The Toronto Star featured the following article for April 11th, 2007 (also pasted at the bottom of this email):
Residents seeking role in urban turnaround
Laurie Monsebraaten
Donovan Vincent
http://www.thestar.com/Unassigned/article/201749
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I sent the following response to Toronto Star's editor regarding
the Monsebraaten & Vincent's article. Let us hope it gets published:
Chin-up Jane-Finch
Re Residents seeking role in urban turnaround
GTA, April 11
Toronto's 'priority' neighbourhoods must learn to help themselves. Forget the lack of political will. Forget disempowered municipal actors. Focus on individuals. Focus on overworked and under-serviced blue collars. Nevermind the province that pulls the purse strings.
I agree that residents must be involved in the turnaround of their communities. Individuals are more apt to utilize services that they have a hand in implementing. However, community engagement without adequate dollars is cents-less. What do we tell Jane-Finch and Malvern? Chin-up? Do some good work and the city might even throw some dollars at you?
Rahul Mediratta, Scarborough
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Residents seeking role in urban turnaround
Encouraging
the people who live in underserviced `priority neighbourhoods' to come
up with solutions to their problems is the first step to improving
their prospects, forum is told
Apr 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Laurie Monsebraaten
Donovan Vincent
Staff Reporters
In
a forum dominated by talk of "community consultation" and "resident
engagement," Eva Tavares, a mother of five, got to the heart of the
matter.
"I lived in Lawrence Heights for 25 years and when I left
to live in another part of the city, I found another life," she told
more than 300 people last night at a forum on revitalizing
neighbourhoods in need, sponsored by the Toronto Star.
"Why
didn't we have great playgrounds and programs? Why were our youth
walking around without anything to do? I couldn't see this anymore. It
hurt me," she said, recounting her decision to return to Lawrence
Heights and try to make a difference.
It's no coincidence that
neighbourhoods plagued by gun violence, poverty and despair are also
those with the worst access to public transit, the fewest recreation
centres and the least number of services for newcomers or low-income
families, the forum heard.
In the city's inner suburbs, banks and
shopping centres are scarce. And essentials like doctors' offices,
employment centres and places to learn English are often a crowded bus
ride away.
But new attention and funding from government and
community agencies aimed at reversing decades of decline in the inner
suburbs is bringing hope.
And residents must play a key role in the turnaround.
A
community's most important resource is its residents, said Winston
Tinglin, director of community engagement for the Toronto Community
Social Planning Council.
"The heart and soul of these communities
are the residents," said Tinglin, who is overseeing a United Way-funded
community revitalization project in Toronto's Weston-Mount Dennis area.
"Engaging
residents themselves in designing the solutions to their problems is a
huge part of this, as is building resident leadership," he said.
When it happens, residents become energized and empowered and start seeing possibilities, he said.
Weston-Mount
Dennis, in the former city of York, is one of 13 "priority
neighbourhoods" identified by the city and the United Way for new
community programs and services to help combat poverty and the lack of
community support.
Residents already have a stake in these communities because they live there, Tinglin said.
If
they are given a chance to play a central role in determining what the
priorities are and if they are part of discussions with government and
local institutions about what is needed, there is a greater chance of
long-term success, he told the forum.
But residents need support.
They need basic training on how to run community meetings, lobby city
hall, apply for grants, form and maintain resident associations and
committees.
And they need access to money to pay for things that can act as catalysts for change.
Sean
Meagher, project manager for Action for Neighbourhood Change in
Scarborough Village, said that community's decision to spend $80,000 in
federal funding for playground equipment sparked a wide range of
exciting community initiatives.
The playground equipment not only
gave neighbourhood kids something to do, it brought parents together in
an informal way and got them talking about other improvements they
would like, Meagher said.
The 1999 death of 3-year-old Breanna
Davy, killed in the cross fire of an attempted murder in Toronto's
Jane-Finch community, prompted the creation of the Black Creek West
Capacity Building Project.
Working closely with city officials,
residents have formed working groups aimed at building neighbourhood
pride, improving job prospects for residents, making better use of
green space; improving access to education and enhancing services, said
project co-ordinator Christine Davis.
Residents want to create a
community archives to document the neighbourhood's rich history.
Another group wants to start nature walks along Black Creek. And others
are working on establishing a community loan fund to help residents
start local businesses, Davis said.
Since gun violence and youth
crime are prevalent in the inner suburbs, it's important to include
young people in neighbourhood revitalization plans, said Kosal Ky,
executive director of For Youth Initiative. The program, run by and for
youth has been operating in the Keele St. and Eglinton Ave. W. area for
about 10 years and is part of the Weston-Mount Dennis neighbourhood
revitalization plan.
Many residents say youth are the problem, Ky
said, so let's make them part of the solution. Youth should be part of
every aspect of community planning, from policing to economic
development, she told the forum.
Ky is excited that the City of
Toronto has just approved a new recreation centre for the corner of
Eglinton Ave. W. and Black Creek Dr. Youth need a place to gather and
to call their own, she said.
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