CSI Celebrates Regent Park and Plans NYC Space

The Centre for Social Innovation recently invited friends, supporters, neighborhood people and the general public to the launch of their beautiful new space in the Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre at 585 Dundas Street East, Toronto.  Natasha Stevens, manager of the space enthusiastically welcomed everyone while Executive Director, Tonya Surman thanked the many people in the room who had a role in making Regent Park happen.  There was no doubt that each attendee believed a more just and sustainable society was in the stars for Regent Park through the new socio-economic structure of social entrepreneurship.   

Now CSI turns towards opening a fourth space in the Starrett-Lehigh Building, located in lower mid-town Chelsea, in the greatest place for personal and cultural reinvention - New York City.  CSI arrives at a time when 21% of all New Yorkers live below the US poverty line.  Let's crunch some numbers:  for a family of four, living in the Bronx their total income for 2012 would be less than $23,050.  This family lives in the Bronx and not Manhattan for a reason:  affordable housing.  They'll struggle to make ends meet by going to a food pantry twice a month, maybe a soup kitchen before payday for a meal and receiving food stamps for basic staples.  This family joins 1.8 million other New Yorkers who rely on food stamps to keep hunger away.  The Bronx is known for the Yankees, the birth of hip-hop and rap and also struggles with an unemployment rate of over 13% for it's 1.1 million residents. 

High Line in Early Spring 2012

Manhattan is no stranger to hunger or the need to make ends meet - but on a different scale.  The top fifth income earners bring in over $371,000 a year while the bottom fifth earns $9,845.  The Starrett-Lehigh Building is located right around the corner from the High Line, a 1 mile (1.6 km) park recently reclaimed from an old section of the long gone New York Central Rail Line.  Popping up like daises around this urban park are condominiums that few in the Bronx could afford over the course of their entire lives.  Similar to Toronto's Regent Park, there is a public housing project in the same Chelsea neighborhood as Starrett-Lehigh, whose residents have reason to feel ignored by the current area's redevelopment.  The Apple store stands on the corner of 14th and 9th Avenue where Western Beef, an affordable supermarket once was.  Apple doesn't sell fresh fruit or vegetables along with I-Pods and I-Phones. 

Social innovators associated with the success of CSI have much to offer all New Yorkers who are struggling to maintain a family and their dreams in the Big Apple.  The challenge remains on welcoming the bottom fifth to CSI Starrett-Lehigh while encouraging the top-fifth to support and participate in the creation of a more just and sustainable lifestyle for the entire city.  CSI's Board of Directors, Tonya and other supporters have shown what is possible in Regent Park, downtown Toronto.  Enjoy your beginning bite of the Big Apple.  Did anyone tell you it is a tart McIntosh with a worm or two to contend with? 

Joanne arrived in NYC in the autumn of 1981 and moved to Toronto in the summer of 2009.  Over the years, she worked in nonprofit organizations while raising two kids in the Bronx.  Both kids, now adults remain proud New Yorkers.  With one living in Brooklyn and the other in Queens, they each earn enough in Manhattan jobs to live above the poverty line, somewhere in the shrinking middle.  Joanne loves living in Toronto and is excited to be a new Community Animator at the CSI Spadina space.  She retains though, a fondness for the tart flavor of the Big Apple.