Two lessons on a bus

Last Friday afternoon, I boarded the 129A McCowan North bus near my house. Having just arrived in Toronto for the Thanksgiving long weekend (I study full-time in Ottawa), I was heading downtown via the RT's Scarborough Centre station to visit my friends who I hadn't seen since the summer holidays.

It started out as a typical ride. I took a seat near the front of the bus, and and stared aimlessly out the window, waiting for the 15 minute-or-so trip to end.

But a spirited conversation between two young people caught my attention, and I proceeded to (shamelessly) eavesdrop.

A woman in her mid- to late-twenties sat two seats to my left, with a large baby carriage in front of her. She was speaking to a man in his early twenties about the upcoming municipal election on October 25.

Sitting directly across the aisle, the man was clad in a white t-shirt emblazoned with bright red lettering. From my vantage point, I could see the words “VOTE” and “OCTOBER 25,” which appeared to prompt their exchange.

After introducing himself to the woman, the man said he was canvassing (hence, the t-shirt), adding that he hoped Torontonians would get out and vote.

“Are you planning to vote in the election?”

“I'm not sure; I don't think so,” the woman replied. “I don't vote if I don't feel it's legit, or if I feel that it's a hoax.”

As a resident of Markham (whose elections are also on October 25), she said she felt that the candidates in her ward were less than genuine.

In response, the man encouraged her to cast a ballot, saying, “It can make a difference.”

Heartened by their conversation, the woman said that she would tell her relatives in Malvern to vote, and began to list the ways in which the local community could be improved. She wanted more job postings in high-traffic areas where people could see them (“like the Eaton Centre”) and better housing for lower-income families (“not just slums”).

Referring specifically to the Malvern area, the woman emphasized the need for more after-school activities to “keep kids out of trouble,” citing basketball, soccer, reading clubs, study groups and access to computers and the Internet as examples.

She stressed the importance of keeping youth occupied in a lively environment: “If people are depressed, then they get into trouble. Kids do bad things when they're bored. That's why Malvern gets such a bad rep.”

This conversation between two young strangers may have hardly lasted 10 minutes, but it taught me two valuable lessons:

1) Youth want to be engaged, but are discouraged by the broken promises and empty rhetoric of dishonest politicians (as I mentioned in my very first post here).

2) But engaging youth isn't that difficult. As evident from this exchange, it's obvious that young people are receptive to other young people. Enthusiasm is contagious, and getting youth to vote may be as simple as getting one young person to talk to another.

About Anita Li

City services: Something's gotta give

Recently I've been chatting with friends about how tax money is spent on city services. Torontonians expect the city to operate smoothly, and when glitches occur, we notice. Whether it's the efficiency of garbage pick-up, the quality of TTC service, the condition of our city streets, the presence of public libraries and public health services, or the cleanliness of our parks and attractions, we expect a lot from our city.

My husband and I own our home and the property taxes we pay are not insignificant. I understand the principles of give and take - living in the city is expensive, but we have beautiful parks, many public services for children, families and the elderly, a world-class public library system, and decent roads. The city water I drink is clean and tastes good. The TTC, for all its recent troubles, gets me to where I need to go. Those of us who commute by bike are fortunate to be able to do so fairly safely.

But of course, there is never enough money for everything. Specifically, not enough tax money is generated to support the wide range of city services we want and expect. You can see at a glance what I mean when you take a look at this chart illustrating city expenses vs. city revenues provided by the City of Toronto web site.

So, what's a city to do? The answer is, we must compromise. But how, and on what?

In upcoming weeks and months, the mayoral candidates will be ramping up their campaigns. When listening to the positions and promises from the candidates, consider framing their arguments through a different lens: rather than focusing on what you want from your city, consider what you'd be willing to give up.

In a world of limited resources, where are you willing to compromise? Would you trade improved TTC service in exchange for reduced health resources for families and seniors? Would you pay more for public child care in exchange for more frequent garbage pick-up? How do you compare the need for affordable housing with the demand for clean water?

