Rexdale hub proves an unlikely haven
In Ford country, this social services agency is working and welcome
It is a quiet day at the Rexdale Community Hub. Quiet, but not silent.
Within the confines of the 74,000-square-foot facility at Kipling Avenue and Albion Road, the Rexdale Community Health Centre — just recently renovated — has only a few patients in its waiting area, while outside in the lobby, a group from the Rexdale Women’s Centre hands out pamphlets to those clients passing through to access services ranging from employment to legal to health care.
The agencies that inhabit the hub work with residents from some of the highest needs communities in Toronto: Jamestown, Rexdale, Thistletown and others in northern Etobicoke where jobs and housing are scarce and crime and poverty are ever on the doorstep.
According to a City of Toronto survey of high needs neighbourhoods conducted in 2014, four such neighbourhoods in north Etobicoke rated higher than the city’s average for housing unaffordability, unemployment and poverty.
Northern Etobicoke is close to Pearson International Airport. Community workers said that refugees and newcomers come to area soon after arriving and they need immediate assistance.
And as gun-related crime is on the rise citywide, north Etobicoke has seen more than its share. There have been 10 homicides reported by Toronto police in 23 Division so far this year; six of them firearm-related.
A decade ago, the Rexdale hub — located in an old Catholic high school — was but a slim possibility. Rob Ford, who was city councillor for Ward 2 (Etobicoke North), was opposed to the agreement to take over the school and moved an unsuccessful motion in 2009 to scrap the deal entirely.
It should have surprised no one that he would do so: Ford had built his reputation on opposing expenditures of public money and made a point of dealing with social issues in his ward in person and individually.
A hub of social service agencies, funded by the city, the provincial government and the United Way?
It was not the sort of facility one would expect in the heart of Rob Ford country, however necessary its services might be.
But the work of his neighbouring councillor promoting the move, Suzan Hall, won the day in what would become the last months of her tenure as councillor for Ward 1 (Etobicoke North). In 2010, she would go down to defeat against Ford ally Vince Crisanti but, in the aftermath, Hall has spent considerable time working with the agencies that eventually moved in; particularly, Albion Neighbourhood Services where she served as president until this year.
Hall and others who work there note that although political representation in the north of Etobicoke has shifted dramatically to the right, so far the vital social service work in the community has been able to continue.
“Council makes the decision overall, so the city can benefit regardless of how individual councillors feel,” said Hall. “For instance, Rob Ford was definitely opposed to the concept of the community hub. But council supported it. And in turn, when Vince Crisanti became councillor he supported it, although he hadn’t prior.”
Hall and others said since the centre opened, there has been strong support for social services, from both Crisanti and Ward 2Councillor Michael Ford, who was elected in a 2016 byelection following the death of his uncle Rob.
In an interview, Ford took his support a step further and said the Rexdale model is one he’d like to see for more community hubs.