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As one of the millions of Canadians effected by COVID-19 I was excited to learn that the government would be offering financial support to those struggling. On March 25th the creation of the Canadian Response Benefit (CERB) was announced by the federal government. Under this benefit Canadians would receive $500 a week for up to 16 weeks (extended to 24 weeks in June 2020). To apply, you must live in Canada, be at least 15, have lost your job due to COVID-19, and had an income of at least $5,000 in 2019 or the last 12 months. However this eligibility requirement left many Canadians like me out in the cold. I was one of those Canadians who either did not make enough money, who prior to the outbreak were unemployed, or were still working but had their hours cut down. In my case, I am a Black Woman who graduated out of university in 2019. As I am an inspiring snow boarder and love the mountains, I decided to move to Calgary to join a friend there. Unfortunately, it took me several mo...

Racism is not a new concept to racialized people, talk to almost any black teenager or black young adult resident of Regent Park and they’ll be able to tell you of their or their friend’s experiences of been stopped by police due to the colour of their skin, most often as part of Toronto Police Services TAVIS Program (Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy) for aggressive policing of Toronto’s low income neighbourhoods. In these encounters black individuals are carded and asked to confirm their Regent Park resident status or state the reason for visiting the area. The ten-year TAVIS program ended in 2016.   Regent Park is not alone, today most Black Canadians can also tell you of a negative experience they or someone close to them has had, due to the colour of their skin. Whether it is being unfairly targeted by the police, followed around in a store, being denied housing or employment, being over-looked on a dating site or passed over for a work promotion. Unfortunately fo...

If you’re at all like me you’ve looked around your neighbourhood and noticed the amount of trash lying around, anywhere from the odd food wrapper to the common cigarette butt. Littering is a common occurrence and lets face it we’ve all been there, either guilty of littering ourselves or witnesses to other people littering. Although it might not seem like a big deal to people, littering has a significant effect on the environment. According to the National Geographic there are “5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean”. Staggering as that number is, it will continue to grow as humans consume more and more plastics products that often end up improperly thrown away, or carelessly tossed onto our streets. This is particularly worrying given the shelf life of these plastics. Plastic can take up to 100 years or longer to decompose. For instance plastic bags take 10-20 years to decompose, where as plastic bottles take 450 years to decompose. It is no wonder than that we, as a socie...

The coronavirus pandemic has put thousands of people out of Canadians out of work, especially lower-income people and minimum-wage workers. The financial strain has made it nearly impossible for many to pay rent. Here in Downtown East Toronto, including such neighbourhoods as Regent Park, Moss Park and St. Jamestown, many residents are renters who may be working minimum-wage jobs in non-essential businesses. Bill 184 is a new piece of provincial legislature that seeks to address some of these issues, but it has been met with criticism and controversy. We talked with Toronto Centre MPP Suze Morrison to learn more about the bill and how it can affect renters.  Bill 184 is an omnibus bill, meaning it contains a number of different topics. One of the most important changes lets landlords and tenants discuss payment options without the involvement of the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). In theory, it’s supposed to make the negotiation process easier and more efficient. As Morrison point...

Here at RPTV, we're committed to keeping you up to date on new construction in the Regent Park community. As buildings are readying for occupancy, it's important that we reach out to developers to learn more about these projects. We talked with Senior Construction Manager Robert Boyd to learn more about the new development at 150 River St.   This development is part of stage three of a five-stage plan to revitalize Regent Park. The end goal is to replace Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s (TCHC) old buildings with newer, safer housing. Though they have the option to leave Regent Park, all community housing residents are guaranteed a unit in one of TCHC’s new buildings. Located at the corner of River St. and Oak St., this 11-storey building contains 158 TCHC community housing units with 33 affordable housing units. The TCHC units are rent-geared-to-income (or RGI), meaning your rent is based 30% of your annual income before taxes. The affordable units, though they are con...

The COVID-19 crisis has forced non-essential businesses to close, particularly targeting the retail, hospitality, and service industries. Women, new immigrants , and people of colour are over-represented by these jobs, which usually pay minimum wage. As a result of the pandemic, many employees in these sectors have been laid off and unemployment rates are significantly higher than recent years. These employees often live paycheque to paycheque, so losing a job can have drastic consequences--especially in Regent Park, where many come from lower-income families or live in subsidized housing. One of the major and most necessary expenses is food--Torontonians spend an average of over $280 permonth on groceries (not to mention eating out at restaurants). For an employee working at the $14 minimum wage, that equals 13% of your net income. Many people may not be homeless, but they are still struggling to make ends meet. So where do you turn when you struggle to afford the most basic nece...

Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General has allocated 200 million dollars for the years 2019 to 2022, in support of the Community Safety and Well-Being Strategy. A key part of this updated strategy is the idea that,“…the majority of investments, time and resources should be spent on developing and/or enhancing social development, prevention and risk intervention strategies to reduce the number of individuals, families and communities that reach the point of requiring an incident response. Developing strategies that are preventative as opposed to reactive will ensure efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of safety and well-being service delivery across Ontario.” And so you would think this would mean investing most of that funding into community organizations and preventative health strategies. Yet approximately 99% of the 2019 budget went to police forces (Toronto Police Services received $55.4 million on top of their budget of over 1.06 billion). This is one recent exa...