I certainly don't have the answers, but it's a different way of thinking about the candidates, and it's a perspective I'm going to try. At the very least, it will provide me with a new way of evaluating the campaigns as we get closer to Election Day on October 25.

About Kimberly Silk

City needs to license rooming houses

Sarah Evans

In this era of scarce housing in Toronto, we can't afford to ignore any options. The Toronto Housing Charter says, "All residents should be able to live in the neighborhood of choice without discrimination". Given the situation, it just doesn't make sense that many of the rooming houses in Toronto are illegal.

Rooming houses are intended to provide accommodation for three or more people (some are much larger). According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the average market rent in the GTA as of October 2009 was $922 for a one bedroom apartment and $1,082 for a two bedroom apartment. In contrast, the average monthly rent for a rooming house is $400 - $450.

Rooming houses are the only affordable option for many Toronto residents, including: students, seniors, immigrants, refugees and people with disabilities (including psychiatric consumers/survivors. Many people who live in rooming houses work; they may have low income jobs, they may be between jobs or they may simply be unable to find other affordable housing.

Currently, they are the cheapest form of accommodation in Toronto. A study for the City of Toronto's Homelessness Action Task Force estimated that there are more than 1,000 rooming houses in Toronto, housing more than 10,000 people.

However, the city requires rooming houses to be licensed, and as it currently stands, they are generally only allowed in the former City of Toronto (pre-amalgamation). They are illegal in Scarborough, North York and East York, and in Etobicoke and York, they are only allowed in very restricted areas.

While the city may think its strict licensing process will protect tenants from poor maintenance, overcrowding and exploitation, many rooming houses operate outside the law, making them especially vulnerable to these threats, as well as legal consequences. If the city licensed rooming houses, it could protect tenants by setting standards and sanctioning landlords who fail to meet them.

We could also avoid tragedy. In 1989, 10 people died in a rooming house fire at the Rupert Hotel on Parliament Street.

It is no coincidence that rooming houses are declining at the same time as homelessness is increasing. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has asked the city to end its discriminatory treatment of rooming houses. The fact is that many people can't keep up with the rising cost of living on their meager wages and government assistance. This makes rooming houses the only alternative to the streets, hostels and shelters, In Toronto, 30,000 homeless people use the emergency shelter system each year.

Regulating rooming houses isn't costly, and it would save the city millions of dollars in the upkeep of shelters and hostels.In January, however, the planning and growth committee voted to defer further consultation on the issue until next year. I agree with the Rupert Coalition...it is urgent for city council to act quickly to license rooming houses across the city, including the adoption of a harmonized zoning bylaw that would bring them into the mainstream.

About Sarah Evans

Death and taxes: A vision For Toronto's seniors

Is what they say about death and taxes true? Until recently, I accepted both as the predetermined irrevocable course of life and never thought to question it. That is until I thought about my grandmother.

Nothing beats my grandma’s cooking. You name it, she can cook it. In fact, every time I’m at her house being fed, yet another helping of chicken, macaroni pie or rice and peas I ask her how she does it. Her response is always the same, “I’ve been doing it all my life”. The truth is my grandma cooks like her life depends on it because there was a time when it did. Today it’s the kind of reality show that would have made networks millions; think Survivor meets Iron Chef, but instead of losing your chance at millions, you get deported or lose your work permit.

As a young mother in her 20s, my grandma left Jamaica to build a better life for her children. She left her tiny island and her tiny tots in the care of her siblings and prepared for a new life in Canada. Her first job was as a domestic in Nova Scotia where her cooking talents eventually led to a stable job in Toronto. During that time she would send money back home, working towards the day when her kids (my dad and aunt)would be by her side. Then in 1976, with her stable employment and understanding of the Canadian way of life, my dad and aunt arrived to Canada.

My grandma worked hard to make sure her kids did well. And what repayment will she get for her years of service? Death and taxes. In the spirit of non-discrimination, this seems to be the “gift” every senior receives, even the ones who don’t have the adequate means to live a dignified life. It’s too bad you can’t regift bad government decisions. Or maybe you can.

