Environmental Scan
A vital part of FST’s strategic planning process was ensuring that staff, board and community partners had a shared understanding of the context for our work – a shared understanding of how the city is changing and how this might have an impact upon service providers, including FST. This was accomplished via the first forum and the sharing of selected reports. A very brief overview of some of the research considered is described below.
The Three Cities
Research being conducted by the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, and shared by Alan Walks at Forum 1, indicates that Toronto’s neighbourhoods fall into three categories:
• City #1, representing 20% of the city, are neighbourhoods where the average income increased significantly between 1970 and 2000. These neighbourhoods are mostly located in the centre of the city and along subway lines. Residents are largely white (84%) with only 10% of City #1 being Black, Chinese or South Asian. Incomes increased more than 71% in this part of the city between 1970 and 2000, with 14% of individuals having annual incomes of $200,000 or more.
• City #2, representing 43% of the city, are neighbourhoods where there has been little change between 1970 and 2000. The average individual incomes went up or down by less than 20%. These neighbourhoods are located between the other two groups of neighbourhoods and they closely resemble the City of Toronto average in terms of ethnicity.
• City #3, representing 36% of the city, are neighbourhoods where the average incomes of the population decreased between 1970 and 2000. These neighbourhoods are located in the northern half of the city outside the central corridor along Yonge Street and the Yonge Street subway. In City #3, 43% of the residents are Black, Chinese or South Asian. Incomes declined by 34% for residents between 1970 and 2000. In 2001, 62% of the population of City #3 was not born in Canada.
The three cities research demonstrates a concentration of wealth in the city and a growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Whereas in 1970, 66% of the census tracts had incomes close to the average for the city, in 2000 only 32% of the census tracts fit in this middle income category. At the same time, the proportion of low and very-low income neighbourhoods increased from 19% to 50%. “Middle income neighbourhoods are now a minority and half of the city’s neighbourhoods are low-income.” 5 The Three Cities research indicates this trend is likely to continue.
The Colour of Poverty
The Colour of Poverty Campaign has highlighted the racialization of poverty in
Ontario with startling force. Angela Robertson addressed this topic at Forum 1,
indicating:
• ethno-racial minority group members (people of colour) make up over 13% of
Canada’s population; by the year 2017, this number will rise to 20%
• by the year 2017, more than half of Toronto’s population will be people of
colour
• nearly one in five immigrants experiences a state of chronic low income,
which is more than twice the rate for Canadian-born individuals
• between 1980 and 2000, while the poverty rate for the non-racialized (i.e.,
European heritage) population fell by 28%, the poverty among racialized
families rose by 361%.
Because they are more often poor, racialized people have more challenges in
terms of maintaining their health and well-being. People of colour experience
risks in relation to other aspects of their lives as well, in relation to such
determinants of health as education, housing and employment. 6
Strong Neighbourhoods
In 2005, the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force, sponsored by City of Toronto and United Way Toronto, identified that Toronto’s poorest residents are living in neighbourhoods that lack much needed social and community services and infrastructure. Bluntly put: the people who need social supports most live in neighbourhoods where the services typically do not exist. The Task Force called for coordinated investment to address the needs of these neighbourhoods: “The neighbourhood strategy we are recommending addresses one of the most deeply troubling developments in Toronto: patterns of social exclusion based on geography that constitute a threat to the health, wellbeing and prosperity of everyone in our city.”
The Task Force had a vision: “neighbourhoods foster civic participation and inclusion”; “strong neighbourhoods mean safer streets, engaged, active residents, and ultimately a more prosperous economy.“7
Since the report was released, the City and United Way have developed planning bodies and have worked with other partners to invest in the priority neighbourhoods identified through the Task Force’s work. Currently, there are eight community hubs in priority neighbourhoods at various stages of development.
The lead agency in each hub has called upon other service providers, such as FST, to partner in hub development, either as anchor partners (i.e., organizations who will rent offices within the hub and locate staff there) or itinerant partners (i.e., organizations who will offer services occasionally at the hub site).
Heads up Ontario!
This report describes the worsening conditions of Ontario’s not-for-profit community services sector and makes recommendations for addressing the sector’s challenges. The report states: “The ‘perfect storm’ facing community service organizations results from the confluence of three trends: an increased reliance by governments upon the sector as a deliverer of services, persistent under-funding of the sector’s program and administrative infrastructure, and the pressing requirement for increased service and community-building initiatives to address the impact of growing inequality, poverty and discrimination in our communities.”8
Funding cutbacks and the project nature of funding have created a situation where organizations are seriously under funded at the same time as clients served by the sector have increasingly complex needs and the administrative burden on organizations has grown tremendously. The working conditions in the sector have not kept pace with inflation. The report calls on community social services organizations and funders to raise awareness about the value of the sector and the conditions it is facing, and to advocate for solutions.
FST Client and Service Data
Family Service Toronto has been providing community social services in the City of Toronto since 1914. The programs and services provided have changed as the needs of the city’s residents change. Currently, FST provides individual and group counselling, education, information and referral services to individuals and families experiencing a range of challenges. Staff are also active in community building and prevention activities.
FST advocates for systemic change (e.g., Campaign 2000, a national campaign to end child poverty). Programs include: Service Access Unit (assessment, information and referral); Counselling; COPE (parenting groups in high-risk communities); David Kelley Services (counselling for the LGBTQ community); Families in Transition (counselling for families experiencing separation or divorce); Seniors and Caregivers Support Services; Violence Against Women Program; Partner Abuse Response Program; Options and Passport (supports for persons with developmental disabilities).
Problem resolution activities include individual and family counselling,
advocacy on behalf of clients, group counselling, mediation, providing information
and referrals. Community building activities include outreach, community
planning, presentations, convening public meetings, capacity building with
community groups and organizations, and advocating for change.
Prevention
activities include education workshops, service consultations and mutual support
groups.
Abuse was the main reason that 29% of people sought out FST’s community programs. This includes abuse by a partner, childhood sexual abuse and abuse of seniors. Clients of FST’s community programs identified themselves by 31 different ethnic origins. After Canadian, ethnic origins most cited are Caribbean/West Indian, other European, South American, Tamil and Iranian.
5 Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto. The Three Cities within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto’s neighbourhoods, 1970 to 2000, 2007.
6 The Colour of Poverty Campaign. Fact Sheets #1 and #2, 2007. www.colourofpoverty.ca 7 City of Toronto and United Way Toronto. Strong Neighbourhoods: A Call to Action, 2005, p.3.
8 Clutterbuck, Peter and Rob Howarth. Heads Up Ontario! Current Conditions and Promising Reforms to Strengthen Ontario’s Nonprofit Community Services Sector, 2007.
355
Church St., Toronto ON M6C 1L9