CYNTHIA ROSEFIELD HAS BEEN AN ACTIVIST SINCE 1986 WHEN SHE BECAME HOMELESS AND FOUGHT THE SYSTEM TO GET AFFORDABLE HOUSING. RULES WERE CHANGED FOR EVERYBODY AS A RESULT OF HER EFFORTS. SHE IS A LONG TIME RESIDENT OF TCHC AND HAS BEEN WORKING IN LAWRENCE HEIGHTS FOR 23 YEARS AS AN ADVOCATE AND ACTIVIST. SHE IS ALSO A GRADUATE OF VOICES FROM THE STREET 2005-6, AND A MEMBER OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF PEACOCKPOVERTY.

The Lawrence Heights Commmunity: Now And After Revitalization

by Cynthia Rosefield

Photos by Ron Craven

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our seniors building

Ron began taking pictures of hydro poles. They were painted with bright colors and hopeful sentiments from our Youth.  The community health promoter, Domenic Brizzi, who is a safe harbor for residents, directed this  youth initiative and they’d  done a wonderful job of uplifting the neighborhood.

A youth initiative  to spruce up their ‘hood.       

the backyard

We walked to my house which fortunately I’d tidied up. They commented on how spacious it was, the window in the bathroom, the yard, as well as the new cupboards sideboard. All that seemed to be needed was a good paint job.  I have been here 9 years now and I haven’t painted although it would not have been a huge burden on the maintenance budget.  If I could afford to paint and do repairs I would probably be living in my own house.

my kitchen window

my kitchen

we have gates in our community that keep us separate from Lawrence Manor,  a large community of high-end private dwellings.next door.

On the way to the gate we met with a very nice man who was out tending a small garden in his yard. We stopped to talk and he told us that his thirteen year old son had planted it and he was trying to keep the squirrels away.

tending a teenager's garden

A 13 yr old boy planting a garden? I’d say his odds in life are pretty good!

What a tradition to pass along to our youth.

Ron kept commenting on how much green space we had and how beautiful the trees were.  I decided to show them our community gardens.  I explained how they came to be.  That this was entirely a tenant initiative by and for the tenants so the people in the apartment buildings would be able to have fresh fruits and vegetables themselves.

gardens by and for tenants

At the very beginning the tenants enlisted the help of the Community Health Promoter to be able to get tools, soil and water to start digging the plots up.  The Property Manager agreed and they were off.   The tenants worked day and night planting and weeding and looking after their space, many times with children at their sides.

Although we have no reasonably priced stores to shop at within a reasonable distance from our homes, I realized just how great this community is. I always knew the people in the community were just as great. We continued on to the other gates and were disappointed that some things may never change.  But one thing that is going to change is “our home”:  the revitalization of Lawrence Heights. Something that will take away all the beauty we have.

The next article, I will talk about the “revitalization”

just a bit of repair

our youth

what will happen to our pool?

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The Truth about Revitalization

By Cynthia Rosefield

Well after such a lovely article on the beauty that is Lawrence Heights, the sprawling green spaces, the large backyards enjoyed so much by families celebrating milestones such as birthdays and babies being born and barbecues just for the sake of getting together. The healthy community that provides 102 acres of homes, apartments, playgrounds and gardens is rapidly reaching its destiny as part of a Toronto Community Housings initiative they call Revitalization.

Revitalization is another word for selling as much city owned land now occupied by rent geared to income housing and subsidized homes to achieve a mother load of income for the housing providers, taking away those beautiful green spaces and replacing them with modern steel and glass buildings. They will be sure to provide one big park in order to appease the city mandate for land restructuring.

Toronto housing also proclaims that this move forward into the future with areas that will be filled with people who have mixed incomes will achieve a panacea where the pockets of ghetto crime will no longer exist.  They have proclaimed how well these mixed income housing projects will turn things around. They never the less forget to mention that the housing will not actually be truly mixed. People with low incomes will be confined to their own areas and buildings and people who come to purchase the endless new condominiums will also be segregated from the low income community.

One can see the fences being raised and the no trespassing signs now.

Our youth will gaze at these areas and contemplate the obvious differences. They already struggle to separate themselves from the stigma attached to living in a housing project. The hurdles they must overcome are enormous from peer pressure to racial profiling by the police and single parent homes without their fathers as role models. This is more than what should be expected from any child in life. They may also shoulder the blame in the event a crime is committed in the area, after all “that’s what poor young people do.”

Aside from their feeble attempts to manipulate us into believing that our old crumbling housing needs to be replaced it is obvious gentrification is taking place, forcing people out of their community.  The loss of our community means more than breaking houses. It means breaking lives.

When we were told about this project in 2007 we were at a loss because this decision was already final and the only thing that was possibly malleable was the process that would be undertaken. We placed zero displacement as the number one priority.  People would otherwise have to leave the area during this construction. After a long fought battle by a small number of tenants we were told that this could be done here because of the amount of empty land spaces throughout the neighborhood.

We would certainly have had more demands approved had the community rallied around our issues.  The unfortunate part is that the majority of our community is newcomers from war-torn countries in Africa. This made it much easier for T.C.H.C. to carry out their mission. Knowing that people who had just found refuge and safety in a foreign country would not dare to complain or have their voices heard for fear they would be homeless once again, T.C.H.C. rolled out their plans. Everything began falling into gray areas which no one with any authority seemed to know much about.

The ‘consultation’ meetings were intentionally held close together and at times when the majority of people were just coming home from work.  People began to feel meeting exhausted. The repetition of another so called consultation with the community worked to wear down even the strongest voices. It has become glaringly obvious that the train is on the tracks and we are merely being tolerated along the way.

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