations and various levels of government Banking institutions are not prevalent in contributing to a successful community this field. However, on the other hand, Now in another context, education initiative. there are a number of large banks who might be more of a verb than a noun. are interested in a financial assistance One of the most successful communities I'm not so sure I am aware of any program for affordable homeownership in our initiative is the Dudley Street A that have completely worked, but because they see economic benefits. It's Neighbourhood Initiative in Boston. we've tried to take bits and pieces of not just a social benefit, it's the econom- What happened there was a funder came things that have worked. What we are ic benefit. In terms of the asset-building to the community and decided that it trying to construct in Denver [one of the initiatives that your foundation is was going to invest a lot of money in a Making Connections sites] is a consor- involved in, can you comment on the nonprofit organization that was deliver- tium of funders, including federal gov- importance of these two things? ing services. They had a public meeting ernment, state government, local gov- to announce this and the community ernment and foundations who will not We do promote asset-building took that meeting over and began to necessarily put their money into one pot, Athrough things like individual illustrate to the funder why it was impor- because that's very difficult to do to start training accounts in partnership with tant to think about more than programs off with –but they're willing to take the banks and credit unions. However, one and equipment and capacity-building for programs that they're responsible for of the things that the data is suggesting nonprofits because the neighbourhood delivering in these neighbourhoods and to us is that residents are not using these conditions were not categorical and they allow those programs to be tailored so services as much as we would have antic- were interrelated. Their message was that they can be held accountable to the ipated. During a consultation last sum- forceful and uninvited at the time, but it community’s set of outcomes. So the mer, a couple of things emerged that that had such an impact on the funder that point is to create an opportunity to blend we're challenged to work on. One is that they started thinking about how they these resources by letting them go to our notions about financial literacy are could use a relatively small amount of activities and projects that will be framed very middle-class oriented. They are money to leverage a much larger commu- to achieve the outcomes that the com- based on an assumption that people nity rebuilding process. That's how the munities identified. Now when I say bits make bad decisions because they don't Dudley Street Neighbourhood Initiative and pieces, in several places local agen- know better. When we got into this con- was born. So on the one hand, we should cies have received permission from local sultation, we found out quite different. look for allies that are in a friendly com- government, who in turn have gotten People make bad choices because they munity share our values. But on the permission from state and federal govern- don't have an alternative. The immedi- other hand sometimes we just have to ments to create blended pots of money ate challenge financially for families in agitate and reorganize and take our that can be used at a local level to go our neighbourhoods is they need access responsibility to educate by pushing peo- towards initiatives like these. At one right away to small amounts of money. ple through change. there was a very popular notion that you They don't need $5,000. They need to be

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 17 Rebuilding Communities Garland Yates

able to find $500, $200, $300, and if we inadvertently become a tool for displac- spots. So for us, if we want to deal with really want to help them, we've got to ing people. We've got to explore various poverty, if we want to break it up and try figure out how to deal with that. forms of ownership that are both individ- to dispense it or get rid of it, we've got to Financial literacy campaigns are really ual and collective, like co-ops and land be serious about neighbourhood. The about helping people get to a point of trusts and mutual housing associations. challenge is that the universe that we're either opening a savings account or a We just can't be so narrow and tradition- playing in in our country increasingly is a bank account. They don’t help people al about homeownership. regional universe. Poverty is spreading understand the basic economic factors out a little bit. It's not totally just con- operating in their neighbourhood. So Epilogue centrated in inner city neighbourhoods, they're not any wiser financially except The last thing I would say is, why but it's now being concentrated in what they may know how to balance their neighbourhoods? When we looked at the we call inner-ring suburbs as well. So chequebook better. How we can push the data, it was so obvious that poverty is not there has to at some point be a connec- boundaries of how we've been approach- spread all over the place. It is concen- tion between the neighbourhood work in ing financial education to accommodate trated. And it is concentrated geographi- a policy context and the regional work. more of a popular economic curriculum? cally, and we know that from just looking And the policies are interrelated for sev- at a couple of things. When we look at eral reasons, one of which is, if we want On the asset-building side, especially people who are in prison and who are to move from just getting programs to homeownership which we're trying to being released, it's startling to do this systemic change as a way of achieving grapple with as well, one of the chal- kind of pin map and see where these folks larger scale change, then we've got to lenges we find is that overwhelmingly are going. In our cases, they are always think in a context beyond the neigh- the housing need in our neighbourhood bourhood. So that's the dilemma that we have to face.

Garland Yates is Senior Associate of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private foundation based in Baltimore, That Matter Maryland. Garland is responsible for managing the Rebuilding Communities ight Ideas yr Initiative (RCI) program activities, i.e., cop planning and coordinating the delivery of rusz, T needed technical assistance, planning conferences and other initiative meetings, y Mark making grants that help expand the

Photo b knowledge of comprehensive initiatives, and grants that help strengthen the capacity of the community building field in general. Prior to joining the Foundation in January 1995, Garland worked with a number of national organizations providing organizational development and management assistance to nonprofit organizations in local communities. Garland has served on the boards of many organizations, including the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Garland Yates, Annie E. Casey Fdn, Hon. John Godfrey, Minister of State the Management Assistance Group, the (Infrastructure and Communities), Diane MacLean, Regent Park Resident Discount Foundation and on an advisory Council, Derek Ballantyne, Toronto Community Housing Corporation committee to the Fund for Neighbour- hood Initiatives of the John D. And is for rental housing. We're encouraging going back to our neighbourhoods, and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. families to think about homeownership they are coming back with bad health as an asset-building base - which is right, issues and so forth. When we looked at we don't have any problem with that – where the poor performing schools are, but we've got to extend that because it when we look at poor housing condi- isn't very popular in our neighbourhoods tions, when we look at people who are For more information: for obvious reasons. So we've got to economically disenfranchised, all of Annie E. Casey Foundation, www.aecf.org extend it and not let homeownership those pins go into these concentrated

18 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Garland Yates Rebuilding Communities

Dudley Street Neighbourhood Initiative

he Dudley Street Neighbour- bourhood in collaboration with commu- initiatives and youth programs such as hood Initiative (DSNI) is a nity partners”. the Nubian Roots, and a summer youth T community-based organization job program have been created; the area in the Roxbury/North Dorchester At the outset the DSNI established a now has a neighbourhood community neighbourhoods in Boston and was one governance structure to ensure partici- centre, a neighbourhood elementary of the five communities across the U.S. pation from a wide array of stakeholders. school, and an annual multicultural fes- funded by the Annie E. Casey Its board of directors is comprised of 16 tival. DSNI runs a Resident Foundation’s Rebuilding Communities residents from the area (4 from each Development Institute, which provides Initiative in 1993. With a population of major ethnic group), 5 nonprofit agen- members of the community with skills 26,000 people, the neighbourhood has cies representing the health and social and knowledge necessary to lead the been one of the poorest in Boston with services field, 2 community develop- revitalization. over a third of residents living below the ment corporations, 2 small businesses, 2 poverty line. The neighbourhood is eth- religious organizations, 3 youths, and 2 As of 2003, the DSNI has a member- nically diverse with 37 percent African other nonprofit organizations. In 1987 ship of 3700 residents with a board of American, 29 percent Latino, 25 per- through a community visioning process, directors elected every two years. In cent Cape Verdean, and 7 percent the DSNI developed an overall commu- 1999, John Barros, who had been one of white. nity plan which identified key themes the first youth representatives in the for a revitalized community: a thriving early organization, became the new “Looking at the Dudley Street neigh- local economy, environmental health, executive director of DNSI. “Even more bourhood in the early 1980s, what you resident leadership and adequate ser- significantly, the neighbourhood has saw was low income, high crime, poor vices for children, youth and families. changed most in intangible ways since schools, burned-out buildings, acres of 1984. Where once there was isolation vacant lots used as dumping grounds, As a result of work over the past 20 and fragmentation, there is strong abandoned cars, and the night lit by years, the neighbourhood has undergone neighbourhood identity. Where there fires. The smell of smoke hung in the air, a transformation: to date, 300 of 1300 was once powerlessness, there is commu- 1 mixed with the stench of rotting trash” . vacant lots have been transformed into nity control. Where there was once that In 1984, residents and agency leaders, in affordable housing, community gardens ‘perception of a future already looted’, and public spaces have been construct- there is a vision and plan of action. conjunction with a local funder, came 2 together to reverse this decline and form ed; a community land trust was created There is Dudley pride.” DSNI. The organization’s mission is: and through state designation acquired “To empower Dudley residents to orga- “power of eminent domain’ to take over nize, plan for, create and control a privately owned vacant and abandoned vibrant, diverse and high quality neigh- land within the area; local commercial

Endnotes: 1 Putnam and Feldstein, p. 77 2 quoted from Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighbourhood by Peter Medoff and Holly Sklar, South End Press: 1994; see www.dsni.org/Community%20Information/demographics.htm

For more information: Dudley Street Neighbourhood Initiative, www.dsni.org Annie E. Casey Foundation, www.aecf.org Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, Simon & Schuster, 2003 (see Chapter 4: Grass Roots in the City)

