Leadership message

Harlan Schonfeld, President and Margaret Hancock. Executive Director

Margaret Hancock, Executive Director
Harlan Schonfeld, President, Board of Directors

At the recent launch of the University of Toronto’s new Cities Centre, a multidisciplinary initiative in urban research, we learned about the concept of “creative destruction”. 85% of London was destroyed by the great fire in 1666 but it was transformed into a booming and beautifully rebuilt city within the next five years because of the visionary architect, Christopher Wren, and innovative changes to the building code. Although our city is not in flames, we are living in a time of extreme change which often feels like destruction: the carbon economy is crumbling, the world’s financial system is in crisis, urban sprawl is choking daily life, icebergs are melting at a great rate and poverty is increasing. Rather than lament and run for cover, Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, urged us to say “Good, we need some creative destruction. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. In a crisis, things become much clearer. How can we use this crisis to push our city into the big change which has been emerging for the past 20 years?”

From our perspective in the world of community social services, the current crisis means that more people need more of our services but we are not given more funding to expand or keep pace with the demand; and it may get worse before it gets better. At the same time, this seems to be a time of real possibility for a paradigm shift in the city and the provincial government. Rather than tweaking budgets, making small cuts and adjustments, adding administrative components, there is real discussion about and work to transform systems for the better.

Within the City of Toronto, the employment and social services department has been revamped to offer a new client-centred, integrated service delivery model with a conscious relation to a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy. The City is also working with community organizations like FST to develop a partnership strategy which will transform the process for prioritizing community needs through citizen engagement, setting benchmarks for success and relating these directly to city budget allocations.

The United Way is spearheading the creation of community hubs in several priority neighbourhoods. These too will be instruments of lasting transformation for individuals and communities, and we are planning to offer programs and services in each of them as they open over the next few years.

At the provincial level, we expect to hear the government’s report on its comprehensive poverty reduction strategy in early December. Although challenged to find new money in this time of “creative destruction”, the province seems to be committed to a radical new approach to investing in people and reducing poverty significantly in the next five years. This is one of those windows of opportunity which comes infrequently and unpredictably and we are participating fully to get all the positive change we can out of this time of crisis.

In addition to working to bring about change in the city and the province, we constantly seek transformative ways for FST to be innovative and sustainable as an organization. We hope you are inspired to join us in our celebration of Family Day which you will read about in this edition of Catalyst. We have also just launched our 21st Century Fund, our initiative to build an endowment fund which will allow us to respond with creativity and agility to meet the emerging needs of Toronto’s changing population in the 21st century. We hope you agree that now, more than ever, is a time for people to invest in their community and put values into action.

Want to comment on this article or this issue? Go to Catalyst feedback page or e-mail catalyst@familyservicetoronto.org