Domicide 003: Betrayal in St James Town

Domicide is a Toronto Compass original series of news stories and documentaries. Domicide is the murder of housing as a shelter and right. Instead, housing has been reborn as a financial asset, an investment for the rich to get richer at the cost of safety, dignity, and a human right.

Background

After the great depression and WWII, all levels of government in Canada realized we were in a precarious situation regarding housing. Shortages, rising costs, and negligent owners had created a system where tenants were paying more and more and getting less and less, often just about the legal definition of a roof over their heads. Governments around Canada decided to do something about it. A significant number of co-ops were converted or created in world record speed, new housing guidelines and codes made it cheaper and quicker to house Canadians and for a rare treat, tenants even got protections.

Birth of a neighbourhood

In Toronto, starting in the 1960's a massive project took place over more than a decade to turn a downtown neighborhood of barely 800, into housing that was promised to be affordable, quality, and available for over 11,000 Torontonians. St. James Town was born. Spanning an area smaller than an average Toronto city block, Canada's densest neighbourhood was created out of Corbusier-esque towers in the park. Today, St James Town is known for being a haven for newcomers to Canada. Offering community and affordable housing* in the heart of Toronto, however, this diversity was anything but St James Town's original goal.

(*Private landlords have rocketed the area's average rent up to over 42,300 for a 2 bedroom unit, so while cheaper than average, this 'safe-haven' of affordability, is anything but.)

In true Le Corbusier inspiration, the city didn't set out to make St James Town into what it is today. Bluntly, they didn't want to make it diverse. Acting on behalf of developers the city had a vision, of who would live in the modernist utopia they were building. White, middle-class 30 year olds, were finally given a holy grail opportunity to move out of their parents amid a house crisis. It has been anything but a secret St James Town was made to rival the suburbs and try to get young white people's money to stay downtown. That didn't happen.

Accidental appeal

After just a few years, it became clear the educated, pre-family run-of-the-mill white population that was desired in the area, was not biting the line to move in. Instead, the area naturally appealed to immigrant groups, single mothers, and low-income families. Already services had not been calculated to be adjusted following the rapid population boom in the area, and strain became worse. This only contributed to the white flight of the area, and before long developers and the city had to accept that, in its mission of housing many during a crisis, St James Town succeeded, however not how it was intended to. It was not housing the 'desirables' developers had wanted it to. Instead, it was helping different, more vulnerable, groups who were far less in line with the Corbusier-style hopes of developers and the city at the time.

Betrayal

Feeling no need to provide anything above the legal minimum to the new St James Town population, developers realized these lower-income groups were not worth the time, and money needed for upkeep to maintain even basic living standards. They allowed St James Town to deteriorate into what it is today. The city and province, seeing the same thing, turned a blind eye to corporate building negligence that caused fires, rot, and subpar living conditions. Residents have, for decades, been left alone. Alone to protect themselves, alone to fight back, and alone to stay where they are when developers come for illegal evictions. And come they do.

Toronto, acting off of and forgiving developers' whims, betrayed over 10,000 residents, simply because developers had daydreams of a different group, a whiter group.

Legacy

St James town lives on today, as a diverse beacon of community and resilience. With multiple free community group-led events a day, grassroots food banks, legal services, and more, St James Town has in a way succeeded in its goal. Despite its reputation, the area is Safe, crime is low, its accessible to transit, groceries, city amenities, and more.

However, when trying to be a paradise of breathing room in a housing crisis St. James Town has failed. Our current housing crises, corruption, and negligence have taken a toll on the area. Medallion, WPSQ (A very shady company you will be hearing more about here) and the other corporations have willingly had unsafe standards, hostile relations with tenants, and more.

In an eerie Deja Vu, in the middle of a housing crisis when tenants need it the most, they are being betrayed again by the city, proving its loyalties to developers, not residents.

What can we learn and do?

Strong tenant unions and support groups offer a band-aid solution. If the current city of Toronto wants to be as pro-tenants as it claims it has to do more than greenlight a co-op every couple of years. Toronto has to protect those it betrayed before, it has to protect the residents of St James Town. The residents it ignored because they weren't as valued by corporations as white residents..

Be critical. Does the original purpose of St James Town ring a bell? Perhaps a bell found in Regent's Park, where masses of the working class are being pushed out for a vision of a young professional class... but more on those similarities later.