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 19

Background on the Neighbourhood of Regent Park, Toronto Mary W. Rowe

n 2001, the Toronto Community also manages 350 high-rise and low-rise construction of the first phase beginning Housing Corporation (TCHC) apartment buildings, as well as about 800 in 2006. One of the most compelling I began a planning process to revital- houses and duplexes throughout the comments heard from residents of the ize Regent Park, one of its largest and city), rather than the same civic services existing community, was their wish that oldest housing projects. Built in the the rest of the city receives. There are no the new development look much like 1940s as an enclave of publicly supported mail boxes in Regent Park. There are no that of other downtown neighbourhoods. rental housing, Regent Park has evolved cafes. All of this has contributed to a Therefore, the plan is to encourage the into one of the most well known (at sense, by those who live ‘within’ it, of greatest diversity of built forms, typical to times even ‘infamous’) low income isolation, and disenfranchisement. The an urban neighbourhood, with mid-rise neighbourhoods in Canada. Dominated media’s coverage of various negative and mixed-use buildings along main almost exclusively by rental units owned events taking place in the Park has often streets and lower-rise residential units by a single landlord, and planned in such masked from the city-at-large the many within the smaller, internal streets. In a way to discourage integration with the positive attributes of the community. addition to housing, the mixed-use build- areas adjacent to it (i.e. the closing off of ings will provide space for a variety of the original through streets) commercial The physical layout of Regent Park has potential uses, including retail and com- activity and other forms of diverse land hampered the kinds of movement and mercial, which up until this time have use has not developed, and the commu- interchange, of vibrancy and intercon- not been present in the Park. Needed nity has remained predominantly poor, nection, that a neighbourhood better community and institutional space will with a mean income less than half of that integrated with its host city thrives on. be located primarily in buildings that of the city as a whole. What has devel- The sharing works both ways: the adja- provide level access on main streets, and oped, though, is an elaborate social struc- cent neighbourhoods and the city as a some in buildings surrounding a large, ture of cultural groupings and social ser- whole have much to offer the Park, and centrally located, public park. vice agencies, and for many (including its residents have much to offer them. some who have lived and/or worked Hampered by the absence of natural TCHC, and its landowner the City of there for over 20 years), a strong attach- interplay (shared arterial roads for vehic- Toronto, recognize that the redevelopment to their dwelling and surroundings, ular and pedestrian traffic, corner cafes), ment of the public housing stock also as home. The age of the buildings has these kinds of lateral connections have presents an opportunity for the creation necessitated they be re-built. The TCHC not always been smooth and productive. of a healthier community overall. By re- has undertaken to do that and at the Neighbouring areas have grown weary of introducing streets and public parks, re- same time remediate the structural mis- negotiating with an absentee landlord. integrating Regent Park into the sur- takes that, in light of present under- Some continue to be fearful of a concen- rounding city, and making the area more standings of city planning, has prevented tration of lower-income people, believ- diverse and attractive to small businesses Regent Park from developing into a more ing that it makes their adjacent neigh- and other commercial activity, advocates diversified community that would offer bourhoods less safe and devalues the of the redevelopment are hopeful there residents the ranges of choice and oppor- worth of their homes. will be more economic opportunities for tunity more prosperous urban neighbour- the predominantly low-income residents, hoods do. Following an extensive community and a dramatically improved quality of engagement process, in 2003 TCHC life. The absence of through streets has approved a redevelopment plan (see meant that most Torontonians have not www.regentparkplan.ca). The plan pro- Over the years, various social service seen inside Regent Park, their percep- poses to replace the current 2100 rent- agencies have emerged to serve the needs tions principally shaped by its less attrac- geared-to-income (RGI) units, and add of the residents. Agencies located within tive fringes where public transit and car 2700 home ownership units, of which the neighbourhood offer a wide variety of traffic is routed. Municipal services like approximately 500 will be affordable to programs including English as a Second fire protection, garbage and snow households with lower incomes. The Language and other settlement services, removal, even policing, have been man- entire 69-acre site will be developed in youth recreation programs, employment aged by the housing authority, (which six phases over a 12-year period, with and training programs, and support for

20 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Mary W. Rowe Background on the Neighbourhood of Regent Park, Toronto

single parents. Over 50 social service requiring agencies operating within it to physical redevelopment has been pre- agencies operate daily in the Park. re-examine their own mandates, pro- dominantly favourable. Current resi- Serving the neighbourhood for many grams and services, in light of the long- dents express concerns about being dis- years is one of the country’s most innov- term demographic changes projected for placed first by the demolition and recon- ative community-based health centres, the area. Collectively, they are working struction process, and subsequently by the Regent Park Community Health with TCHC and City planners to deter- the introduction of market-priced units Centre (with over 400 people on its mine what the future social service needs and the impact of that on the existing waiting list). Faith communities, initially of the community will be, as the new- neighbourhood. Other neighbourhood Christian now Muslim and Hindu and comers who chose to settle in it may not watchers (including housing activists) others, have found worship and fellow- require the same range of services cur- are concerned about the ‘mix’ of housing ship space. There are two elementary rently offered (e.g. ESL classes), but in the redevelopment. Some feel the pro- schools, but no secondary school (the instead have an expectation of other portion of rent-geared-to income (RGI) population numbers don’t seem to war- community amenities (e.g. access to ice units should be higher, while others rant it) hence teenagers must leave their time). advocate a larger proportion of units neighbourhood and finance their own should be available for purchase by lower travel to continue at school. For this rea- As the area has fallen into disrepair, income households. Still others want to son, and other discouragements, over the tenants, many of whom are newcomers see a further intensification of the area years the number of teens quitting high to Canada and Toronto and hence lack with more total units and a larger num- school climbed. The community local experience of community involve- ber of residents. TCHC has maintained responded by creating an innovative pro- ment or the informal networks that facil- its position that no matter what, the gram of mentoring to encourage high itate ‘getting things done’, have found redevelopment will at minimum replace school students to complete their sec- themselves petitioning to a slow-to- the existing number of RGI units (either ondary studies and continue. (See page respond, under-resourced landlord. The on the Regent Park site or nearby), and 29 of this issue for more information corporate culture of the housing authori- that the creation of other housing types about this program, Pathways to ty was not collaborative or perceived to depends on what private developers are Education). be operating in the best interests of its willing to build (and think they can sell). tenants, resulting in higher levels of dis- The current plan sets out as a goal that As the composition of the residents of trust and disappointment. Over the last 500 affordable home ownership units be the Park has changed (waves of immigra- few years, though, following a forced created, and various financing ideas, in tion and other social trends) the pro- amalgamation which merged the munic- the absence of government programs to grams and services offered by the social ipal and provincial housing authorities either underwrite or stimulate it, are service community has also changed. into one consolidated entity, the being explored. The debate is anticipated The average age of an agency in Regent demeanour of the new housing company to continue as the construction phases of Park is 28 years. On the one hand, this (now TCHC) has gradually come to be the project roll out. speaks to the resilience and stability of an perceived as more innovative and recep- elaborate network of community sup- tive to including residents’ views in its In addition to changing the physical ports. But it also points to other chal- decision-making. This redevelopment attributes of the community, it is antici- lenges, posed by entrenchment, and the poses a real test to building increased lev- pated that the social fabric will be trans- inherent ambivalence any organization els of trust between TCHC, its residents, formed. Mixed-income neighbourhoods might have towards proposed changes to adjacent neighbourhoods, and the city are able to attract additional economic the composition of a neighbourhood that itself. and social resources that ultimately lead might disadvantage their clients. For to healthier communities. In anticipa- decades these agencies have been the Phased development is intended to tion of this, TCHC convened a process principal advocates for the residents of minimize relocation disruption for resi- to determine what aspirations the cur- the community; as the conditions for res- dents; create large enough blocks to cre- rent residents had for their evolving idents to self-organize were not present. ate a mix of housing types and tenures; neighbourhood. (see shaded box p. 22) Many agencies complain of being chron- provide sufficient time to install public ically under-funded, and resent scarce infrastructure (including state-of-the-art Developing strategies to realize each of public resources being consumed by the environmental measures such as a steam- these has been the focus of the Regent redevelopment while their existing pro- heating system); and create appropriate Park Resident Council (RPRC), a group grams, to serve the present population, community facilities and commercial/ formed in 2002 with a grant from the need greater support. retail space. Maytree Foundation, to help organize the community’s collective capacity to The redevelopment of Regent Park is Community response to the proposed participate in the redevelopment

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 21 Background on the Neighbourhood of Regent Park, Toronto Mary W. Rowe

process. The RPRC formed committees Elements of a Community Plan for Regent Park to develop workplans in each of these areas, plus a fifth, to look at the particular needs of youth. Local community Regent Park as a Learning Community, where learning opportunities include agencies have representatives on each of school retention programs, programs to bridge the growing technology divide in the these committees. community, the development of language skills, literacy, adult learning and preparation for advanced learning. In the fall of 2003, Ideas that Matter Regent Park as a Working Community, with programs targeted to enabling was retained to convene a process to greater economic participation including skills development, certification pro- engage funders and all sectors of the grams, and small enterprise incubation. broader Toronto community in the creation of a Community Plan that would Regent Park as a Healthy Community, with initiatives including nutrition and assist the RPRC and member agencies in food programs, illness prevention and health education. implementing these strategies. A city- Regent Park as a Settlement Community, with initiatives aimed at addressing the wide forum was held earlier this year barriers to social inclusion and economic participation by new Canadians. with residents, agencies, funders, and representatives from the city’s broader current residents continue to be heard, Toronto) Will those residents in the economic, social, government and non- and not be drowned out by the enthusi- larger, redeveloped Regent Park have profit sectors gathered at the downtown asm (and often self-interest) of new, bet- access to adequate services, when we YMCA to learn about the project and ter resourced, players suddenly keen to know that the current services are scarce begin to identify how they might become get involved? How can a culture of col- and under-funded? Will agencies have involved in the process. Extracts from laboration and partnership be encour- greater difficulty making their case for the lead presentation, given by Garland aged in a limited funding environment, funding, when the new neighbourhood, Yates of the Annie Casey Foundation, where trust may be lacking? with the addition of higher-income resi- are included in this issue of ITM. dents, is no longer deemed an area of There are enormous challenges working ‘highest poverty’? Following that meeting, the RPRC has in such a complex environment. begun to expand its membership, funding Although terrifically diverse in terms of Although fifty years old, and despite base, mandate and capacity to represent race and ethnicity, the neighbourhood years and years of promises and anticipa- not only the needs of the current resi- has been socio-economically monocul- tion, it’s early days for Regent Park. ITM dents, but also to anticipate the future tural, dominated by one all-powerful will continue to work in a facilitating needs of the community as it takes in player: the landlord. Making the transi- capacity with the RPRC and other new businesses, tenants, and homeown- tion to a more varied, less controlled and groups with an interest in the redevelop- ers. Various offers of expertise and fund- less predictable environment is challeng- ment. We are engaged in this work ing support have emerged to assist the ing enough. This is made all the more because of our ongoing interest in how Regent Park Community Planning difficult by the complexity of decision- communities self-organize. Despite some process, including the offer of extensive making required by the City’s planning research to suggest that other factors legal services free of charge. The and approvals process, and by other ini- have as significant an impact on the University of Toronto has expanded an tiatives taking place in parallel which elimination of poverty, we instinctively educational program offering residents involve many of the same community know that where we live has a direct access to a specialized curriculum. New players (i.e. the exploration of tri-level impact on our capacity to thrive.1 partnerships with various city institu- government agreements to renew neigh- Neighbourhoods do matter. Updates on tions continue to be cultivated. bourhoods, see the United Way of these discussions will be reported on in Greater Toronto’s Strong Neighbour- future issues of ITM. Many interesting questions have arisen hoods Task Force, page 35) with these conversations. Who can speak for such a culturally diverse neighbour- Without dramatic shifts in Canadian Endnotes: hood? (One voice? Many voices?) Can 1 public policy with respect to income sup- For a discussion of this research see the the current resident-based organization port, a high needs, low-income popula- report of the Strong Neighbourhoods Task transform itself into a broader-based tion will always require the RGI units Force: community organization that will repre- located in Regent Park. (In 2004 there www.strongneighbourhoods.ca sent the needs of future members of the were 65,000 households waiting for sub- community? How can the planning Mary W. Rowe is the editor of Ideas That sidized housing spots in the City of process ensure that the interests of the Matter.

