By: Noaman G. Ali “I’ve been living here for three years, and last night was the first time I’ve seen anyone come to fix the laundry room,” says a 33-year old resident of 3400 Eglinton Avenue East. The laundry room in the basement of the Markham and Eglinton area building is full of washing machines …
by Harshita Singh In 2014, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation issued its annual Performance Report, a document which measures whether TCHC reached its own targets in providing repairs and “sustainable living” conditions for tenants. Last year’s report included a section for Resident Satisfaction. This new section meant to examine whether there was an “increase …
by Harshita Singh “Two people have been killed since I moved in here. Of course I feel unsafe. I feel more safe in the street than in my home.” This is how Maryam*, a woman in her early twenties and a three-year resident of 3171 Eglinton Avenue—one of the TCHC high-rises at the intersection …
In December 2014, BASICS people’s journalists Shafiq Aziz and Steve da Silva travelled to Mishkeegogamang First Nation, a remote Ojibway reserve located 7 hours north of Thunder Bay as part of a serve-the-people project launched by the First Nations Solidarity Working Group of union local CUPE 3903. Through a look at the housing situation on the reserve, BASICS …
by BASICS Team Kitchener-Waterloo On Jan 3, 2014, the Kitchener-Waterloo Spot Collective announced the relaunching and professionalising of their people’s programs. The people’s programs, which include the serving of free food, programs for those dealing with addiction, and literacy programs, have come out of the need to deal with the problems the community faces by …
‘Project Traveller’ and the struggle to defend our communities By: Kabir Joshi-Vijayan Rob Ford might be the most (in)famous politician in Canadian history. Every other week a new intoxicated blunder is revealed while the entire local political establishment tries to force his resignation. Despite the hundreds of hours of sensational reporting, the story is actually …
by Sadia Khan and Zabia Afzal More than 30,000 people live in these two square kilometers. A considerable proportion of them are South Asian immigrants, a considerable proportion of them are from Pakistan. Many are unemployed, underemployed, and poor. They are overeducated, overqualified, but insufficiently endowed with “Canadian experience.” They work multiple jobs, but cannot …
