July 27, 2011

The complex origins of vacant and abandoned homes in a neighbourhood

Recent lessons from the housing crash in the United States described families simply walking away from their homes, leaving their front doors unlocked, because they couldn’t afford to carry their mortgages anymore. Financial abandonment is one of the starkest reasons residences are left untended.

However, like most things, it’s always more complicated. Just how empty and derelict does a building have to be to be abandoned? The octogenarian who lives only in two rooms of her house, having sealed off the rest, still holds domain over it all. But what if she was hospitalized? And then sent to long-term care? And then failed to pay her taxes?

In my neighbourhood, I can think of eight homes that, depending on the definition used, are vacant or abandoned. None of them, that I know of, are haunted or marijuana grow-ops:

  • After a fire started by a basement tenant put one family out of their new and hard-earned home, their re-building was abandoned because of lack of funds and the complexity of (re-)building without a contractor.  That’s been about ten years now since they lost their dream.
  • Another house on the same street also suffered a fire. The house attached to it also suffered damage. Neither household had insurance to re-build. It took two or three years for the first home to be sold to a speculator, who hired cheaply, and then sold it with fresh paint and pot lights “as is.” The family moved out of the attached house, and the landlord rented to a poorer tenants less able to complain.
  • There are three other homes in the neighbourhood where elderly residents have moved to homes for the aged, none of them interested in selling. One of these homes has been empty for over twenty years, the other fledges various young family members every few years, and the third has rats for inhabitants.
  • Another family home in the neighbourhood was sold to the owner’s brother who had no interest in living in it nor in renting it out. It has sat, preserving the family capital, for a quarter century.
  • Another home was bought by a resident in the adjoining house, so as he could enjoy some peace, but the cost of re-zoning the properties to make them a single home is too prohibitive. So, officially, that home is empty.
  • A final house in my neighbourhood acts as a storage locker for a couple who live across the street from it. Vans are unloaded into and out of the house but no one lives there. Census-takers knock futilely every five years. (Another neighbour tells me of a similar house a few streets away which someone else uses to keep their cats and dogs housed – and yes, it smells.)
When this was a working-class neighbourhood, houses were cheap, and few took note of these alternate uses. This was long before housing prices climbed, when only affordable housing activists and a few academics saw such rough, unused gems as valuable housing stock.
In 2008, the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC), an activist group called Abandonment Issues and York University’s City Centre partnered to look at cycles of reinvestment and disinvestment in the Toronto area. They explored the housing cycles that happen as neighbourhoods are abandoned and then “discovered” again, creating a small building boon of condos and flow of capital. Some good pressure was raised over the issue but not much changed on the legislative front.
Nowadays neighbours are more likely to talk about the property values of these half million dollars homes left derelict or vacant.
In response to the idea of impact on local property values and the loss of additional housing stock as shortages grow, some other municipalities have adopted “Use it or Lose it” laws.
The City of Toronto’s Affordable Housing Office may, too, be exploring the issues these vacant and abandoned homes create. That’s good news if it doesn’t just provide new fodder for housing speculators.

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July 20, 2011

Census 2011 looms as a failure

I couldn’t convince my own mother to do the long form census from Statistics Canada. Oh sure, she, the mother of a researcher, meant well but it is v-e-r-y long. At least, I console myself,  she recycled the form, meeting that civic participation bar.

A colleague explained that he had tried to complete the on-line the National Household Survey (the long form census) more than three times but he finally gave the task to another household member because each question required another hunt through the family files: housing costs, education levels, etc. Why couldn’t they make it easier, he asked?

This is a small sample, to be sure, but, like doing our taxes, filling out long government forms is no fun. So the response rate to the survey has got to be poor or very uneven.

Jennifer Ditchburn from Canadian Press quoted, “a lot of people shut down the conversation quickly when they find out it’s not mandatory.” She also reported Statistics Canada is not following up on incomplete Household Surveys and is settling for incomplete ones.