22 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly The Present Community At A Glance

Area Characteristics

he Regent Park neighbourhood is a 69-acre area in east downtown ation TToronto bounded by Gerrard, River, Shuter and Parliament Streets. With the exception of a block at the southeastern corner of Dundas and unity Housing Corpor Parliament Streets, all of the housing within the area is owned and operated by onto Comm or the Toronto Community Housing T

Corporation (TCHC) as rent-geared-to- Source: income units.

Dundas Street, the neighbourhood’s only through street, bisects Regent Park North from Regent Park South. North Regent Park contains a mixture of three to six-storey walkup apartment houses and townhouses while South Regent Park has several high-rise apartment buildings in addition to townhouses. TCHC supplies services normally associated with traditional residential neighbourhoods, such as policing and garbage services. However, Regent Park lacks such amenities as pay phones, mailboxes housing project, is situated south-west of and banking services. Along the eastern boundary between Regent Park. Commercial and industrial River Street and the Don River is a mix- buildings south of Queen Street, in an There is a single small privately owned ture of privately owned high-rise apart- area known as Corktown, are currently commercial building south of Dundas ment buildings and the Oak Street being converted to residential lofts for Street housing a small grocery store, Housing Co-operative. Several small young professionals. The West diner and launderette. Other commer- pockets of vacant or under-utilized land Donlands, part of the larger Toronto cial activities lie outside the area, pri- parcels in the area have recently been Waterfront Revitalization Plan, lies fur- marily on Parliament Street with a few redeveloped with private townhouse ther to the south and is targeted for sig- small convenience stores on River, developments. nificant investment and development. Gerrard and Shuter Streets. South of Regent Park is the historic The South Cabbagetown neighbour- To the north of Regent Park is the Trefann Court neighbourhood, which hood lies to the west of Regent Park Cabbagetown neighbourhood, an up- was slated for urban renewal in the 1960s between Parliament and Sherbourne scale, gentrified Victorian neighbour- but after intense public pressure, was pre- Streets. It is a mixed residential area of hood containing primarily single family served with a combination of renovated gentrified single family dwellings, room- dwellings, which have been extensively housing and small infill developments. ing houses and apartment buildings. renovated. Moss Park, another large high-rise public

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 23 Regent Park: The Present Community

Age Distribution 2001 Regent Park Toronto Senior 4% Senior Children 14% 17% Children 29%

Youth 12%

Adult Youth 52% 15% Adult 57% source: Statistics Canada

Neighbourhood Demographics

1 ccording to recent census data , houses are being occupied by older, mainland China and Bangladesh. the neighbourhood bounded by wealthy couples with no children. If Vietnamese, Somali, Jamaican and Tamil AParliament, Gerrard, River and these trends continue, the revitalization residents make up the majority of the Queen Streets contains approximately of Regent Park will involve significant remaining residents. Continued strong 11,300 people. However, many agen- demographic shifts with the introduction immigration has led to an ongoing rise in cies note that the actual population is of approximately 2,800 units of market the number of people who do not use likely higher, due to a transient home- housing and an estimated additional English as their home language. A 2 less population and significant under- 4,500 adults and 500 children. recent survey of TCHC residents found reporting of household size. Overall the that 47 languages are currently spoken in neighbourhood has significantly more Regent Park is an immigrant settle- the area; no single agency in the area is children and larger household sizes than ment area: 65% of residents have arrived able to provide service in the seven adjacent neighbourhoods and the rest of in the last ten years compared to 43% in major languages. the city. 44% of residents are under the the City of Toronto. More than half of age of 24 years old. In the last ten years, the newest immigrants have arrived from the proportion of children in Regent Park has risen slightly and the number Families by Type, 2001 of seniors has fallen significantly. Regent Park has substantially more sin- Regent Park Toronto gle-parent families and substantially less couples with children than the general Lone-parent families population. The relatively large size of Lone-parent families 20% households in Regent Park is deter- 46% mined more by regulatory requirements Couples with for rent-geared-to-income households children than general urban demographic shifts. 48% Couples with children In comparison, the population in the 48% city of Toronto is aging. In addition, two Couples without trends are apparent in looking at new children 32% households moving into neighbourhoods adjacent to Regent Park: new condo units are being occupied by young Couples without source: Statistics Canada adults with few or no children, and new children 6%

24 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Regent Park: The Present Community

Size of Household, 2001 Regent Park Toronto 6 or more 6 or more 1 persons persons person 5% 10% 16% 4-5 1 persons person 22% 28% 2 persons 19%

4-5 persons 36% 3 2 3 persons persons persons 17% 28% 36% source: Statistics Canada

Visible Minority Population as % of Population, 2001 Used with permission. ation. unity Housing Corpor

onto Comm Average number of or T tesy persons in private households: Photo cour Regent Park: 3.3 Toronto: 2.6 Regent Park Toronto source: City of Toronto

Language Spoken at Home, 20013

Regent Park Toronto

source: City of Toronto

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 25 Regent Park: The Present Community

between Regent Park residents and the City of Toronto. Half of the adult population in Regent Park has no post-secondary ation. education compared to slightly more than a third of the city’s adult population (see chart below). Pathways to Education, an initiative developed through the Regent Park Community Health Centre, has zeroed in on this disparity and supports stu- unity Housing Corpor dents and their families through the crucial high school years and provides financial incentives for post-secondary education

onto Comm (see page 18). Interestingly there are a significant number of or T adults in Regent Park who are highly educated with at least one tesy university degree. Many of these residents are immigrants who have difficulty translating these educational credentials into Photo cour Canadian qualifications and relevant work experience.

Basic Needs Census Family Income, 2001

study of Toronto neighbourhoods published in 2004 by the United Way of Greater Toronto and the Canadian ACouncil on Social Development, Poverty by Postal Code (see page 35 in this issue) identified North and South Regent Park as the two communities with the highest poverty level in the City of Toronto. The median family income is substantially below that of the City of Toronto, $22, 901 versus $54, 399, and the poverty rate is 66% in Regent Park versus 19% for the City of Toronto.

In most areas of the east downtown, sharp income increases Regent Park Toronto source: Statistics Canada have been occurring in the highest income groups as new housing accommodates wealthier individuals and couples. So, in Education Level Achieved, 2001 fact, income disparity between income groups has been growing both in the downtown area and across the City of Toronto as a whole.

An increasing proportion of Regent Park residents receives income from employment. An average employment income of $20, 793 per household is received by 43% of households, however only 31% of Regent Park children live in these households. Only 26% of Regent Median Income, 2001 Park families re- $60,000 ceive income from welfare with an $50,000 average income of $54,399 $11,770. However, Regent Park Toronto source: Statistics Canada $40,000 44% of children Endnotes: live in families 1 In this article, 2001 Census data is used and refers to Census $30,000 whose primary in- tract areas 30 and 31, which include a slightly larger area come is from this $20,000 than Regent Park with the following boundaries: Parliament source. $22,901 Street, Gerrard Street South, Don River and Queen Street $10,000 East. In terms of edu- 2 Survey by Community Engagement Team, January 2004. cational attain- 3 Home language refers to the language spoken most often or Regent Park Toronto ment, there are sig- on a regular basis at home. “Multiple” refers to more than source: Statistics Canada nificant disparities one language as a response. 26 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Community Resources

he Regent Park community Council is now expanding its man- has a diverse number of com- date and taking a lead role in the T munity agencies serving resi- development of strategies towards a dents. According to a survey done community social and economic in 2003, the primary funder in development plan. This community Used with permission.