Could Toronto introduce a revised taxation system that uses property taxes to make life better for low income seniors? Wait, we do that through the Ontario Fair Assessment System, but let’s take that step further. Almost 10 per cent of Toronto’s population lives in social housing. And that number will double in the next few years. Municipalities like ours need to take a leadership role and design a plan that ensures that seniors who weren’t able to afford a house in our expensive city can still have a chance at a life of dignity.

The statistics are alarming. More than 20 per cent of Toronto’s seniors live in poverty and the number continues to grow in this city. Many impoverished seniors live alone, without many social networks. Family and supports are sporadic at best, and with the unstable funding of many non-profit organizations, community programs are only in “just visiting” status; long enough to say hello, but just as quick to say goodbye (Aside: is this what they mean by “socially liberal and fiscally conservative?”).

Currently Toronto’s poverty rate for seniors is 50 per cent higher than the national average. If the predictions are right and this population increases by 50 per cent by time 2031 rolls around, what does that mean for us?

If we do nothing, then it means nothing. Life will remain as is. Seniors will continue to suffer in silence, living in social and economic exile, confirming their existence through up-to-date tax records. Meanwhile, the cost of living (especially food, shelter, transportation) will continue skyrocket to stratospheric levels at the same time that quality of life plummets to embarrassingly, no, shamefully substandard levels.

By revising our taxation system for low income seniors, Toronto would be making a bold statement: that seniors deserve a life of dignity.

Currently the income supports for impoverished seniors are a guarantee that they will die poor and forgotten; Poor because of their struggle to pay for taxes on a very limited income and forgotten because living in poverty often is a life of isolation for seniors. When you’re a poor senior, there’s no afternoon brunch and social clubs to frequent. That’s a luxury afforded to the affluent.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that social clubs open their doors to destitute seniors. What I’m suggesting is that our government take a leadership role in recognizing that as Toronto becomes home to more and more seniors and the poverty becomes an inevitable reality, we should look at the taxing impact of the taxation system on impoverished seniors.

This also raises a bigger questions: Do we have an equitable vision for aging in Toronto? Yes, the old adage about death and taxes is true. They are inevitable, but they should not be related.

About Tonika Morgan

True leadership from the grassroots up

Rosemarie Powell.

Where politicians and decision makers have failed, they should look to residents for true leadership.

There are people working on the ground every day in Jane and Finch to affect changes in their community. People like Alicia, who took time in between two jobs to participate in the Green Change training sessions. Or Celia, who, exhausted from a long week of school and studying for exams still made time to participate in the ARC School Closure Public Consultations.

Talking with resident leaders and community activists of this priority neighbourhood one quickly senses a spirit of deep frustration and demoralization. To many of them, it seems like the very fabric of their community is constantly being buffeted from left, right and centre – from threats of hospital and schools closures to cuts in social services.

Except for the fact that they live in Jane-Finch, the one thing residents have in common is their willingness to get down and dirty. To them this is real; when bad policies are made, they are usually the first ones to be directly impacted. They can’t afford to sleep on the job and lately there seems to be no rest. The passion and commitment demonstrated by these grassroots leaders are embodied by a quote from Majora Carter, South Bronx environmental and social justice advocate. She says “I believe that you shouldn't have to leave your neighborhood to live in a better one.”

Instead, it is time for real social change. We need to work collectively with the aim of correcting the inequities that were exacerbated as a result of the policies of exclusion inherent in the initial design of priority communities like Jane and Finch; a design which pooled large numbers of low income and racialized people in one concentrated location with little access to necessary social support infrastructures. None of this desired change can be truly achieved without equal distribution of wealth, power and resources.

Since the problem is multi-faceted, there needs to be a comprehensive response in order to achieve systemic change. There are some glimmers of hope, with several large scale public infrastructure investment projects being planned in the Jane-Finch community such as the Light Rapid Transit on Finch Ave., the Spadina-York subway extension and the redevelopment of Shoreham. These investments are being promoted as significant gains for the community as they will mean good jobs, green spaces and business opportunities.