What will happen to the quality of the data, then? I recently asked a medical officer of health. He too had heard about the low response rates and despaired how this was what had been predicted during the discussions before parliament when the census revisions emerged. We’ll have to do estimations, he explained, to test how reliable the data is and then we will muddle through.

And that epitomizes the very issue with the census – a census is, by definition, a count of every household (or in the case of the long-form census, one in five random households). This census is no longer a census, but simply a sample of the Canadian population.

While the progress of the data collection is not public, other hints of the (non-)returns tell a worsening story.

The short-form census, the one that basically asked us to re-type what was on the mail label and add family language, must have a poor response rate too.

At the community agency where I work, clients were confused by government messaging. Hadn’t the whole debate about the census concluded that it was voluntary? Staff have had to explain that the short-form census is still required, while the long-form one, no longer called the census, is not.

Confused? I’ll say. So are others, as documented in the Hamilton Spectator and the Halifax Chronicle Herald this week (see the comments section for further evidence even).

I feel particularly mournful about this because, as governments move towards integrated policy responses, such as poverty-reduction strategies, and as our computational capacities increase, the census has become integral to good evidence-based decision-making. So just as the need and our capacity to explore better policy-making are emerging, our ability to do so has been undercut.

What a crying shame.

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June 29, 2011

Wellbeing Toronto

Long awaited, Wellbeing Toronto is launching this morning through the City of Toronto website.

Keep hitting refresh! It will be here soon.

The Toronto Star has given a sneak peek in today’s edition. The site lets users select and map , across the City’s 140 social planning neighbourhoods, from a menu of indicators, ranging from one of Toronto’s top ten languages, applications to universities, or robberies. It also maps locations of various civic sites, community hubs, rate payers associations and other neighbourhood features.

While it’s bound to have some bugs as it launches (I couldn’t see a legend), this is a significant contribution to the civic dialogue of the city – as long as more than real estate agents use it! (My conflict-of-interest? I sat in on two advisory panels during its development.)

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June 23, 2011

New, more open data sharing on Toronto websites

English: Map of Toronto Français : Carte de To...

English: Map of Toronto Français : Carte de Toronto Deutsch: Karte von Toronto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Toronto data geeks can be excited about three new websites breaking onto the Toronto scene.

The first is a fresh new look for Toronto Health Profiles, a data partnership among St. Michael’s Hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Toronto Public Health, the Wellesley Institute and some community organizations. Thematic maps and data tables on a range of health indicators are being released as they are being developed. The site has gotten a good overhaul to make it easier to navigate and give it a cleaner look.

The second, from the Three Cities project, which looked at changing income trends in Toronto neighbourhoods, is releasing its findings in new more useable formats. The research website, driven by St. Christopher House and University of Toronto Professor David Hulchanski, Neighbourhood Change has re-launched with a new look. The site offers additional maps, a recent report on Scarborough and video clips. Information on Montreal and Vancouver are included alongside tower renewal in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

The third and most elaborate, the Wellbeing Toronto website will be launching June 29. (The site is so new, the URL was still being determined at the beginning of June!) It evolved out of the Neighbourhood Wellbeing Index/Indices project through the City of Toronto.

This new interactive site will build on census data and local administrative databases (liberated through Open Data Toronto). It has been funded through the Citizenship Immigration Canada Toronto Newcomer Initiative. The available data will be aggregated to the level of the city’s 140 planning neighbourhoods.

The site offers a range of goodies, from orthographic/satellite, cartographic/street view maps of Toronto. Ward boundaries and places of interest, such as community stores or convenience stores, will be mappable. An address search function is also to be included.

The developers have tried to make the site user-friendly, including some pre-set domains, including, for instance, a “diversity index” which measures ethno-racial mixes within a neighbourhood. Users of the site will be able to drill down into neighbourhoods or make comparisons among them. Up to 20 indicators can be loaded at a time, weighted differently, and then the data can be able to be exported to PDF, Excel or CSV formats.