Regent Park is the City of Toronto plan will link into a number of other ation. followed by the provincial govern- planning processes which are cur- ment. Charitable foundations are rently underway with the anticipa- the third major source of funding tion that together they will form an

with the federal government playing overall social development strategy unity Housing Corpor a small role principally in settlement for the revitalized community.

agencies. onto Comm or At the southeast corner of Dundas T tesy The Regent Park Resident and Parliament Streets is the Regent Council (RPRC) which has played Park Community Health Centre Photo cour a strong advocacy role in Regent which provides primary health and Park over the years, was reconstitut- dental services to area residents. In ed in 2002 and through funding sup- addition, the Health Centre support has been able to hire a staff co- ports two broader health initiatives ordinator. The mandate of the – Parents for Better Beginnings, an RPRC is to advocate and protect the early years parenting program, and interests and assets of residents. Six Pathways to Education, an innova- education programs. committees address community tive program providing mentoring issues: Revitalization, Health and and tutoring support for youth and The SEAS Centre, established in Safety, Employment and Economic their families during the high school 1986 to provide settlement services Development, Education, Diversity/ years (see page 29). primarily to Regent Park’s Southeast Asian community, expanded its Dixon Hall, a mandate in 2002 to provide lan- multi-service guage and employment programs to neighbourhood newcomers in the broader Chinese- agency located speaking community. They remain south of the Park, the primary agency for settlement Used with permission. . s provides a range of services in Regent Park. eter educational and employment ser- Historically the Toronto y David P vices to Regent Christian Resource Centre has

Photo b Park residents, played an advocacy and leadership including the role in social issues in the communi- Regent Park ty. The Centre, located at 40 Oak Learning Centre Street, serves the homeless and mar- providing literacy ginally housed as well as providing and computer skills arts programming for children and Settlement and Youth. The for adults and LabourLink, an youth. Revitalization Committee of the employment agency for homeless Council has taken an active role in and marginally housed individuals. The Yonge Street Mission is a the early consultative process They also serve the area’s youth multi-service agency which operates around the revitalization plan. The through a range of recreation and a variety of educational and recre-

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 27 Regent Park: Community Resources

ational services at a community cen- Other community agencies serving changing settlement demographics tre immediately west of Parliament the area include Central Neigh- over the years has not been possible Street and a computer literacy train- bourhood House, Neighbourhood and Regent Park now lacks, for ing program and used clothing store Information Post, Toronto Kiwanis example, culturally appropriate on the northern edge of Regent Boys and Girls Club, the recreational programming for the Park. Cabbagetown Youth Centre and large Muslim youth population that Council Fire Native Cultural currently lives in the area. In addi- Regent Park Focus is an innova- Centre, all of which are located tion, with the rapid increase in the tive arts organization which uses physically outside of, but adjacent to Muslim community, there is also a media arts skills (radio, video and Regent Park. strong demand for a place of wor- newspaper production) as a tool to ship. While residents identified pro- engage and employ young people. The majority of the community grams for children as a strength The facility, located in Regent Park and institutional space available in there is considerable frustration South, produces a radio series, a Regent Park is provided through around the lack of access to youth print and online newspaper and Toronto Community Housing, which programming and adult and senior video features as well as sponsoring over the years has converted housing programs due to language and/or cul- the annual Regent Park Film units into day care space and office tural barriers. Festival. space. For example, the City operates several facilities on TCHC Each of the community agencies The Umar Bin Khattab Mosque owned land including the Regent operating in Regent Park has to re- provides education, recreation, Park Recreation Centre on the south examine their own mandates, pro- social and settlement services as well side of Dundas Street. The Centre grams and services in light of the as religious services to the Muslim provides indoor and outdoor recre- long-term demographic changes community in the Regent Park area. ational programming for adults and which are projected for the area. A The mosque has a limited budget youth with a gymnasium, multi-pur- community services plan will exam- primarily raised through donations. pose rooms and office space. The ine how community services and Their clients speak over 11 different only swimming facility for 8,000 res- facilities in Regent Park will be languages and many of the agency’s idents is an outdoor pool in North replaced, rebuilt or expanded as part services, including interpretation, Regent Park. The majority of other of the redevelopment and how are provided by volunteers. active recreational space are school future needs can be met. The plan is playgrounds at Nelson Mandela Park being developed through a consulta- Adult educational services are Public School, Duke of York/Regent tive process with the community provided at Toronto East End Park Public School and Lord agencies, the Toronto Community Literacy, an agency located at Dufferin Junior and Senior Public Housing Corporation and the City Gerrard and Parliament Streets. School. of Toronto and is due to be complet- The centre provides services in nine ed by the fall of 2005. languages and serves both Regent While the area has numerous Park residents and the homeless. agencies serving Regent Park residents, the community services and The Salvation Army, located on facilities survey conducted in early River Street, has been operating in 2004 concluded that in general, Endnotes: Regent Park since 1904. More than facilities and programs are limited 1 Mary Neumann, Sean Meaghar and Tony half of their clients live in the given the size and diversity of the Boston. Regent Park Community Services Regent Park neighbourhood and population. Furthermore, agencies and Facilities Study (March 2004), p. 43. receive service and pastoral coun- operating out of free or borrowed selling as well as adult education ser- space from either TCHC or the City vices. With an annual budget of of Toronto will be obviously impact- approximately $150,000, the ed during the redevelopment Salvation Army is one of the smaller process. Due to limited space, adding agencies operating in the park. additional services to respond to

28 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Regent Park: Community Resources

Experiments in Social Innovation: Pathways To Education

he Pathways to Education their children at school. The preponder- those students most at risk (achieving 5 Program (P2E) is a unique ini- ance of single-parent households in or less credits): the proportion of these T tiative of the Regent Park Regent Park also takes a toll on families. students was substantially reduced from Community Health Centre. Its broad The need to work long hours, often at 38.6% to 18.7%. mission is to end the cycle of poverty more than one job, means that these and unemployment that has marginal- parents are not able to be at home when Looking at the social return on this ized the Regent Park community by children arrive home from school. These type of program investment, the poten- addressing education and income, two multiple challenges require a multi- tial benefits are enormous: the incarcer- fundamental social determinants of faceted approach to give children and ation rate for high school dropouts is 15 youth the support that will best enhance times what it is for those with some post- health. The program, which began in their educational outcomes. secondary education; social assistance September, 2001 helps students better and unemployment payments to meet academic challenges by creating a The P2E program has been designed dropouts are estimated at twice that of ‘culture of achievement and high expec- to meet these challenges in several ways. high school graduates; dropouts are tations’ in which students are enabled to Academic support is provided through twice as likely to be unemployed as high more fully realize their potential. twice-weekly tutoring in core subjects school graduates and three times as like- Specifically, P2E focuses on the transi- (English, French, Math, Science and ly to be unemployed as university gradu- tion of Regent Park’s youth from the Geography); social support through a ates. A federal government study esti- area’s grade schools to various high group mentoring approach with related mated the private market rate of return schools by providing an integrated set of social activities and fieldtrips; financial for completing high school at more than academic, financial, and personal sup- support through the provision of TTC 40 percent for Canadian graduates rela- ports. tickets earned through attendance at tive to those who dropped out in Grade school and a $1,000 per student per year 10. Significant challenges have histori- bursary for post-secondary education cally impeded the success of many chil- held in trust until graduation; and advo- The P2E program is now in its fourth dren living in Regent Park. An ongoing cacy support through student/parent year with the first cohort scheduled to problem for Regent Park’s young people support workers who provide critical complete high school in June, 2005. It has been the travel distance to area high linkages to school guidance staff, atten- is hoped that the program ultimately schools; the only high school in close dance counsellors and social workers. supports the original community vision proximity to Regent Park, Jarvis articulated by the Regent Park Collegiate, has a strictly academic pro- Program results to date have been Community Health Centre: “The chil- gram, which has not been appropriate remarkable. Currently 97% of Regent dren of the community will become the doc- for all Regent Park students. Family Park’s eligible youth are participating in tors, nurses, social workers, community poverty, unemployment and the lack of the program. Absenteeism among stu- health workers and administrators of the financial stability experienced by many dents in grades 9 and 10, for example, Health Centre. ” families often makes it impossible to buy has dropped significantly during the first a TTC metropass that would provide two years of P2E, with absentee rates in For more information: their children with regular transporta- grade 10 (the program’s second year) Pathways to Education, www.p2e.ca tion to school and to other events with dropping to less than half what they peers. It has also made purchasing were prior to the program’s implementa- Regent Park Community Health Centre, school supplies, lunches and fieldtrips tion. High school credit accumulation www.regentparkchc.org difficult at best. has greatly increased; Regent Park’s grade 10 students surpassed grade 10 stu- A lack of fluency in English for many dents from three main downtown Regent Park families also presents obsta- Toronto high schools in overall credit cles. Language barriers make it difficult accumulation. Initial program results for these families to help their children seem to indicate that the program has with homework, and to advocate for had a particularly strong impact on

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 29 Regent Park: A Brief History Laurie Green

“Any citizen who has any interest at all in the betterment of his City and his less-fortunate fellow man should go all out for public housing.” Robert H. Saunders, Toronto Mayor (1945-1948)

he impetus for the initial development of Regent Park came

largely from an address given in Item 68 T , March 1934 by then Lieutenant-

Governor of Ontario Dr. H.A. Bruce, ies 33B

who spoke at Toronto’s centennial cele- Sub-ser brations. He warned that Toronto had acquired “inevitable slum districts” ies 372, Ser which “exert unhappy environmental ,