However, repeated experiences have shown that these positive spin-offs do not extend to people who live in the community; instead major contracts are awarded externally with little accountability. Furthermore, these infrastructure developments seem disjointed, with no evidence of an integrated, coordinated approach among the different levels of government implementing these grand schemes. For example, how can school closures be proposed while at the same time planning expansion of public transit infrastructure directly through the neighbourhood to attract new residents?

It is crucial for members of our community to be a part of the decision making process in the development of a community retrofit master plan. This plan should include binding policies and opportunities for residents who live in the community to participate fully in all aspects, socially, environmentally, economically and politically. It must be sustainable to address the needs of our current population but also include enhancements that take into consideration the needs of the future generation.

Residents should continue the pressure to hold decision-makers, politicians and corporations accountable to implementing their demands. A word to the wise, it would be a mistake to continue with the assumption that residents will keep quiet much longer; a movement from the grassroots is building.

Additional Reading:

http://ecommunityjanefinch.wordpress.com/facts/

http://www.janefinchcentre.org/community-programs/school-closures

About Rosemarie Powell

Zeroing in on better buildings

Julia Langer.

Should the condo or house you buy today be a prime candidate for an energy retrofit tomorrow? 

The reality is that much of what we build today could be much, much more energy efficient with only a modest increase in construction costs (offset, of course, by lower lifetime operating costs).  That’s why I tend to cringe whenever I see one of those giant construction cranes swinging another bucket of concrete skywards.  What we all too rarely see are those cranes lifting state-of-the-art windows, high performance cladding or solar panels.

Let’s give Toronto some credit.  The city has used its new powers under the City of Toronto Act to pass Green Building Standards that will require new construction to be more energy efficient than it would be if we just stuck to the provincial building code.  But let’s also raise our view a bit higher and look at what some other cities are doing.  In Germany, all new homes must now be “net zero” energy users.  In other words, they have to produce as much energy as they consume.    The U.K. is on the same track with a net zero carbon requirement coming into play by 2016. 

Net Zero may sound futuristic, but behind the catchy name is a lot of mundane, completely doable stuff like tight building envelopes, lots of insulation, ultra-efficient appliances and lighting.  By ratchetting down energy demand, the renewable energy systems integrated into the building design -- whether they are solar panels, geo-thermal heating and cooling, or, as in many Danish cities, district heating using biomass and waste heat recovery – can meet residents’ energy needs.  Compare it to the gas you need drive a Hummer or a Prius, and still get where you are going.  

Most Toronto high-rises – even new ones -- are ripe for energy efficiency upgrades, which are especially cost-effective now that the HST is going to add 8 per cent to gas and electricity bills.  Retrofits can’t achieve net zero, but can help you save some serious cash, and the planet – see www.TowerWise.ca for some great advice and tools.

There's no reason not to build state-of-the-art buildings in our world-class city.  And there are very good reasons to build high-quality, super-efficient, environmentally responsible, net-zero buildings which won't spew climate-changing pollution for the next 50+ years. 

About Julia Langer

This is our election, Toronto!

Ratna Omidvar.

Torontonians should take the lead in defining the issues that matter to them in the next municipal election.

We’re only into the third month of a long election campaign, with eight months still to go until we go to the polls on October 25th. The top issues for debate are already emerging from the declared mayoral candidates: transit, outsourcing, bike lanes, the city’s budgetary woes, to name a few.

But who is asking Torontonians what matters to them? Affordable housing, transparency at City Hall, housing for the homeless, city streets and parks … these things matter too.  If we fail to raise them, then we run the risk of letting the candidates set the agenda.

The Toronto Star blog is one way to encourage this debate. Other groups, too are reaching out to their constituencies including the Toronto Board of Trade on Vote Toronto 2010 and ChangeCamp, an interesting project to re-engage citizens in the political process.

Maytree is doing its bit by inviting our constituency to define, discuss and share the issues that matter to them. We will be reaching out to many individuals who are reflective of the city’s new demographics to articulate their vision of a new Toronto. Already, some have identified the need for our next Mayor to champion the right of all landed immigrants to vote in local elections (I Vote Toronto). Others have tabled their concerns that there are few opportunities for new voices at City Hall.

Let’s wake up Toronto and make this our election!

About Ratna Omidvar