Thirteen more Toronto neighbourhoods will be seeing community officers in their areas as the city’s police service expands its Neighbourhood Community Officer program (NCO) to cover a total of 51 localities The program was launched in 2013 with NCOs deployed in all 16 Toronto police divisions Chief of Police James Ramer and Mayor John Tory made the announcement on Saturday at a community open house at 31 Division the Toronto Police Service (TPS) said expanding the program was a priority in its 2022 budget The additional neighbourhoods were identified through “comprehensive analyses including of crime and demographics,” and will have 52 new NCOs they said NCOs are embedded in a particular neighbourhood for a minimum of four years and TPS says they co-develop solutions with the community and mobilize resources to “reduce crime fear of crime and anti-social behaviour.” The following 13 neighbourhoods will be added to the existing 38 that are currently included in the program: WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Mark Carney will have to navigate a delicate balance during his first in-person meeting with Donald Trump today A planned peaceful vacation has spiralled into a prolonged two-month ordeal for Ontario man David Bennett who remains stranded in the Dominican Republic despite having all criminal charges against him.. As the Toronto Maple Leafs busied themselves closing out a raucous 5-4 Game 1 victory over the nemesis Florida Panthers with backup goalie Joseph Woll holding fort and third-stringer Dennis Hildeby.. A Canadian man arrested on vacation has been proven innocent Melissa Nakhavoly with why he is still being held in the Dominican Republic Warmer temperatures but showers are expected on-and-off for the next few days Meteorologist Natasha Ramsahai has your seven-day forecast Ontario Premier Doug Ford calls on Prime Minister Mark Carney to prioritize a list of projects including the proposed Highway 401 tunnel a mentally ill man who was killed in an Ontario prison is calling out the provincial government over the lack of correctional reform listen to NewsRadio Toronto live anytime and get up-to-the-minute breaking-news alerts weather and video from CityNews Toronto anywhere you are – across all Android and iOS devices New data shows that Toronto Fire Services (TFS) take much longer to respond to emergency calls in low-income neighbourhoods in the city compared to more affluent areas The Star analyzed TFS data and found that, between 2020 and 2022, the department had much slower response times in areas of the city such as Flemingdon Park and Black Creek The analysis looked at over 425,000 emergency calls across the city's 150+ neighbourhoods "Neighbourhood improvement areas" (NIAs) and "emerging neighbourhoods (ENs) are usually comprised of more low-income and the data shows that response times in these areas are trailing behind which uses a metric called "total response time," only met its goal in 70 per cent of incidents in Toronto's 33 NIAs and 10 ENs In other areas not categorized as NIAs or ENs the fire department managed to meet its target in 80 per cent of cases the department met its total response time target in 77 per cent of incidents on a citywide scale Ten neighbourhoods in Toronto saw the department hitting its target between 32 and 49 per cent of the time. Some of these areas include Elms - Old Rexdale, Thorncliffe Park The fire department has been attempting to address these issues in the past by strategically distributing trucks throughout the city TFS is also planning to hire over 50 new front-line staff every year for the next three years and looking to build new fire stations in more disadvantaged communities A Great Capture Somali community activist Sarah Ali works out of an office at Kingsview Village Junior School on Tuesday The overwhelming majority Toronto residents who speak Somali live in central Etobicoke They also face an inordinate amount of challenges even those who are second- or third-generation Canadians and the information within may be out of date The overwhelming majority of 2016 Census respondents in Toronto who said they speak Somali live in central Etobicoke in the Kingsview-Village-The Westway neighbourhood south of Highway 401 and north of The Westway and St Census respondents who live in Toronto who identified as Somali-speaking are the highest in number in five Etobicoke neighbourhoods including Mount Olive-Silverstone-Jamestown mostly of second and now third generations who live in the Kingsview Village-The Westway neighbourhood face challenges: insufficient youth programs with many college and university graduates unable to find secure Without sufficient youth support and activities career-related employment for newly graduated twentysomethings third-generation Canadian of Somali descent and area resident “Everything is the need,” the mother of three said recently at Kingsview Village Junior School a community and model school she called an exception for its strong after-school math and basketball programs for its students “Agencies need more funding and support to sustain their programs It causes many children and youth to roam around because they have no place to go entrepreneurial community with nowhere to go.” The Somali Workers Network is one of several diversity networks of the Toronto and Region Labour Council Canada’s oldest and largest labour union with 205,000 members unionized workers concerned