1 hives

influence upon many of our citizens”. Arc

Bruce bemoaned the development of onto or slum areas in Canada’s largest cities, and T emphasized their detraction from City of Toronto’s ability to reach its greatest potential; upon this basis he urged that action be taken to eradicate such areas. His remarks that day made sufficient enough impression on Mayor Robert Saunders and Toronto’s Board of Control that an Advisory Committee was subsequently formed to inquire into housing conditions in several areas of the city, Row houses on Gerrard Street East, circa 1940 with Bruce appointed honorary chair. The committee would focus specifically town. Moss Park was deemed as present- missing plaster on exterior walls reveal- on 1) the quality of the accommodation; ing the greatest challenges as it was more ing bare lathing and broken windows. 2) rentals paid by tenants; and 3) envi- seriously overcrowded. The study of over Interior photographs reveal evidence of ronmental conditions. What ensued was 3,000 dwelling units classified nearly overcrowding, a lack of sanitation, and the most comprehensive investigation of three quarters of these units as substan- cracked walls and ceilings. There were urban housing conditions in Canada, dard. Conditions in the homes studied by virtually no recreational facilities for the culminating in the influential Bruce the committee were bleak; most were area’s children; the only play area for Report in 1944, which detailed the living without adequate indoor plumbing facil- many were the streets and tiny, often conditions within Toronto’s slum areas. ities or central heating and were invari- cluttered backyards. ably overcrowded, thereby posing signifi- An intensive special study was con- cant health risks to residents. Many of The Bruce Report gave the general ducted of two of the most seriously the houses in the area, row housing for public greater insight into the deplorable blighted areas; the area then known as example on Sumach Street, were rough- living conditions of Toronto’s poorest Moss Park whose boundaries encompass cast construction – plaster over wood citizens, and provided significant ed present-day Regent Park, and the lathing. Photographs of these houses momentum to civic groups who sought Ward, an area closer to central down- exhibit serious deterioration such as the redevelopment of sub-standard resi-

30 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Laurie Green Regent Park: A Brief History dential areas. At the time of the Bruce federal and provincial legislatures, and appeal to the public for support. At a Report, federal and provincial govern- City Council, in a renewed effort to November 1944 housing conference, ments had shown little interest in public engender action to address the City’s keynote speaker Nathan Straus, the first housing as a social or economic public need for low-rental housing. The administrator of the U.S. Public Housing policy tool. Federal housing legislation demand for public funds to meet this pur- Authority, addressed the audience. He was virtually non-existent, and planning pose gained strength. The Association emphasized the success of programs pro- departments did not yet exist in Ontario. believed that overcrowding that was tak- viding subsidies to house low-income cit- The Bruce report proved pivotal in 1943 ing place following the war left the gov- izens in the United States. Straus’ posi- as the efforts of civic groups were reward- ernment of Canada with a responsibility tion was used to support claims that the ed when the City Planning Board pro- both to servicemen and their families, growing blight of sub-standard housing posed redevelopment of the area present- and to municipalities. They also pointed in Toronto was causing the decline of ly known as Regent Park North, bound- out that the federal government had the property values, loss of tax revenues; and ed by Dundas St. East, Gerrard St. East, financial means to deliver housing fund- increased costs to tax payers. The Parliament St., and River St. Buildings ing. Association advocated that slum clear- in this area were 60 to 70 years of age, in ance was the answer to these problems, poor physical condition, and 48 percent The challenge at the time for munici- and was a necessary step to safeguard the of the homes had only stoves for heat. pal housing redevelopment was that the city’s present and future progress. The There were 628 houses and 35 commer- provincial government had formal Toronto Board of Control responded to cial and dwelling units, however 822 responsibility for housing, but not the the mounting pressure for action by families were living in these small homes, funding, while the federal government putting the question of the Regent Park along with many roomers and boarders, had no formal responsibility, yet had project before the electorate. In the and likely others of whom researchers were not informed. In addition there were 18 industrial and commercial build- Item 86 ings and 33 parcels of vacant land of , varying sizes that had contained housing ies 33B previously torn down due to its dilapidat- Sub-ser ed condition. ies 372, Ser The following year the Toronto , Citizens’ Forum created the Citizens’ hives Arc

Housing Association, later known as the onto or Citizens’ Housing and Planning T

Association. In their constitution, the City of Association highlighted the fundamental importance of decent housing to “sound family and community life”. The resolu- tion illustrated the concerns from which civic action for the construction of Regent Park North arose. It stated:

The Association grows out of the increasing concern of the citizens of Toronto for the conditions under Small businesses on Gerrard Street East, circa 1940 which the families of servicemen and low-income groups have to live…It funds. To address this situation, the January 1947 municipal election an believes these conditions to be…a Association put pressure on the federal intense publicity campaign ensued that serious danger to the health, morale, government to provide legislative and included letters to all municipal candi- and efficiency of the families and of financial resources, pressed the province dates, the distribution of thousands of the community, and a shameful com- to provide similar resources through hand bills, interviews on local radio sta- mentary on the community’s neglect planning and housing legislation, and tions, and letters to the press. of the larger welfare of its citizens.2 pushed City Council to proceed with slum clearance and the housing project. The wider sharing of information with The Association liaised with different the general public about the city’s worst levels of government, members of the Finally, the Association also made an housing conditions enabled voters to

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 31 Regent Park: A Brief History Laurie Green engage in the matter in a way that they hadn’t before. This dynamic, along with Item 84 the strong support of Mayor Robert ,

Saunders, helped to secure a “yes” vote ies 33B for the slum clearance and construction of Regent Park North. The desire of civic Sub-ser

groups to improve the current health of ies 372, Ser the city, provide opportunities for it’s less , fortunate citizens, and to maximize the hives future potential of Toronto, was com- Arc onto or bined with an assurance of financial T responsibility assumed by the newly cre- City of ated Toronto Housing Authority. In a July 1955 article in the Board of Trade Journal entitled Toronto Can Be Proud of Regent Park, Frank E. Dearlove, Administrator of the Regent Park Housing Project extolled the virtues of the project, claiming that the project was an economic asset to the city, due in part to an increase in the level of tax revenues generated by the area. The level of opti- Houses on Oak Street, circa 1940 mism for the future of the project and its benefits was very high. by-Law, and passed by Council on architecture. The design was based on September 29, 1947. Once the land was the notion of building vertical cities in To make way for the development of secured, the physical designing of the the park, leaving large common areas of Regent Park, the City expropriated exist- space commenced. green, street-free space throughout the ing homes. The first acquisitions of land community. At the time, this layout was for Regent Park were approved in Regent Park’s design was based on Le viewed as an ideal solution for providing September, 1947. The authority to Corbusier’s concept of “City in the Park”, the area’s children with safe space in acquire the land was bestowed upon the and was in effect a test case for emerging which to play, and for community recre- newly created Housing Authority by city postwar planning theories and modernist ational use. With idealistic enthusiasm, proponents of this new approach believed it would eradicate Toronto’s slums, and perhaps poverty itself. Frank Item 117 Dearlove concluded: RG 28, ,

hives “Reports from district schools

Arc indicate that because of improved onto

or living conditions the children are T cleaner, healthier and happier and City of that they are getting better grades since moving into the Regent Park Project. Reports from Police and Fire Departments, and Departments of Public Health and Public Welfare, indicate that municipal costs in this area have notably decreased. Even more important is the fact that the incidence of crime, juvenile delinquency and family problems has materially declined... indications are that it’s citizens will be better off morally, physically and Mayor Saunders inspects a pile of debris in Regent Park - July 24, 1947 mentally as a result of living in this

32 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Laurie Green Regent Park: A Brief History

model housing development.”3 example, has resulted in a lack of access province to the city and amalgamation of for policing and a general lack of “eyes on the city’s nonprofit and public housing By the time Regent Park North was the street”, as the interior of the commu- portfolios, there is now a more positive completed, it had become home for nity is not visible to main pedestrian and climate in which to consider a major 5,211 residents and marked the start of motor traffic moving at the area’s periph- revitalization of the area. an urban renewal program, considered ery. Rather than providing “safe space” both beneficial and necessary by plan- for the community as intended, this con- ners and city officials. Hailed a success, figuration has resulted in physical dis- all of the original inhabitants of the pre- connection from the surrounding neigh- existing housing were re-housed, and many experienced indoor plumbing, and hot and cold running water for the first time. By comparison to the housing it

had replaced, Regent Park’s units were Item 132432 clean, large, bright, well-heated, and were provided at very affordable rent- geared-to-income costs. Looking back, one can appreciate the enthusiasm with which many citizens and civic leaders Globe & Mail Collection, embraced the beginnings of Regent Park. onds 1266, F , The second phase of the project, hives

Regent Park South was developed Arc onto

between 1957 and 1959, financed pri- or marily with federal housing funds under T the National Housing Act, which had City of been enacted in 1954. All of the lands south of Dundas Street West were demolished to make way for a series of five high-rise towers interspersed with ground-related townhouses. While the focus of Regent Park North had been the The Bluett family in the kitchen of their old house, prior to resettlement of the area’s ‘working poor’, re-locating to the first re-developed unit in Regent Park, 1949 the selection of tenants for Regent Park South focused more on affordability and bourhoods, an absence of commercial Endnotes: income levels, partly due to the involve- and retail activity, and the creation of 1 Albert Rose, Regent Park: A Study in Slum ment of the federal government. As a public spaces, blocked from view of the Clearance. (Toronto: University of result, the area quickly became home to street and ideal for illegal activities. In Toronto Press: 1958). only the most disadvantaged households addition, the housing stock itself is phys- 2 Frank E. Dearlove, “Toronto Can Be Proud in the city, a situation which has contin- ically outdated and requires significant of Regent Park”, Board of Trade Journal ued to the present day. upgrading and modernizing of appli- (July 1955). ances, layout, plumbing, heating and ele- 3 Ibid. In the intervening fifty years, the vators. physical design of Regent Park as well as Laurie Green is a fourth-year student in the social policies which helped shape Beginning in the 1980s, several re- the Urban Studies program at the University of Toronto and was an intern the current community, have been called design initiatives have been discussed to at Ideas That Matter during the 2003- into question. The coupling of Le improve neighbourhood conditions. In 2004 academic year. Corbusier’s design concepts with a dis- the mid-1990s, the City of Toronto and proportionately poor, visible minority the Ontario Housing Corporation dis- population encountering multiple barri- cussed a significant redevelopment of the ers to full participation in society has area and proposed a pilot project for the contributed to Regent Park’s present dif- northeast quadrant however the effort ficulties. The termination of smaller was unsuccessful. With the recent trans- streets once part of the street grid, for fer of housing responsibility from the

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 33 Regent Park: A Brief History Laurie Green

References

Dearlove, Frank E. “Toronto Can Be Proud of Regent Park.” Board of Trade Journal, July, 1955. Item 94 RG 28, ,

Gillespie, Kerry (July 23, 2003). hives “Thumbs up on Regent Park the new Arc onto or face of social housing: Canada’s oldest T gets set for a transformation”. The Toronto Star. City of

Hall, Joseph (December 20, 2002). “A noble experiment that went awry: Regent Park was paved with good inten- tions”. The Toronto Star.

