MISSING THE REVIVAL?

Garden District Residents Want A Moratorium On New Shelters, Group
Homes, Halfway Houses

In Corktown this week, Cameron Young greeted the arrival of a new
methadone clinic with a fence and rolling doors around his Thruway
muffler shop. It sits on an elegant strip of King Street East near
galleries, upscale furniture shops and a new condo
development.

Despite 10 years of gentrification, the shop has been broken into
every summer since opening in 1987. "I've been down here at 4 [a.m.]
one too many times. It's not pleasant," Mr. Young said.

A kilometre away on George Street, photographer Casimir Bart got so
fed up with drug dealers and men urinating, he planted a row of rose
bushes across from his sumptuous new townhouse to deter them. Home to
the Seaton House shelter, George Street has drawn comparisons to
Vancouver's rough East Hastings. This is where the new Toronto
Guardian Angels' chapter decided to take a tour after a graduation
ceremony for new recruits on Tuesday night.

Still, condo developers advertise a new building just a few blocks
away. "Slowly, the city's coming," Mr. Bart said.

Stark social contrasts continue to define many pockets of downtown
east, the birthplace of Toronto that most shows its age.

East of Yonge Street and south of Gerrard Street, neighbourhoods are
being transformed, thanks to boutique condos, high-end retail and
public revitalization projects such as Regent Park's ongoing
transformation into a mixed housing development and the forthcoming
West Donlands development.

But a stubborn underclass remains, particularly in the Garden
District, that leaves some residents worrying the boom will pass them
by.

"We live here, we invest here and we're involved in the community,"
said Eva Culanis-Bart, who has lived on George Street with Mr. Bart
since 1998 and heads the Garden District Residents Association.
"Gentrification stops at Richmond."

Even as new condo towers are being built -- several of them on
Richmond Street -- so too is an expanded Salvation Army complex at
Jarvis and Shuter streets; the new Harbour Light centre will add 98
units of transitional housing -- single units with kitchens and
bathrooms -- to 35 rehab beds, a church and social facilities by 2008.

The Garden District -- bordered by Carlton, Yonge, Sherbourne and
Queen -- has the city's highest concentration of shelters and
substance-abuse facilities, including 1,100 shelter beds, with social
housing and services on every street, many housed in heritage
Victorian properties.

United Way's 2005 Report on Toronto Neighbourhoods found the district
led the city in lowest median income at $15,000, the highest
unemployment rate at 11.5% and suffered from an escalating frequency
and nature of crime and violence. "The drug deals are more brazen
now," Ms. Culanis-Bart said.

In 2004, 51 Division recorded 1,240 police calls to some 47 rooming
houses in the Garden District. The residents association wants a
moratorium on all new shelters, group homes, rooming and halfway
houses in the area; they're outraged at local councillor Kyle Rae for
supporting the Salvation Army project.

"I think we will live in a place that puts up fences because we can't
live otherwise," Ms. Culanis-Bart said. Across the street from her
house, Ecole Gabrielle-Roy on Pembroke Street is completely enclosed
behind a fence, as are many homes, shops and parking lots in the
neighbourhood.

The Salvation Army's Major George Patterson makes no apology for the
organization's presence throughout downtown east. The Salvation Army
has owned many properties in the area since the Second World War.

"We were probably here longer than them," Major Patterson said of
protesting locals.

But these locals watch as surrounding neighbourhoods such as Corktown
enjoy an accelerating gentrification.

Sean Duranovich, a local resident who owns Dominion on Queen, a pub
established in 1889, has seen an influx of families move into Corktown
in the past decade.

"What changed [Corktown] was a large desire to live close to the
city," Mr. Duranovich said.

At King and Sackville streets, Thruway's Mr. Young doesn't hesitate to
say the closure of Street City, a nearby warehouse that once housed
the homeless, had something to do with the renaissance. "Everything's
positive except the methadone clinic," he said.

But Mr. Duranovich calls the clinic a "micro issue," one he thinks
the neighbourhood is "a strong-enough force to overcome."

Landmarks such as the Distillery District, 51 Division in the
renovated Consumers Gas building and most recently the renovated St.
Paul's Basilica have helped put Corktown on the map. The historic
district is bordered by Shuter, River, Parliament streets and Lake
Shore Boulevard.

Mr. Duranovich believes the West Donlands will complete Corktown's
revival and bring basic services. "That'll really open up the flood
gates."

Launched this spring with $213-million pledged from three levels of
government, the Donlands project promises to transform 32 hectares of
industrial wasteland west of the Don River into a mixed community with
6,000 new residences, green space, shops, restaurants, community
services and a new bus line along Cherry Street.

Home and business owners in the Garden District want this kind of
balanced community, and the first signs of it are slowly creeping in.
Since 2004, members of the Corktown and Queen Street East business and
residents associations have been lobbying for a Business Improvement
Area (BIA) for Queen Street East, from Victoria to River streets.

Condos are sprouting on the peripheries of downtown east, such as the
Prevu lofts on the old Goodwill site at Jarvis and Adelaide streets.
The Jazz rental complex inched out a few pawnbrokers on Church at
Shuter, and has been popular with young professionals from St.
Michael's Hospital and students from Ryerson University.

Down the street from the Salvation Army's Maxwell Meighen Centre, an
emergency shelter with 450 beds that takes in federal offenders,
Eastside Lofts advertises $170,000 condos and will start selling in
September.

It's unlikely its neighbours, an antique shop called Patina, will be
around to see its construction. Owners Sal Shivji and Garry Punnett
doubt they will renew their lease when it expires in four years. Their
customers are mostly interior decorators driving in from Rosedale and
Forest Hill who treat Patina like a destination.

"They don't walk around," Mr. Punnett said.

Since 2005, four antique shops vacated this Queen Street East strip;
the area's only dry cleaner moved out last month.

"Builders want to see who will take the risk. No one wants to do it,"
Mr. Shivji said.

He said local business owners are split on the BIA because their
property taxes are growing in an area still almost devoid of foot
traffic. The BIA designation would put a levy on participants that
goes toward marketing events and streetscape improvements.

"Prices keep going up because of our proximity to downtown," Mr.
Shivji said. "We're fighting a battle that we need our [politicians]
to be fighting."

Although Mr. Rae hopes for "better economic opportunities and
diversity" along Gerrard, Sherbourne and Dundas streets, he doesn't
aspire to build a community of condo dwellers.

"There's been a mix in this neighbourhood for many years. It's been
like that for two generations. It's a difficult neighbourhood but
that's life in the downtown."