This Project Would Seem Be A Win Win Situation

But it doesn't seem to be able to get off the ground. WHY? Possibly egos or
personal agendas or ineptness? I can't believe that there aren't people in the area who want to better themselves as far as skills and earning ability. I know Jane and Finch is above Bloor Street and wouldn't expect the Mayor to get involved but where is the local councillor......

Jane-Finch job-training program faces eviction
Community group seeks help in giving factory a kick-start
April 01, 2007
Tess Kalinowski
STAFF REPORTER

It was supposed to be a homemade hand up for a struggling community.

But now the Jane-Finch Concerned Citizens Organization faces eviction from the small training facility Toronto Community Housing built in a converted maintenance building.

The housing authority says the sewing machines and hairstyling stalls that were to have provided training and jobs to its tenants have stood silent too often over the last two years.

They've told the group to move by the end of May from the facility that was to have provided at least 25 jobs and the home for a start-up garment business.

"Each one of these machines is a job," said Winston LaRose, executive director of the Jane-Finch group, in the Ruel Grey Multi-Tech Centre on Driftwood Court.

About 40 people have trained at the centre since it opened two years ago and the group has trained hundreds more in the last five years, mostly through its other location at nearby Yorkgate Mall, said LaRose.

But the Jane-Finch public housing community's reputation discourages outsiders from coming to the facility and those who live there are afraid they won't qualify for the training because many haven't finished high school, he said.

LaRose wants the housing authority to provide more time and assistance getting the word out in its buildings while the group looks for grants to put the little factory in gear.

"We're saying, `Just give us the money to kick-start the operation,'" he said yesterday. "All levels of government need to come in here and do something.

"There are million-dollar organizations in this community talking about violence, talking about abuse. But they don't do this," he said. "What we have here is the right thing."

The housing authority had high hopes for the facility when it entered into the partnership with the Jane-Finch group two years ago.

"But the number of people they're attracting is really low," said Steve Floros, director of property management for the housing authority.

There will be a community consultation to decide who gets in after the Jane-Finch group leaves, he said. It's possible the community will decide to allow the group to run its programs in the evenings or on specific days, he said.

But "exclusive use of space is not something we encourage," said Floros.

"Space is a big issue in this community. It puts us all in this competitive nature just like funding," said Cheryl Prescott of the Black Creek Community Health Centre.

She was among the community organizers of a meeting to mobilize Jane-Finch residents to action on employment, poverty and education issues.

"Racial minorities are falling farther behind in a number of socio-economic indicators. So their life chances are declining and many of them are despairing," Ryerson University Professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi told the meeting at the Driftwood Community Centre yesterday.

"There are no saviours coming from outside the community," he said. "There is no Tarzan flying in to save us."