Hume, Christopher (May 19, 2003). “Regent Park’s flawed dream”. The Toronto Star.

The Housing Authority of Toronto (1964). The Housing Authority of Toronto Regent Park Parade, undated Opens the Door to Better Living: A Review of Progress 1947-1964.

Regent Park Collaborative Team Item 116 RG 28,

(December, 2002). Regent Park ,

Revitalization Study. Toronto. hives Arc onto

Rose, Albert (1958). Regent Park: A or T Study in Slum Clearance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. City of

Sewell, John (1993). The Shape of the City: Toronto struggles with modern planning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Veronis, Luisa (1999). Exploring the Margin: The borders between Regent Park and Cabbagetown. Master’s Thesis. Toronto: University of Toronto.

Regent Park Construction, 1948

34 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Regent Park Revitalization - The Social and Economic Plan

Neighbourhoods Matter: Poverty by Postal Code

overty by Postal Code (PPC), pub- Over the study period ‘very high Toronto and Etobicoke (see map on lished in April 2004 by the poverty’ neighbourhoods (‘very high page 36). Toronto’s map of poor neigh- P United Way of Greater Toronto poverty’ defined as 40% or more family bourhoods now largely reflects the profiles the ‘geography of neighbour- households in poverty)in the city search for affordable housing; with fami- hood poverty’ in Toronto over the last increased from just 4 in 1981, to a total lies moving out to the ‘inner suburbs’, 20 years. The report presents a startling of 23 neighbourhoods in 2001. Further, (the former municipalities of portrait of how poverty in Toronto is in 1981 more than 80% of poor families Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, becoming increasingly localized, ‘racial- lived in mixed-income neighbourhoods York and East York). Many of these sub- ized’ and ‘feminized’ and lays the but that figure has now declined to 47%, urbs were expanded during the 1960s groundwork for developing place-based a dramatic change in the concentration and 1970s with substantial blocks of strategies to deal with neighbourhood of poverty. In 1981 poor neighbour- high-rise rental apartment buildings. poverty issues. hoods were those primarily located in These developments were built without census tracts dominated by public hous- sufficient consideration to community Changes to the spatial concentration of ing, in other words, ‘poverty by design’; infrastructure such as youth recreational poverty in Toronto were examined by: neighbourhoods such as Jane/Finch, services, adequate transit and access to Alexander Park, Regent Park and Moss social services. The growth and concen- • Determining the percentage of Park and a few scattered neighbour- tration of poor neighbourhoods have the city’s ‘poor’ families that hoods in Scarborough formed a distinc- consequences that have been well-docu- were living in higher poverty tive U-shape across the City of Toronto. mented in the United States and Great neighbourhoods in 1981, 1991, By 2001 the map of poor neighbour- Britain. The out-migration of local and 2001; hoods shows a very different picture: the businesses and middle-income house- • Identifying the number of high- U-shape has been replaced by an O- holds leads to a breakdown of social er poverty neighbourhoods that shaped ‘donut’ around central affluent cohesion and the marginalization of res- existed at each of these three neighbourhoods in the former cities of idents. points in time; and • Plotting the changes in neighbourhood poverty over time. Number of Higher Poverty Neighbourhoods, Toronto

The study illustrates the dramatic increase in the rate of poverty among 97 Toronto’s families over the last 20 years, High Poverty rising from 13.3% of all family house- Very High Poverty holds in 1981, to 16.3% in 1991, and 19.4% in 2001 (the comparable national figure in 2001 was 12.8%, a slight decline from 1981). Average family 57 household income in the lower income census tracts actually declined over the twenty-year period (from $41,611 to $39, 298 in constant 2000 dollars), while in the top income census tracts 26 23 income levels rose dramatically (from 4 $135,801 to $215,344 in constant 2000 9 dollars).

Source: Statistics Canada, Census 1981, 1991 & 2001

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 35

Regent Park Revitalization - The Social and Economic Plan

Neighbourhoods Matter: Poverty by Postal Code

In addition to the spatial concentra- ble. Sixty-five percent of poor immi- The trends documented in Poverty by tion, the profile of these ‘higher poverty’ grant families now live in these neigh- Postal Code clearly demonstrate the neighbourhoods reveals that increasing bourhoods, as do three-quarters of complexity of issues of economic dispar- numbers of the most vulnerable mem- Toronto’s poor visible minority families. ity, such as income supports, affordable bers of society reside within these neigh- To further compound the issue, 87% of housing, and economic integration bourhoods. Between 1991 and 2001, the the employable population in ‘very high’ strategies for newcomers. The United number of children raised in these poverty neighbourhoods in 2001 was Way has identified newcomers and neighbourhoods increased by 100%, ris- employed. It is not that these families young people as high priority recipients ing from 80,590 in 1991 to 160,590 in are not working, but that they are work- of increased resources to build stronger 2001. There was also a 60% increase in ing in low-paying or part-time jobs neighbourhoods, to help offset the the number of youth and over time, this which provide an inadequate family processes of decline that are underway. figure will naturally increase. Lone par- income. The study confirms that recent The report also emphasize the need for ents raising children in high poverty immigrant families are experiencing cooperative action to be taken by gov- neighbourhoods increased by a stagger- increasing difficulty in integrating eco- ernment, business, labour, community ing 91.7% between 1991 and 2001 (88% nomically into Canada likely due in organizations, and local residents. This are female-led). However, while the large part to the high price of housing study confirmed what many community absolute number of these families combined with the barriers in labour leaders knew: urban poverty is increas- increased, the proportion of lone-parent market integration for internationally ingly based on place. families of all families in poor neigh- trained professionals. bourhoods has remained relatively sta- What’s Next? The United Way of Greater Toronto, in partnership with the City of Toronto, City of Toronto 2001 - Economic Family Poverty Rates has formed the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force, composed of members from government, community, labour and corporate sectors. The task force is studying the challenges of distressed neighbourhoods, and will articulate a vision for healthy neighbourhoods and set benchmarks for their revitalization. An interim report is due in the spring of 2005.

For more information: United Way of Greater Toronto, www.unitedwaytoronto.com

Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force, http://www.strongneighbourhoods.ca/ index.html

The 2001 map of the city of Toronto is divided into census tracts, with each tract coloured according to the level of family poverty in the tract, relative to the average national LICO (low-income cut off). ‘Higher’ poverty neighbourhoods are those where 26% or more of the families in the neighbourhood have incomes below LICO. They include neighbourhoods that have been defined in the study as ‘high’ poverty (where the range of poverty rates is between 26% - 39.9%), and ‘very high’ poverty (where the level of family poverty is 40% or more). Source: Poverty by Postal Code, p. 21

36 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Neighbourhood Revitalization

Asset-Building: Addressing Poverty in Canada

“The dynamics of escaping poverty on a more permanent basis are funda- mentally linked to the access to assets, shaped by savings and investment decisions. This requires asset-based supports in addition to income transfers if governments are to fulfill their role in ensuring a more equal opportunity and shared well-being for all Canadians”1

Many studies have shown that in the attend post-secondary institutions. for savings towards adult education, last decade the gap between rich and training or micro-enterprise start-up. poor, particularly in urban areas, is grow- Asset-building programs use a tool Delivery of the program is through coming. When the data also includes pat- known as Individual Development munity-based organizations who are terns of savings and asset ownership, the Accounts (IDAs) to provide a struc- responsible for recruiting, screening, gap becomes even larger. In Canada, tured and incentive-based method for financial literacy training and case man- most asset accumulation programs have savings. Essentially dedicated savings agement support. The program permits traditionally been directed through the accounts, typically deposits by partici- low-income individuals to save up to tax system (e.g. RRSP, RESP), which pants are matched at varying rates by $1500, and matched funds can be accu- low-income Canadians, through lack of governments and/or other sources. The mulated and disbursed to an approved sufficient income, have not benefited personal savings remain the property of “vendor”. Initial findings indicate that from. In addition, many low-income the participant but the matched accu- the program leads to improved long- Canadians are in fact faced with asset- mulated savings can be dispersed for term self-sufficiency. saving disincentives such as means test- authorized uses for home ownership, ing to verify eligibility which discour- training programs and adult education A second project, Home$ave, builds ages and/or penalizes savings. or micro-enterprise development. In on the Learn$ave experience by allow- addition participants normally partici- ing eligible low-income individuals to Asset-building has emerged as one pate in financial literacy programs and open an IDA and utilize savings and approach for addressing poverty based other supportive services. matched contributions towards a down- on the work of U.S. researcher Michael payment on a first home, home repair, or Sherraden. In his book Assets and the In Canada asset–building programs first and last month’s rent. The project Poor, published in 1991, Sherraden and policies are in the infancy stage. is currently in the design phase and it is pointed out that people living in pover- Social and Enterprise Development expected to be implemented in late ty tend to be more short-term focused in Innovations (SEDI), established in 2004 in a number of urban and rural their thinking and behaviour, not so 1997, is one national organization communities. The Regent Park redevel- much because of their values as because attempting to address problems of opment is one of the communities being they are compelled by the environment poverty through several demonstration considered for the pilot project. within which they must make decisions. projects targeted particularly to immi- This can result in patterns of decision- grants, visible minorities and aboriginal Endnotes: making that may ultimately present Canadians. 1 The Case for an Asset-based Approach to structural barriers to escaping poverty Social Policy in Canada, Institute for Public both presently and throughout life for SEDI is currently involved in two Policy Research (IPPR), 2001, pg 3. avail- members of the household”.2 Post-sec- demonstration projects. Learn$ave, able at: www.sedi.org ondary education would be one example begun in 2001, with funding from 2 Ibid, p.4 of this: families with no capacity to gen- Human Resource Development Canada erate savings believe that higher educa- (HRDC), encourages eligible low- For more information: tion is unaffordable and therefore con- income individuals set up IDAs. Each SEDI, www.sedi.org; sistently make decisions based on the $1 of an individual’s contribution is assumption that their child will not matched with $3 from funding sources

