Concentrated Poverty – Toronto

Toronto’s poor concentrated in aging highrises, By Laurie Monsebraaten, Toronto Star: “They rise up among the postwar bungalows of Toronto’s inner suburbs. Towering buildings that house hundreds of thousands of the city’s poorest people. These apartments are often the first home for those who came to this country looking for a better life. Once built to house modest-income and middle-class families, these aging highrises have increasingly fallen into disrepair and become rife with problems – drug dealing, vandalism, bug infestations, overcrowding – and increasing poverty. That is the bleak reality for too many highrise dwellers in Toronto, according to Vertical Poverty, a landmark report released by the United Way Wednesday. It is a troubling development in a city where almost half of residents are renters, says the report based on Census data from 1981 to 2006 and a survey of 2,803 highrise tenants conducted in the summer and fall of 2009. Although the bulk of tenants surveyed live in private-sector towers, responses from about 600 non-profit tenants suggest living conditions are worse in those buildings…”