Housing
November 26th, 2009
cross-posted from Spacing Atlantic
HALIFAX — National Housing Day was first marked on the calendar by a team of Toronto housing advocates on Nov 22, 1998. But this year, more than a decade later, it was infused with new meaning.
Housing is back on the national agenda, with proposed Bill C-304 calling for the development of a national housing strategy designed to ensure safe, adequate, accessible, affordable housing to all Canadians. The Bill, seconded by Halifax MP Megan Leslie, has deep implications for Canadian cities, and the diversity of housing challenges they face. “Housing impacts the health of communities,” says Leslie, who is the NDP critic for housing and homelessness. ”It’s not just about putting a roof over someone’s head, it is about the health of a community general — the physical health, the mental health, the economic health of a community.â€
The need for a national strategy was made amply clear at yesterday’s National Housing Day events in Halifax. Gathered at St. Matthew’s United Church, a crowd of over 100 marked the opening of the Out of the Cold emergency shelter for a second winter. A collaborative community initiative by the Metro Non-Profit Housing Association, Community Action on Homelessness (CAH), St. Matthew’s, and a dedicated team of volunteers, the shelter provides 15 beds for men and women.
A panel consisting of members of the organizing committee, housing advocates, and community members shared stories on why initiatives such as this one are so important in a city like Halifax, wrought with its own unique set of housing challenges. However, the grassroots, community-based strategy provokes conflicted feelings for many of those involved.
The fact that the shelter receives no support from the government is “the elephant in the room that we have to recognize,” said Fiona Traynor of Dalhousie Legal Aid. “It’s all being done by volunteers, and as great as that is, it’s still, in my opinion, a black mark on the federal and provincial governments.” This black mark is indicative of the need for a national strategy.
June 1st, 2009
Each Monday, we bring you some of the popular posts from our sister blog, Spacing Montreal. We’ll keep an eye open for topics and discussions that …
January 28th, 2009
When word started leaking out last night through Mayor David Miller via Twitter that Transit City wasn’t funded in the budget brought down by the federal government, I was disappointed. …
January 16th, 2009
EDITOR’S NOTE: Spacing illustrator and contributor Mathew Borrett has joined our blog team and will post occasionally about interesting finds in the City of Toronto Archives and the stories behind the images.
Shaw Street over the humble Sully Crescent, looking west in 1901. (map)
Like most cities, Toronto is a lot flatter than it used to be. The shapes of many early neighbourhoods were defined by ravines and meandering creek beds. Seen as obstacles to development, they were aggressively filled in and their waters relegated to dark pipes underground. The buried Garrison Creek is a prominent Toronto example. A few sections remain only partly filled — Bickford Park, the bowl in Trinity Bellwoods, the dip on Ossington between College and Harbord. By the time of the Garrison’s internment, it had become little more than an open sewer and convenient dumping site for the population exploding around it. Taddle Creek, Walmsey Brook, and many others suffered similar fates. Now these waterways are storm drains and sewers, absorbed into the city’s infrastructure.
A section of Garrison Creek used to wind northeast across College at Shaw street. In the late 1800s a modest collection of houses sprouted here on Sully Crescent. A long wooden stair connected the end of the crescent with Shaw Street above. The present-day Dominion grocery store (now Metro) on College and Fred Hamilton Park now occupy the filled land. How many shoppers, as they cross the parking lot to pick up a few groceries, realize that a neighbourhood once stirred far below their feet?
October 30th, 2008
At a noon hour budget committee meeting, the City of Toronto publicly launched its capital budget approval process. While the biggest dollar figures were reserved for TTC and roads, bike lanes play a prominent role in the $1.6 billion spending plan.
Mayor David Miller, budget chief Shelley Carroll and city manager Joe Pennachetti all highlighted the investment of $70.3 million to be spent installing bike lanes between 2009 and 2012. Starting with $8 million in 2009, Miller said that with those funds and the streamlined approvals process, the bike plan will be completed by 2012. The outcome of the Annette bike lane debate at today’s meeting of City Council should be an indicator of whether the City will be able to spend the entire cycling budget.
The budget, for a change, comes in $99 million below the City’s overall debt target (the maximum amount it can borrow) and the City will continue to pay down its existing debt by $225 million per year. Only 40% of the capital budget will be funded out of debt, with the rest coming mostly from federal and provincial governments.
The budget goes to City Council for approval on December 10. The budget committee will be receiving councillor and public comment at meetings in November.
July 16th, 2008
The way the new exhibition Fringe Benefits (reviewed earlier) presented the dynamics of ethnic communities in the suburbs helped to crystallize …
April 30th, 2008
The second annual Jane’s Walk will be held on May 3 and 4. In anticipation of the event, Spacing will be highlighting some of the unique walks. Spacing is a founding partner in Jane’s Walk.
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Toronto suburbs have redeeming qualities that often overlooked and are rarely experienced on foot. They are full of largely ungentrified neighbourhoods where ethnic diversity flourishes. Some are windows into the farming communities that preceded the growth of our city. Others hearken back to the manufacturing and industrial past that allowed Toronto to flourish. While others still hearken back to the influx of immigrants that drastically changed the city’s skyline in the 50s and 60s.
However, despite the nostalgia and the aura of multiculturalism that these neighbourhoods invoke, many of our inner suburbs are in need of major repair. Poverty, violence, and unemployment, largely due to underfunding and poor social services, plague many of these communities. Focus on the inner suburbs (one of the themes of this year’s Jane’s Walk) will not only re-introduce participants to Malvern, Jane and Finch, Mount Dennis and other inner suburbs, it will also serve to clarify the often negative “second-hand reports and conventional wisdom†that most Toronto media likes to portray. As many of these communities are in a transition phase, these walks will serve as an opportunity to discuss, debate and dream about the many possibilities for sustainable development and social equity present in these neighbourhoods.
March 26th, 2008
Toronto is mentioned 35 times in the 2008 provincial budget that was tabled this afternoon. Tellingly, however, seven of those 35 Torontos are in the context of “Greater Toronto Area” or “Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area,” …
February 18th, 2008
This animated map showcases the datum bookends of the excellent publication The Three Cities within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto’s neighbourhoods, 1970–2000 by David Hulchanski from UofT’s Centre for Urban and Community …
January 8th, 2008
Every Tuesday, Todd Irvine of LEAF posts a stop from the Toronto Tree Tours, a collaborative project of LEAF and the Toronto Public Space Committee. The Toronto Tree Tours offers walking tours in …
