Firsthand
There’s not much to the Donald Street patch at first glance - after all, it’s just two apartment buildings. Garbage is strewn all over the place - sometimes collecting in piles near dumpsters and outside first-floor doorways, sometimes hanging off balconies. If you’re around when the school bus rolls in at the end of a weekday, you’ll see a swarm of kids depart and rush inside. This is a particularly multicultural patch with many recent immigrants.

The Landscape
A brief walk around the area reveals two partially run-down apartment buildings hemmed in by the back walls of Zellers and Food Basics on the west, and townhouses on the north, east, and south. This pair of buildings is the Donald Street patch − immigrant islands, surrounded by a sea of commerce and middle-class homes. One of the buildings has 15 floors, the other has 18 and judging by the level of activity visible on a typical day these buildings are packed tight.

Within walking distance of the Donald Street buildings you’ll find the sizeable St. Laurent Centre in the west, the Ken Steele Park in the east, and a bevy of other shopping options if you head north from the Zellers and Food Basics plaza. Also, the 417, one of Ottawa’s major cross-city highways, is just a short drive south.

The Donald Street patch consists of 1240 and 1244 Donald St.¹

The People
In the slightly wider neighbourhood that the Donald Street patch finds itself in (this includes some of the aforementioned townhouses):²

• The population in 2006 numbered 3,364
• The population density is 3,823 people per square kilometre compared with Ottawa’s 198 people/km² average
• The two buildings that comprise the patch account for 39.4% of the area’s total population − almost all the rest of the population is found in the row townhouses to the north, east and south
• The mother tongues of 53% of the population are something other than English or French and 35% of the population speak neither official language at home, hinting at a large immigrant presence
• These hints are confirmed, as fully 49% of the population is identified as immigrant and 43% of those have arrived since 2001, many of whom are not yet Canadian citizens
• Approximately 41% of those living in this area have lived at the same address for the last five years − it is likely that a significant portion of this number is found in the surrounding row housing
• Of those over the age of 15 who are employed, a remarkable 87% work within the area
• About 59% of the population consists of visible minorities, with the most populous being black, Arab and both South and West Asian

The History
The Donald Street patch is located in Ottawa, just east of the community of Overbrook. Known locally as “O.B.”, Overbrook has experienced rising crime rates during the past decade. In 2006, gang activity and drug trafficking reached their highest rates since 1998. The area is underdeveloped and has a considerable amount of low-income government housing. It benefits greatly from an extremely diverse population flowing from its attractiveness to recent immigrants. The Donald Street area is a working-class neighbourhood which has experienced sporadic occurrences of violence.³

The Challenge
Two buildings full of new Canadians, deep in the midst of the nation’s capital. Will you welcome them to our nation, bearing the Good News? Would you be willing to move in?

Sources
¹rapdict.org
²All statistics in the section taken from
Census tract profile for 0033.00 (CT), Toronto (CMA) and Ontario
³Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overbrook_(Ottawa) and rapdict.org