Firsthand
“There is a lot of love here even though it is a run-down place,” says a 34-year-old man who has lived in Teesdale all his life. He says many people come to the neighbourhood and move on. Youth from Teesdale in a video on YouTube show pride in their neighbourhood and a strong sense of identity. They brag about their strength and prowess against outsider groups. “Snitching” on anyone from the neighbourhood is looked down on and punished. (See “The Real Toronto: Teesdale” youtube video at right. Warning: explicit content.)

The Landscape
Patch size: 200 by 200 meters.

• Four 24-storey apartment buildings, two of them subsidized housing (30 Teesdale Place, 40 Teesdale Place) and two market-rent buildings (Dentonia Court at 20 Teesdale Place and Dentonia Place at 10 Teesdale Place)
• Unsubsidized rent ranges from $825/month for a junior, one-bedroom unit¹ (Toronto average is $1,024/month ²) to $1,175/month for a three-bedroom unit ¹ (Toronto average is $1,989/month²)
• Located in the former city of Scarborough on the west side of Pharmacy Avenue east of Victoria Park Avenue, just north of Danforth Avenue
• Part of the Oakridge neighbourhood
• Served by the Warden Woods Community Centre with a drop-in and newcomer centre at 40 Teesdale Place³

The People
In the wider Teesdale neighbourhood where this patch is located⁴:

• The population density is an incredible 12,518 people per km ² as compared with 866/km² in the rest of Toronto and 13.4/ km ² in the rest of Ontario
• 99.7% of the dwellings are apartments.
• 67% of the families in this area are led by married couples
• 97% of the lone-parent families are led by women
• 67% of the people are immigrants
• 58% of individuals over age 15 have a post-secondary certificate, diploma or degree; 70% got their degrees outside of Canada (this is in keeping with a trend of more highly educated immigrants who still find themselves shut out from the prosperity of other Canadians)
• The 2006 unemployment rate was a staggering 18.5% as compared with 6.7% average in Toronto; almost three times higher
• 84% of residents were considered visible minorities; the two largest groups were identified as South Asian and black

The History
The two subsidized apartment buildings were probably built in the late 1960s or early ’70s when a wave of public housing units were constructed to accommodate people in need across Toronto. There was a high rate of poverty in the wider Oakridge neighbourhood (which includes Teesdale) as early as 1981. The community now has a very high poverty rate with as many as 57% of families experiencing poverty. ⁵

During the early ’90s and through the year 2000, Teesdale-area teens had a series of violent encounters with youth from nearby Crescent Town.⁶

The Challenge
“Poor neighbourhoods can spiral into further poverty, increased crime, and abandonment by both residents and businesses. And shockingly, Toronto is losing ground faster than almost all other urban centres in Canada,” says Frances Lankin, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Toronto. ⁷

As a Christian who cares about people in poverty, would you be willing to move into Teesdale?

Sources
¹www.urbanb.com
²Rental Market Report, Greater Toronto Area, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Fall 2008
³Warden Woods Community Centre
⁴All statistics in this section taken from Statistics Canada Census tract profile for 0341.03 (CT), Toronto (CMA) and Ontario
⁵Poverty By Postal Code, United Way of Greater Toronto and The Canadian Council on Social Development, April 2004
⁶Wikipedia
⁷April 5, 2004 Media Release United Way of Greater Toronto