The crime data is likely to be the most popular area of inquiry. Data for criminal code offenses for seven major crimes are included: Murders, Shootings, Vehicular theft, Break and Enters, Assaults, Sexual Assaults, and Arson. All of this rich fodder that has only been available on a limited basis up till now.

City staff are also looking to include other data in the future. Approaches to the Toronto Board of Trade, the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs, for information on hospitalization rates and seniors), the Canadian Bankers Association (for information on debt load), and the Children’s Aids Societies.  Indicators for arts and culture will be coming in October. The Toronto Transit Commission should also be included because  of the open data work, looking at routes, stops, crowding.

Both these sites will help to better inform civic discussions in the city and so are welcome web 2.0 resources.

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June 13, 2011

InsideToronto Article: City deciding fate of local pools

Monarch Park Collegiate

Image via Wikipedia

A small news article in the local paper flagged another round of cuts threaten school pools, yet again.It seems the City’s lease on pools expires this year on December 31, 2011. InsideToronto Article: City deciding fate of local pools. However, it may not be so dire as portrayed.

If the school pools can demonstrate “continued community use,” the funds will flow through the Toronto Lands Corporation.

Monarch Park High School’s pool is one of the few accessible pools in the city. Not only is the equipment available for people who use wheelchairs, the water is kept warmer as well. Monarch Park Community Aquatics is now offering a Recreational Community Swim on Fridays from 6:30 -7:30 pm. Enter through the doors marked #2, which are the first set west of Coxwell. Admission:  $1 per person or $5 per family For more info contact:  monarchparkaquatics@gmail.com Continue reading →

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June 10, 2011

City of Toronto Recreation Service Plan Consultations show high usage in surprising places

The City of Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation (PFR) division is optimistically developing a five-year plan. Consultations are underway. A recent consultation for local agencies on the Recreation Service Plan was well attended, while PFR staff facilitated and recorded participants’ comments. The table discussions were passionate and loud. In fact, because the small meeting room was made of concrete building blocks, people sitting at the same table could not hear each other.

The session began with a summary presentation of current programs.

A city ward map describing where PFR program registrants live showed some surprising patterns. Central Etobicoke and the Beach (ward 32) showed the highest levels of participation, where as the downtown wards showed the lowest. Those outside the city core are more likely to be higher users of community recreation centres than those who live downtown.


 High users Medium-High Medium Medium-Low Low Users
 Area of City Over 8% pop. 6.51% – 8% 5.01% to 6.5% 2.01% – 5% Under 2%
Etobicoke wards 4 3 3 1 0
North York & York wards 0 1 9 1 0
Toronto & East York wards 1 3 0 5 2
Scarborough wards 0 2 7 1 0

This patterns holds even where residents may have fewer places to access recreation programs, however this was not as easy to tell because not all program locations were mapped.

The summary presentation then described other program components.

The identified (and fairly vague) guiding principles for the PFR plan are equitable access, quality, inclusion, and capacity building. The new Recreation Service Plan will address how the principles can be achieved; what the appropriate program mix should be; what service gaps need to be addressed; and, what other improvements are needed. To develop this, attendees were asked the following questions:

  1. What do you think the barriers are to achieving equitable recreation opportunities across the city and how they can be overcome?
  2. Does the current mix of programs and services support the principle of equitable access to all city residents?
  3. In your opinion, what are the most important areas that the City of Toronto needs to focus on in providing high quality recreation programs and services?
  4. How can PFR engage communities and groups who do not participate in recreation programs and services?
  5. How can PFR help to strengthen communities and who can we partner with?
  6. How can PFR attract, support and retain volunteers?

Among other items, the table discussions raised the following key issues in their responses:

  • PFR is not meeting the current demand. The levels of service often mean programs fill up quickly and registrants are put on long waitlists.
  • PFR should be working in partnership with local non-profits to maximize the use of space, better outreach and local community benefit.
  • The importance of raising the bar vs. driving to the lowest common denominator, that is making sure everyone has access to good local programming
Other consultations are being held around the city.

