Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre (PARC)

Protect Parkdale! Opposition to supportive housing is growing, even as the need for affordable housing, harm reduction, and mental health support rises. More people are being pushed into homelessness, and too many are overdosing and dying in our streets. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Join us on July 23rd in solidarity to defend supportive housing, protect harm reduction, and fight for our neighbours. Get tickets here: https://buff.ly/r2GBrUQ

Toronto is under an orange heat warning. Extreme heat carries serious health risks for people living outside. In Ontario, people with a recent history of homelessness visit emergency departments for heat-related illness at roughly seven times the rate of the general population (Clemens et al., 2022). Cooling centres opened during heat warnings are a necessary interim measure. They are not the durable solution. Toronto still has no maximum indoor temperature standard for rental housing, which leaves many residents exposed in their own homes during extreme heat. There are immediate ways to help. Check on neighbours at higher risk, including older adults, people living alone, and people with chronic illness. Offer water and shade. Call 311 to request a wellness check from Street Outreach for anyone streetbound. There is also a policy ask. We encourage residents to contact their City Councillor in support of a maximum indoor temperature bylaw, and to keep cooling stations accessible beyond heat-warning days. Interim relief keeps people alive during a crisis. Safe, permanent housing is what protects them for good. PARC is open to all our neighbours for water, a cool place to rest, and a meal. Stay cool, Parkdale! -- Clemens, K. K., Ouédraogo, A. M., Le, B., Voogt, J., MacDonald, M., Stranberg, R., Yan, J. W., Krayenhoff, E. S., Gilliland, J., Forchuk, C., Van Uum, R., & Shariff, S. Z. (2022). Impact of Ontario's Harmonized Heat Warning and Information System on emergency department visits for heat-related illness in Ontario, Canada: A population-based time series analysis. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 113(5), 686–697. https://lnkd.in/gNKgRCqW

Protect Parkdale! Opposition to supportive housing is growing, even as the need for affordable housing, harm reduction, and mental health support rises. More people are being pushed into homelessness, and too many are overdosing and dying in our streets. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Join us on July 23rd in solidarity to defend supportive housing, protect harm reduction, and fight for our neighbours. Get tickets here: https://buff.ly/r2GBrUQ https://lnkd.in/g2ehYwMF

Protect Parkdale! Opposition to supportive housing is growing, even as the need for affordable housing, harm reduction, and mental health support rises. More people are being pushed into homelessness, and too many are overdosing and dying in our streets. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Join us on July 23rd in solidarity to defend supportive housing, protect harm reduction, and fight for our neighbours. Get tickets here: https://buff.ly/r2GBrUQ https://lnkd.in/gACDWuXi

In the mid-1970s, queer artists priced out of Yorkville found cheap rent and empty warehouses along Queen West. By 1979, the neighbourhood's queer and arts communities had become inseparable. The 1980s tested that community. Police raided four bathhouses across Toronto in 1981. HIV/AIDS devastated the neighbourhood. The Body Politic published its final issue in 1987. Queer West rebuilt. The Gladstone Hotel became an arts hub. Artist Will Munro opened The Beaver in 2006. Sweaty Betty's became a noted lesbian-owned bar. The neighbourhood set itself apart from the Church-Wellesley Village by being more diverse and less defined by any single identity. Rising rents continue to test that resilience, but the community keeps showing up. Happy Pride to all our neighbours. Sources: John Greyson, "Yellow Boots on Queer West" (Any Other Way, Coach House Books, 2017); Heritage Toronto; Defining Moments Canada; Rick Bébout, "Diva Diaries."

Protect Parkdale! Opposition to supportive housing is growing, even as the need for affordable housing, harm reduction, and mental health support rises. More people are being pushed into homelessness, and too many are overdosing and dying in our streets. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Join us on July 23rd in solidarity to defend supportive housing, protect harm reduction, and fight for our neighbours. Get tickets here: https://buff.ly/oWQ7DUM

Last week PARC members gathered to mark the Summer Solstice, one of two solstice celebrations we hold each year. Extending our hours for these events is deliberate. Longer days together create the kind of unhurried connection that drop-in hours don't always allow. The afternoon featured an open mic spotlighting member talent, bingo with prizes, and a performance from long-time PARC member and musician 'Zephie & the Hot Pepper Band.' Gatherings like this reflect how PARC works year-round. That our members are also our neighbours and contributors, not recipients. They are essential. Winter Solstice is next on the calendar in December! To support our Winter Solstice gift collection, you can contact us at info@parc.on.ca.

The name Tkaronto carries a food system more than 4,000 years old. PARC is simply a neighbour to the work of urban Indigenous food sovereignty. The people rebuilding in this city are already here, and they're who to follow and amplify: Dashmaawaan Bemaadzinjin — They Feed the People. Indigenous-led catering and food market feeding Elders and unhoused relatives since 2020. @dashmaawaanbemaadzinjin Ojibiikaan Indigenous Cultural Network - Land-based food, medicine, and cultural programming across the GTA. https://ojibiikaan.com/ NishDish - Anishinaabe restaurant and social enterprise built on traditional foods. https://www.nishdish.com/ Reconciliation does not mean feeding those whose land we inhabit; it means recognizing their right to feed themselves in a culturally safe way. Toronto sits on the territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, and the Wendat, covered by Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum.

Poverty by Metod Murovec: Poverty makes you see the truth about the world - its loss, establishment, and acceptance. The rich don't know. To them it's a perversion. They look at it and want to get richer. The in-betweens pretend they are rich and look down on the impoverished. It seems the only way is down because the poor are contented in their acceptance of the facts. They're shown before you. If you go to Manpower, the first thing they ask is, "What are your skills?" I guess you can't say, "I receive a cheque." So, you see, even the psychology is saying you should be rich. And, if you can't be, at least be so in mind, body and spirit. -- From the PARC archives: Kiss Me You Mad Fool (1991). This is a collection of writing by PARC members and staff, that has been out of print for over three decades. We have one of the last known copies.

Canada used to build housing. During the Second World War, a federal Crown corporation built more than 45,000 homes. By the 1970s, all three levels of government treated housing as a public responsibility, backing a system of public, co-operative, and non-profit homes for families, seniors, and people with disabilities. Then the thinking changed. Through the 1980s and 90s, governments handed responsibility to the private market and cut their own investment. In 1995, federal funding for new affordable housing ended outright. For the next seven years, almost no new non-profit housing was built in this country. The bet was that private developers would close the gap. They didn't, because they were never trying to. Developers build to generate profit, and housing became an asset to grow wealth rather than a place for people to live. That's where we are now. In Toronto, the average one-bedroom rents for about $2,400 a month. Someone working full-time at minimum wage would have to spend 98% of their income to afford it. More than 85,000 households are waiting for subsidized housing here, some for 12 to 15 years. None of this is an accident or a market hiccup. It is the predictable result of a decision to stop treating housing as something people need.