611 Purple Factory is a barbershop that is located in the Regent Park area, at 611 Dundas Street East, right across for the Pam McConnell Aquatic Centre. The shop’s area of service focuses on the hair cuts, shape ups, fading and more. The shop is owned by Martin Ferreira. Barbershops, unfortunately, is one of the non-essential services ordered to close as part of Ontario Premiere Doug Ford’s announcement on Tuesday March 23, 2020, that all non-essential store and services would be ordered to close, in an attempt to slow down the spread of Covid-19. The closure has caused a lot of hardship for small business owners like Martin. Yet, despite the closure and loss of revenue, Martin took the news in stride and was even positive about it. According to Martin, this was his first summer break in over ten years. Most summers, “we just cut hair stand inside and watch the seasons change through the windows. This summer I was able to enjoy the outdoors and have fun,” said Martin.  ...

Construction cranes are generally perceived as very mundane fixtures in the rapidly-upward expanding metropolitans across the world. Invading roof-types and transforming city skylines into never-ending symbols of perpetual development and change. Most city-dwellers have grown accustomed to the spread of cranes across the city of Toronto. But more than that, new concerns are growing from these metal towering machines. In 2018, a 23 year old “thrill-seeker” Marisa Lazo, climbed on top of a construction crane at the corner of Church and Wesley, to take a selfie as part of an Instagram trend called “roof topping”. Marisa ended up stuck on the crane, which resulted in a rescue operation by Toronto firefighters. She succeeded in her attempt for “fame” for her selfie and was dubbed “Crane Girl”, in newspapers across the country and social media internationally; Also landed herself a $100 dollar fine. A part from creating infamous social media personalities, intentionally risking their own l...

Regent Park is currently home to approximately 12,000 people. Many of the residents are of the Muslim faith. A mosque is a house of worship for Muslims. It is also a place to gather for special events. It could also be used as a community centre. The Omar Bin Khattab Mosque, located on 232 Parliament Street between Dundas Street and Shuter Street, serves all these purposes above and is a safe place where Regent Park Muslims could come together and celebrate their faith.  Imam Said Rageah who is a prayer leader at the Sakinah community centre and a volunteer at the Omar Bin Khattab Mosque, sat down with us to talk about the importance of this mosque in the Regent Park community and the history of mosques in Canada.   According to Said, the Omar Bin Khattab Mosque was established by a diverse group of Muslim men in 1992, to fill the needs of a masjid (Arabic word for mosque) in the community in response to the rising number of Muslims settling in the Regent Park area be...

On March 17, 2020, Ombudsman Toronto, led by Ombudsman Susan E. Opler, released a report titled “Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) Complaint Trend Data and Related Recommendations”. The Toronto Community Housing Corporation, or TCHC, is a social housing agency that owns and manages subsidized housing properties in Toronto. The report and response has particularly strong implications for lower-income families residing in TCHC communities such as Regent Park. Regent Park is one of the oldest and largest public housing developments in Canada. Many of its residents are underemployed new immigrants struggling to find adequate, meaningful work. Though it’s recently transitioned to a mixed-use, mixed-income neighbourhood, a large percentage of people still live in subsidized housing managed by TCHC. In addition to adding rental and market housing, replacing all the TCHC subsidize units with new housing is an important part of the revitalization and the first step towards bui...

As the Coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic continues to plague almost every single country in the world, the issue of domestic violence is becoming a cause for concern among nations’ leaders including Canada’s. According to reports,  domestic  abuse cases are on the rise as women’s shelters and hotlines grapple with the influx of calls being received by individuals in precarious situations. Many believe that this increase is the result of pandemic associated factors such as financial insecurity,   stress   and   uncertainty   leading   to   increased   aggression   in   the   home. Domestic violence also increases whenever families spend large amount of time together often because abuses are able to control large amounts of their victim’s daily life and families are socially isolated in their homes.   Among immigrant and refugee communities in Canada, such as like Regent Park, ...

Dundas Beauty is a hair salon that is located in the Regent Park area, at 442 Dundas Street East, close to Parliament and Dundas. Their area of service focuses on the versatility of hair including braiding, weaving, wigs, hair dyeing and more. The shop is co-owned by black business owner, Theresa Betou. Theresa was forced to close her shop shortly after Premiere Doug Ford announcement on Tuesday March 23, 2020, that all non-essential store and services would be ordered to close as of Tuesday March 24 th , in an attempt to slow down the spread of Covid-19. Hair salons and barbershops have everything to do with neck up and prior to Covid-19, few people would ever think that they would see a time when you would not be allowed to get a hair cut because it is unsafe. Unfortunately, hair cutting requires close client contact and touching the heads of clients and as a result is considered an easy way for the coronavirus to spread. The closure that was only supposed to last 14 days ended ...