If you are interested in providing input, the City’s survey is available on-line at www.toronto.ca/parks/serviceplan.

In order to encourage wider input, Public Interest consultants has developed a simpler version at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/accesstocommunityrecreation to submit to the City afterwards.

Responses are due June 30, 2011.

How this new PFR plan will fit with the core service review also going on now is still to be determined.

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June 6, 2011

After school children’s programming in Toronto is a scarcity

20070900 149 Orr in after school activity

Image by Eilam Gil via Flickr

When Toronto’s Doorsteps Neighbourhood Services organized summer programming in the northwest end of the city a few years ago, they took the kids on a trip to the Toronto islands. Many of them had never been there, and some didn’t know our city sat on the edge of a large lake. Doorsteps also arranged for bike donations so that the children could explore their own neighbourhood more widely.

“Children and adolescents may be especially influenced by their immediate surroundings, as they are more likely than adults to spend the majority of their time in their local surroundings,” writes Margo Jackson and Amy Hsin, then doctoral students in UCLA’s sociology department in a 2006 study.

“Neighbourhoods affect children’s opportunities, activities and achievement.” Jackson and Hsin also described how, if mothers described their neighbourhoods as safe, children were more likely to be healthy and active in their leisure time. This perception had a stronger association with children’s level of activity than the simple availability of programs, even.

Social Planning Toronto researchers worked with a coalition called Middle Years Matters a few years ago to map out the after-school opportunities grade-school aged children have in Toronto. The study found a wide gap between what’s available and what’s needed. Less than ten per cent of kids in the city are served through a formal children’s programme.

Many were appalled by these findings. According to the Coalition,

The middle childhood years are a critical period in the lives of

children.  This is the time when children develop the important skills

which help them make the transition from the early years into

adolescence.  It is a time when they begin to develop more resilience

and self-confidence and begin to move from the close supervision of

parents, teachers and other care givers towards the greater

independence that comes in their teenage years.

After school programs play a key role in helping children make these

transitions.  High quality programs give children a range of new

opportunities for play and learning that they may not have at home or

in the classroom.  Most important, quality out-of-school-time programs

provide supervised care that ensures that children are safe while out

of the home and school.

While the Social Planning study could not track what other children, outside formal programming, were doing after school, some American studies have found, in descending order, a range of other activities from informal care and social visiting; shopping and other commercial activities; government programs; and religious education.

So this summer, the Middle Years Matters Coalition is working with the Children’s Services Division of the City of Toronto to do a similar assessment of local children. To do this, they are

  • Implementing an electronic survey to parents across Toronto to find out what their needs are in this area.
  • Holding focus groups with parents to examine their needs in this area more deeply.
  • Supporting the City of Toronto to develop a database that can be used by parents and service providers to access information about such programs in Toronto.

To complete the Middle Years survey, parents may access it here.

The findings will be used to develop a Middle Childhood Strategy for the City.

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June 1, 2011

Toronto District School Board 2011 budget deliberations begin

The head office of the Toronto District School...

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

 

A useful e-mail is circulating around the Toronto District School Board, summarizing some of the early budget deliberations, as trustees face another year of shortfall. The Board’s Budget Committee met on Monday, May 30. Here is the synopsis. The conclusion provides some useful steps for concerned parents and advocates:

The Committee members defeated the Staff recommendations to balance the 2011-2012 Budget, which included the following:

  • Shifting $30m (million) from large capital repairs to smaller projects
  • Permit Fees Increase – 22% as of Jan. 2012 — $ 1.60 m
  • Department Budget Reductions $3.70 m
  • Using savings from previous years   $13.10m
  • Transportation (no impact on students) $.25 m
  • Reduction to central departments casual replacement budgets $1.00 m
  • Purchasing of utilities $.80 m
  • Auditing for enrolment and class size efficiencies $ 1. 00 m
  • Broader Public Sector Directive and reduction of meeting expenses $ .20 m
  • Reducing of External Consultants $3.70 m

