Spacing contributor Laura Boudreau is blogging the Creative Places + Spaces Regional Forum at the Artscape Wychwood Barns. Follow her posts on Tuesday and Wednesday to learn more about innovative city-building at the Barns and beyond.
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It’s the Community Hubs breakout session, and we’re exploring the kinds of new and innovative partnerships that are being developed to advance the “neighbourhood hub†concept from an idea to reality.
Ruth Crammond, the United Way’s Community Hub Coordinator, gave us some insight into a hub project that’s in the works for east Scarborough:
As part of its strategy to strengthen social services across Toronto, United Way has announced a major initiative of a 15,000 square-foot community hub that will provide programs and services to residents in the neighbourhood of Eglinton East/Kennedy Park in east Scarborough. The facility will house a number of social programs and services, including a satellite Community Health Centre…
The hub, which will be operated by West Hill Community Services (a United Way member agency), is an exciting initiative, but still in the very early stages of development:
“Too often the cultural sector is not at the table during the earliest stages of culture-led regeneration,” said our facilitator Patrick Tobin, Director of Policy Programs, Ontario Region, Canadian Heritage. That’s something the United Way approach is definitely taking into account, trying to leverage the local relationships and partnerships that are already at work in its targeted 13 priority neighbourhoods, all in the hopes of helping rich cultural infrastructure explode at the community level.
The take-home message of the session is more question than answer: What would a community hub look like in your neighbourhood?