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 37 Neighbourhood Revitalization

Urban Development Agreements: The Vancouver Agreement - Downtown Eastside

The Vancouver Agreement is a five- dents through the support of communi- directly funded by the Vancouver year urban development agreement ty-based working groups. A second Agreement, proponents of urban devel- between the federal government major initiative has been the revitaliza- opment agreements point to these types (through the Western Economic tion of the Chinatown business area, of spinoffs as one of the significant Diversification Fund), the province of including leadership development, com- advantages of a ‘platform’ of coordinated British Columbia and the City of munity crime prevention and marketing collaboration. Vancouver. Signed March 9, 2000, the and promotion. agreement commits these levels of gov- On the other hand, urban develop- ernment to develop and implement a A 2002 Strategic Plan refined the ment agreements are not always a coordinated strategy to promote and three broad goals of the Vancouver panacea to inner city revitalization for support sustainable economic, social and Agreement into an integrated set of spe- several reasons. An agreement is not a community development within local cific objectives which included the rede- substitute for large cities having ade- communities in Vancouver. The first velopment of the Woodwards depart- quate and sufficient powers for making focus of the Agreement has been ment store site, urban design initiatives, long-term, sustainable investment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside the dismantling of the open drug scene their communities. While the agree- (DTES), an historical area with distinct through a combination of prevention ment can provide a ‘multi-sectoral table’ drug and related crime issues. and enforcement strategies, expansion for coordinating programs and invest- of the Neighbours First program (street ment, accountability still resides in While the agreement itself does not cleaning and street patrols), and senior levels of government, there is no provide for funding for specific projects, improvement of living conditions in sin- guarantee of funding and significant it does agree on three basic strategic ini- gle-room occupancy hotels. A March local community engagement is difficult tiatives: community health and safety 2004 Economic Revitalization Plan now to achieve. including primary health care and harm proposes to lever additional economic reduction strategy, economic and social development opportunities from several For more information: development including affordable hous- key linkages: the 2006 UN World Urban Vancouver Agreement, ing, and community capacity-building. Forum, the 2010 Olympic Winter www.vancouveragreement.ca According to Isobel Donovan, the Games, and the federal government’s Executive Coordinator of the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. A major Downtown Eastside, Vancouver Agreement, the advantages objective is to ensure that residents of www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/ of the agreement are that it provides the Downtown Eastside benefit from planning/dtes/index.htm structures for collaboration and expand- these major events and programs. Four Pillars Coalition, ed opportunities for partnership, encour- www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/fourpillars/ ages innovative approaches to programs, “A fundamental challenge is to coalition.htm encourages strategic targeting of improve economic and living conditions resources and establishes horizontal without displacing low income popula- Social Purchasing Portal, teams across governments at each level tion”, says Nathan Edelson, Senior www.sppvancouver.org/ (policy, management, implementation Planner, City of Vancouver. A commit- and communication). ment to develop social and community Winnipeg Tripartite Agreement, economic development initiatives has www.gov.mb.ca/ia/tripartite/ The initial projects undertaken in the been essential and one innovative DTES were funded through a five-year approach includes the Social Purchasing Community Crime Prevention program Portal, an initiative of Fast Track to by the National Crime Prevention Employment (FTE), and BC Centre. Community capacity-building Technology Social Venture Partners was undertaken through an initiative which links private business purchasers called Community Directions which and suppliers with community econom- provided outreach to marginalized resi- ic development activity. While not

38 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Connecting Public Policy with Frontline Experience John Stapleton

The St. Christopher House Community Undertaking Social Policy (CUSP) Project

Agencies that deliver social services have been increasing- goal is to ground current social policy work in our communi- ly frustrated with worsening social conditions. Workers and ty: creating an informed dialogue between policy-makers and volunteers at the frontline repeatedly find government poli- affected community members in order to improve the quali- cies and income support programs that hinder or even wors- ty of social policy. Policy-makers gain greater sensitivity to en the financial situation of individuals: - often unintention- the nuanced issues facing diverse low-income people while ally. Concerned about the gap between frontline experience low-income people and frontline agencies improve their abil- and policy design, St. Christopher House, a multi-service ity to contribute to improved social policy. community agency located in west central Toronto, began the Community Undertaking Social Policy (CUSP) project In addition to the CUSP policy ‘fellows’, St. Christopher in 2000 with funding from the Atkinson Foundation and House works with volunteer technical experts from the support from Massey College. financial services and business community to deliberate on solutions to some of the income policy problems identified CUSP is based on the model of an “artist in residence”. A during these projects. St. Christopher House and its net- policy expert temporarily joins the St. Christopher House works are building more awareness about these income poli- community of program participants, volunteers, frontline cy problems with lower-income people and with the broader staff, management, Board of Directors and partner agencies public. As a result, some government policy-makers are lis- to share and analyze stories of their lived experience. The tening more attentively to frontline community issues.

Observations by John Stapleton, CUSP their situation as social assistance recipi- themselves, even when they are raising Fellow, excerpted from “Learning from the ents is really a detachment from political young children alone. Public and the Lived Experience of St. and social debates over issues in which Christopher House Participants”, August they do not see themselves as having a Insofar as St. Christopher House helps 2003. real interest. Like society at large, par- them to achieve their own goals to ticipants see themselves as individuals become self-sufficient, they are very n my interviews [with St. Christopher struggling for self-sufficiency. Like any- much advocates of the work of St. House participants and staff during one else, they think that they would do Christopher House and other agencies. Imy fellowship program], I started by better if they had more money from the However, few had strong feelings in asking participants on social assistance system and they don’t like stigma, but favour of a social policy agenda to make how they saw themselves. Interestingly, they see themselves as solving this dilem- changes in society and social policy in they saw themselves first and foremost in ma by individual effort or perhaps with general. terms of what they do for a living even if personal assistance to help them individ- they are temporarily not doing it. They ually out of poverty. In social policy terms, government, then saw themselves, as mothers or agencies and advocacy groups from both fathers, as friends, as volunteers, as com- Part of this viewpoint may be left and right, argue the pros and cons of munity members, as citizens, as immi- explained by the times we live in. Paid welfare reform, some believing in further grants, as voters, as taxpayers, and as work, mostly outside of the home, is val- cuts while others call for increases to advocates. ued highly in our society by both men strengthen the safety net. But from the and women. Like governments that see perspective of welfare recipients, perhaps I now believe that what often gets mis- work as an alternative to welfare, they agencies like St Christopher House could taken for apathy or lack of interest in largely share this value and vision for achieve more success by promoting the

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 39 Connecting Public Policy John Stapleton

quality and equality of opportunity in the In the US, polling results suggest that ty programs even when they are aware workplace itself, rather than trying to a majority of people favour welfare sav- (through large computer systems) that improve welfare. In this way, the “decon- ings going into providing greater oppor- people are eligible for them. He was able struction of welfare” as a policy alterna- tunity for the recipients from whom the to elicit real changes to policies at the tive could be of interest to advocacy savings have been realized. Making a federal level to use these computer sys- agencies. This approach is not new. It case to the public that some of the sav- tems notify people of their eligibility for was originally championed in Ontario ings should be spent on recipients them- basic income security. with the publication of the Transitions selves will fall on receptive ears. document in 1988. It is often referred to The fact that people are unaware of as the SARC report or (Report of the Participants at St. Christopher House the programs for which they are eligible Social Assistance Review Committee). seem to be simply asking governments, reveals that social inequality in Canada their agencies and the public to help results in part from the availability and For the last ten years, government pol- them get ahead and to refrain from poli- quality of basic information. The good icymakers have paid much attention to a cy efforts that stop them from doing so. news is that there are a number of areas type of welfare reform that has resulted in They are asking for no special favours – where progress can be made. lower rates and tighter rules. These they are just asking for policies that level changes are designed to get people to go the playing field to give them the same For example, the federal government to work. This approach needs to change. opportunities that others with higher could do a better job to notify low- More emphasis should be placed on the income and wealth already have. income families with children in Ontario quality and adequacy of paid work itself. of their potential eligibility for the By pigeonholing people into the very National Child Benefit and other tax- People become trapped on social assis- unpopular label of social assistance recip- based benefits. St. Christopher House tance because the workplace simply does ients, advocates see participants as peo- has taken an active interest in this area not offer them an economically viable ple who are outside the labour force who and has written to Canada Customs and set of opportunities to achieve self-suffi- have needs, yet the wider society sees Revenue Agency in order to make ciency. Minimum wages, tenuous hours, them as people who don’t work. The progress on this matter. A positive and equally tenuous work-place experi- reality is neither. Most working poor will response to begin a dialogue on these ences we have do not support indepen- either go on welfare or alter their life pat- issues has been received. dence from programs. Moreover, benefit terns as a result of a fear of ending up on structures for welfare programs were welfare. Most welfare poor experience a I was struck by the low quality and designed to support non-work. What is constant cycling between welfare, EI, lack of availability of information on needed is work-friendly policies such as and work. They take their identity from basic income security program eligibility improved childcare, financial literacy, the less stigmatizing role of “worker tem- experienced by St. Christopher House and income supplementation, private porarily not working”. participants. Program complexity, diffi- and public job security, and advance- culty in access, language and cultural ment regimens. By focusing on social assistance, agen- barriers all conspire to keep needed cies, governments, and the public divert information and assistance on eligibility A particular work-unfriendly policies themselves into a debate over entitle- and application processes away from are the tax advantaged savings vehicles ment vs. forced work when the real needy low-income people. available to the middle class and well-to- debate is over the availability vs. the do but not the poor. The Registered non-availability of opportunity to enter Repeatedly, I interviewed people eligi- Development Savings Plan (RDSP) con- the mainstream. We need to focus on ble for social assistance who did not cept that I [developed] as one of the writ- that mainstream, improving both its real- receive it and did not know how to go ten products of this fellowship is a vehi- ity while breaking down the barriers to about receiving it. The same was true for cle that policymakers could use to pro- access to it. processes to lower public housing rents, mote opportunity in new and creative to apply for Canada Pension Plan (CPP), ways. Access to income security programs is disability benefits, and the Guaranteed still a problem for low income people Income Supplement (GIS) One other reason people become trapped on social assistance is that they Richard Shillington, the first recipient People living sometimes chaotic and simply cannot afford to save. They are of the CUSP fellowship at St. disorganized lives, often living without also prohibited by welfare rules from tak- Christopher House discovered that gov- the help of others, have particular prob- ing on the arduous process of returning ernments do not actively notify people of lems in accessing information, processes or entering the workplace. eligibility for government income securi- and services. Information requirements