Possible total (short-term) savings found:   $ 55. 35 million

After this recommendation was defeated, the Budget committee agreed to meet Wednesday June 8th (time to be confirmed) to look at recommendations again. They asked staff to look at the possibility of lessening the $30 m cutback from capital funding (to $20 m or $25 m for example), and balance the remainder from items from another document presented (Appendix “B”) which lists items which are either under or unfunded items by the Ministry of Education.  Here is the list from Appendix “B”:

  • Outdoor Ed  $6.7 m
  • Regular Ed. Assistants  $ 22.6 m
  • Literacy Teachers  $15.2 m
  • Library Teachers   $ 6.25 m
  • Guidance Teachers  $5.59 m
  • Classroom Consultants, Central Coordinating Principals etc. $3.5 m
  • School budgets   $10.27 m
  • Elementary supervision  $9.31 m
  • School safety monitors   $6.13 m
  • School office  $8.06
  • Vice Principals  $8.34 m
  • Special education    $15.4 m
  • Model Schools   $8.5 m
  • Safe Schools   $3.05 m
  • Board Administration  $18.48 m
  • Transportation  $ 2.49 m
  • Permits   $11.2 m
  • Vision of Hope  $1.00 m
  • Aboriginal Education  $438,284
  • Continuing Education  $8. 01 m

Total:  $170,633,755.00 million under or non-funded items

Why does the TDSB have a funding gap?

There is currently a $150,000,000 million difference between what the TDSB receives in “directed grant” monies from the Ministry of Education (i.e., for things such as Full Day Kindergarten etc.) and what we choose to spend. Sometimes, the Ministry does not send enough money to cover an initiative that they direct the board to do, for example, adequate funding for teachers’ salaries to fully implement Full Day Kindergarten. This means money must be found elsewhere to cover this cost.

Sweatered vs. Unsweatered Grants from the Ministry of Education (MoE):   Grants from the Ministry are either sweatered (meaning they have to be spent on a certain program or in a certain way), or unsweatered (meaning the board has flexibility about how they spend the money).  For example, special education funding is sweatered by the MoE and can only be spent by the TDSB on special education programs and services.  The TDSB must also be accountable and track these monies to show the MoE they were spent as directed.

However, the Learning Opportunities Grant (LOG) is an unsweatered Ministry grant, which means the TDSB has flexibility in using these funds event though the LOG is intended, in theory, to fund programs and services for students who are deemed “at risk” due to poverty and other factors, and/or who are aboriginal. While some of the LOG funding does indeed go to support students ‘at risk’, much of it is used to pay for under or unfunded items through the MoE’s funding formula and initiative funding.

The Inner City Advisory Committee (ICAC) and the Learning Opportunities Grant (LOG)

The ICAC has always argued that the Model Schools for Inner Cities Program (MSIC) should be funded by the LOG because that is what the grant is supposedly for. The Model Schools provides a holistic and innovative program in 105 schools across Toronto, and does this on a budget of $8.5 million that has not changed since 2006, in spite of inflationary pressures, salary increases, rising food costs etc.   Next year, in an effort to reach more underserved students, staff have decided to expand the MSIC to reach 125 schools across the city.  Last night the ICAC motion, asking for a 5% increase (approximately $425,000) to the MSIC funding, was defeated. (The motion is attached in pdf above.)

What can you do?

1.     Email or call your/all trustee(s) to ask that the motion be reconsidered at the June 8th Budget Committee meeting. (www.tdsb.on.ca click on “boardroom” to find a list of 22 trustees)

2.     Request a deputation (speaking for 5 minutes) spot for the June 8th Budget Committee meeting (http://www.tdsb.on.ca/_site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=88&menuid=310&pageid=239)

3.     Attend the June 8th Budget Committee meeting and the Board meeting where the Trustees debate the budget – June 22nd

4.     Advocate for a fully funded education system which meets the needs of all children and supports each and every one in achieving their highest potential.

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May 19, 2011

Breast cancer least common in poor neighbourhoods

If you live in a higher-income neighbourhood, you are 15% more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than if you live in a poor neighbourhood. Statistics Canada’s Health Reports has just published this report from University of British Columbia researchers, Borugian, Spinelli, Abanto and Wilkins,  using data from the Canadian Cancer Registry and past censuses. Rates of breast cancer were studied in neighbourhoods across Canada.

The findings are counter to the trend found in most research on the social determinants of health.

Researchers found that, even when they controlled for mammography rates, age and childbirth rates, women in the lowest income quintile (fifth) of neighbourhoods had the lowest risk of breast cancer. Researchers were not able to determine why this was so but speculate that the effects occur at more than the individual level.

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May 18, 2011

Toronto youth initiatives: Ground-level view of the stratosphere

After the “summer of the gun” in 2005, various funders and levels of government focused on the issues of youth and youth violence. The Review of the Roots of Youth Violence was produced. Funding appeared in the Priority Neighbourhood Areas through the Youth Challenge Fund (YCF). Laidlaw Foundation made youth a central focus of its work. United Way Toronto developed a “policy outcomes framework,” calling for coordinated action from the provincial government. Each summer since, through Focus on Youth, a provincially-funded program, the two largest public school boards have run programs providing youth employment and space for non-profits in Toronto schools.

So now, more

than five years later, some of that work is well established, and some of it, such as YCF, is near the end of its mandate. From the 30,000 foot level, things look good.

The provincial government’s youth policy framework is being developed, guided by “big brain science,” as one watcher called it. Literature reviews are done and developmental milestones are being firmed up. United Way Toronto has been hosting a multi-stakeholder Community of Practice for Youth and has developed evaluation frameworks with youth-serving agencies to develop a youth strategy. Consultations are underway for United Way’s development of a strategy. A city-wide Dialogue on youth violence working group is rolling along. A frontline youth workers crisis response guide has been developed. Laidlaw Foundation’s and United Way’s multiple reports and initiatives are well underway (see More below).

If youth of this city need strategies, guides, conferences and policy, the non-profit and government sectors are working it. But a recent conversation with a group of youth service-providers providers a more sobering reality check. While “capacity-building” and “skills-building” is being funded, program operating costs are scarce.

The south entrance of Dufferin Mall in Toronto...

Image via Wikipedia

One set of neighbourhood agencies have spent a year exploring after-school programming for local youth, but have stalled because they haven’t found a funder that focuses on this need. The Youth Challenge Fund, which focused on Priority Neighbourhood Areas, is in its last year. The City’s Welcome Policy is frozen – and this may be a seasonal occurrence. Youth settlement funding for newcomers is drying up. One youth worker explained he has no more funding to take youth to museums or other downtown excursions. His program cannot cover the tokens, never mind the admission costs of these attractions. Another worker lamented a summer of trips to the local park instead of places further afield, such as the Toronto Islands. The kids in these programs sometimes have never seen Lake Ontario. To raise funds for TTC costs, they are making arts & crafts to sell locally.

And community space for youth is still a crunch.

  • While LOFT has been able to open a youth social enterprise space, the Dufferin Mall space has closed.
  • Media centres have been or are opening in four Toronto libraries, but operating funding beyond three years is uncertain. What will happen to the city’s recreation centres is still to be determined.
  • Social Planning Toronto is working on a report to track how youth are able to access community space in Toronto. They are finding attitudes are as important a barrier as availability of space.
  • The provincially-funded Community Use of Schools program has opened 77 schools in the TDSB, but the hours are restricted to after 6 p.m. on week-days and week-ends. Because of the identified deficit, Board staff are actively discouraging bookings on week-ends because of the added overtime costs which eat into this budget.

A few sparks of hope continue to emerge, though. The Toronto District School Board, for instance, is playing with new ideas like delayed starts for the school day and more “schools of choice.” Even with the sluggishness of strategies or the scarcity of funding, people are being creative. However, in the end, all this thinking won’t be enough.  While we create more strategies, another generation of youth is moving through their teens.

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