40 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly John Stapleton Connecting Public Policy

involving photocopying, faxing, filling ing money while on assistance. Each was private boom and bust economies made out forms and access to third party verifi- in a special situation with special hous- up of long droughts and minor windfalls cation are often onerous enough to pre- ing and other supports which allowed – they learn to manage their money to vent people from receiving benefits for them to entertain the possibility of build- meet these realities. Social policymakers which they are eligible. ing assets. I was impressed with the num- should study these realities and try to ber of people calling on the subject of make policies that reduce recidivism Governments and the public alike how to handle a minor windfall. among social assistance recipients. Good often believe that potential recipients of evidence from the US shows that recidi- benefits are expert in the rules surround- These windfalls came in three varieties: vism is dramatically decreased where for- ing access and eligibility. However true mer recipients are able to retain and save this may be for a small minority of peo- • minor inheritances or payback of a cushion of funds to call on during the ple, it is not the case for a large cadre of money owed in a personal situation; inevitable rough patches that occurs people who come to the attention of • compensation awards of some type; from time to time. social service agencies with a host of issues that find their root cause in lack of or Low Income Individuals and access to basic income. • lump-sum payments from a program Communities where amounts had accrued over a As we move in to a period of greater period of time A demanding public wants to have automation of access for government ser- social programs that exact responsible vices, these same governments should Put together, these three varieties of behaviour from those who benefit from provide needed assistance to those who windfall result in a fairly common phe- them. Those who may benefit from have difficulty with these innovations. nomena experienced by welfare recipi- social programs must be prepared to Many simply do not possess the set of ents (or people worried about needing change their behaviour in positive ways skills required to understand and access welfare in the near to medium term). In in order to derive the maximum benefit. basic income security. many instances, governments exempt these windfalls under social assistance But the public also wants programs Living on low income accentuates the rules. However, the common denomina- that work and perform in the best inter- important role of minor windfalls tor among recipients, their trustees, and ests of individuals and society. There is advocates is how to use the windfall in a no point putting a program in place that In all of the discussions about helping responsible way to meet the needs of the is too hard to access or which creates low-income people to build assets to save recipient. incentives to work where the rewards of towards an income for later life, much of work are too meagre. the discussion in the literature tends to In my mind, windfall management is a centre on savings (e.g. Individual whole area that relates to the daily, lived Low-income people are in agreement Development Accounts or IDA’s). experience of low-income people that with society at large on the best ways to requires much more policy consideration alleviate poverty. They share a common Although important, the whole idea of by governments and policymakers. On view of dependency and have the same saving money while on welfare is not the one hand, a concerned public can be dreams for themselves and their children. only rare and difficult, it also invokes driven to distraction over stories of “wel- serious debate over the adequacy of fare spending sprees” where clients spend At the community level, the same is social assistance rates in two important their assets just to remain eligible for a true. Community activists have started ways. The first centres on the level of program. On the other, explicit policies new approaches to reverse the negative deprivation that one would have to insist on real impoverishment as a view of low-income communities as vul- endure in order to save money while requirement for eligibility. These policies nerable and weak. They portray low receiving welfare while the second are often complicit in forcing these hur- income communities as strong, innova- invokes the possible adequacy of social ried spending sprees in the first instance. tive and resilient (just like so-called rich assistance rates if one is able to save in At St. Christopher House, we are communities). Through such approach- the first instance. proposing the Registered Development es as community assets mapping these Savings Plan (RDSP) as a place to park a activists replicate the positive approach- In my immediate experience before windfall until a point in time is reached es that agencies use commonly when coming to St. Christopher House, I where recipients can put the money to its they approach their donors for funding. worked in a social assistance field office best use. talking to clients on a daily basis. Only By reversing the safer and more tradi- two recipients had questions around sav- Poor people are used to living in their tional approaches that emphasize weak-

A quarterly Volume 3 Number 2 41 Connecting Public Policy John Stapleton ness, under funding, discrimination and they take pride in the assets and public opinion to shape social policy. vulnerability, these new approaches show strengths that low income communities Through his experience in St. Christopher the hidden assets that these communities possess. Just like individuals, communi- House, Stapleton developed a proposal for contain. ties need to be able to live, work, and a "Registered Development Savings Plan" (RDSP) to help secure the assets of low- build their assets in plain view. income people. This RDSP model is an But we need to be mindful of the rea- improved alternative to RRSP's for low- sons that low-income communities hide income people. their assets in the first instance. This is not a simple paradigm shift. It is the reality that communities hide assets for the John Stapleton joined St. Christopher House as the second CUSP "policy fellow" same reasons that individuals do – the in 2002/03 after 28 years in the provin- fear that if exposed, the assets will be at cial civil service as a senior policy ana- risk of being taken away. lyst. Stapleton worked with diverse members of the St. Christopher House commu- We need assets retention strategies for nity to explore issues such as access to dif- individuals to gain traction to live, work, ferent income security programs, the new For more information: and build their assets in plain view. Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, St. Christopher House, Communities need the same strategies the National Child Benefit and how the www.stchrishouse.org and need them even more urgently when civil service and politicians respond to

42 Volume 3 Number 2 A quarterly Resources

Neighbourhood Revitalization Resources

A selected list of resources on neighbour- Chaskin, Robert J., (December 2000) Keating, Dennis W. and Norman hood revitalization and comprehensive com- Lessons Learned from the Implementation Krumholz (1999). Rebuilding urban neigh- munity initiatives. Most of the websites of the Neighbourhood and Family bourhoods: Achievements, Opportunities, contain related resources and bibliogra- Initiative: A Summary of Findings. The and Limits. Sage Publications: Thousand phies. An additional index for comprehen- Chapin Hall Center for Children. Oaks, CA. sive community initiatives is the www.chapinhall.org. Community Building Resource Exchange at www.commbuild.org. Popkin, Susan J., Bruce Katz, Mark K. Chaskin, Robert J. and Clark M. Peters Cunningham, Karen D. Brown, Jeremy The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2002). (July 1997). Governance in Gustafson, and Margery A. Turner Learning from the Journey: Reflections on Empowerment Zone Communities. The (May, 2004). A Decade of HOPE VI: the Rebuilding Communities Initiative. Chapin Hall Center for Children. Research Findings and Policy Challenges. www.aecf.org www.chapinhall.org The Urban Institute: Washington D.C. www.urban.org. The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2002). Couch, Chris, Charles Fraser and Susan Voices from the Empowerment Zones: Percy (2003). Urban regeneration in Regent Park Revitalization Study Insights about launching large-scale com- Europe. Blackwell Science. (December 2002). Regent Park munity revitalization initiatives. Collaborative Team. www.aecf.org Jacobs, Brian D. (2000). Strategy and www.regentparkplan.ca partnership in cities and regions: economic The Aspen Institute (1997). Voices from development and urban regeneration in Roberts, Peter and Hugh Sykes (2000). the Field: Learning from the Early Work of Pittsburgh, Birmingham and Rotterdam. Urban Regeneration: A Handbook. Sage Comprehensive Community Initiatives. Macmillan. Publications: London. www.aspeninstitute.org Living Cities: National Community Robson, Brian, Michael Parkinson, The Aspen Institute (2002). Voices from Development Initiative (2002). Martin Boddy and Duncan MacIennan. the Field II: Reflections on Comprehensive Something is Working…. Basil J. (November 2000). The State of English Community Change. The Urban Whiting, ed. www.livingcities.org Cities (Urban White Paper). Department Institute: Washington DC. of the Environment, Transport and the Mangen, S.P. (2004). Social Exclusion Regions: London. www.odpm.gov.uk/ Auspos, Patricia, Prudence Brown, and and Inner City Europe. Palgrave Janice Hirota (July 2000). MacMillan: New York. Spaans, Marjolein (2002). The imple- Neighbourhood Strategies Project: A mentation of urban revitalization projects: Final Assessment. Chapin Hall Center Meyer, Diana A. et al (2000). Program an international comparison. DUP for Children. www.chapin.uchicago.edu Profile: Community Building in Science. Partnership, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland. The Brookings Institution (July 2004). The Enterprise Foundation. www.enter- Torjman, Sherri and Eric Leviten-Reid Neighbourhoods of Choice and prisefoundation.org (March, 2003). Comprehensive Connection: The Evolution of Community Initiatives. Caledon Institute American Neighbourhood Policy and Pierson, John and Joan Smith, eds. of Social Policy: Ottawa. www.cale- What It Means for the United Kingdom. (2001). Rebuilding community: policy and doninst.org www.brookings.edu/metro practice in urban regeneration. Palgrave: New York. Walker, Christopher and Mark Weinheimer (1998). Community Development in the 1990s. The Urban Institute. www.urban.org

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