with social justice issues formed the network to build bridges between the labour movement and Canadians of Somali descent the City of Toronto identified Kingsview Village-The Westway as one of 31 neighbourhoods known as Neighbourhood Improvement Areas because they fall behind the Neighbourhood Equity Score Low income is a reality for 25 per cent of the area’s population of 22,000 residents higher than the 20 per cent rate of low income across all of Toronto Data indicates 42.5 per cent of children younger than six and 39.6 per cent of children and youth younger than 18 are considered low income 22.9 per cent of those aged 18 to 64 and 11 per cent of seniors 65 and older are low income The low-income measure after tax is $22,133 for singles and $44,266 for four-person families Ali makes the point that Somalis who fled the country’s civil war in the 1990s to immigrate to Canada were largely well-educated but weren’t successful in having their foreign qualifications and credentials recognized in their new home “You had highly-educated people – engineers teachers – fleeing the war without their papers which led them to minimum-wage jobs in Canada which led to depression and being unable to support their families,” Ali said That phenomenon of well-educated people unable to find work in their chosen country is now also a reality for second- and third-generation Canadians of Somali descent “The media portrays us as violent,” Ali said “But people who live in other areas of the city and outside Toronto why are they successful; because we had the resources like everyone else “Our Somali brothers and sisters do not have the resources and have fallen through the cracks.” Those seeking jobs or even enrolment in programs face discrimination “(Discrimination because of) postal code is a fact; it’s not a joke or a myth,” she said Mental illness among young Canadians of Somali descent is an “epidemic,” said Abdi Hagi Yusuf “Stress and mental illness is high among our children when they can’t get jobs,” he said “They need to see even one or two children hired by city parks and recreation there is a belief this is pure targeting (against the community).” The Canadian and Ontario governments’ support of Syrian refugees is worlds apart from the experience of Somali refugees when they fled civil war in the 1990s for a new life in Canada the government is supporting the whole family and the men are upgrading their skills,” she said “If Somali refugees had had the same opportunities resources and funding the government is giving Syrian refugees is a journalist in Etobicoke reporting hard news politics and health and human-interest stories Tamara loves to travel and is a fan of foreign and independent films Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: the Daily Bread Food Banks is bringing local Ontario produce to five lower-income sites in Toronto this summer and continuing through the end of September the Daily Bread Food Bank is taking a donations of excess farmer-donated vegetables fruits and herbs to lower-income areas in the city The mobile produce market is piloting the program in Scarborough but has plans to serve 20 neighbourhoods over the next year by delivering 20 per cent more food Daily Bread Food Bank chief executive officer Neil Hetherington states: “With our network of front-line agencies and food banks across the city Daily Bread is uniquely positioned to help these 20 neighbourhoods address the immediate needs of their most vulnerable residents by increasing our food shipments to them by 20 per cent.” Scarborough was initially chosen after the city realized a 30 per cent increase in food bank visits in 2017 produce is being distributed at no cost to the consumer providing residents of the areas to have unimpeded access to fresh The neighbourhoods designated as priority by Daily Bread are Mount Olive-Silverstone-Jamestown The Daily Bread Food Bank has 15 member agencies that serve these areas; each will receive 20 per cent more food delivered to them including shelf-stable products as well as fresh produce As part of Team Toronto’s ongoing efforts to help to remove barriers to COVID-19 vaccination will be launched in the north-west part of the city starting on July 10 will kick off on Saturday to encourage vaccine uptake across neighbourhoods in the north-west area of the city where vaccination rates are the lowest more than a dozen micro-focused clinics are being planned to take place across six priority neighbourhoods starting this weekend: Elms – Old Rexdale In an effort to break down all remaining barriers to access which will be predominantly administering the Pfizer vaccine for both first and second doses will be located in and near buildings where residents live and offer flexible afternoon and evening hours to accommodate frontline workers Extensive multilingual community-based canvassing by community ambassadors will be incorporated through a variety of Team Toronto community agency partners Other outreach tactics will also be implemented through the City’s VaxTO campaign and outreach calls from the VaxTO call centre in order to increase access to vaccination clinics as well as vaccination rates Community partners in the Home Stretch Vaccine Push include: Rexdale Community Health Centre Rexdale Community Hub partners (Rexdale Women’s Centre as well as the North West Cluster (50+ community agencies) The Ghanaian-Canadian Association of Ontario Braeburn Neighbourhood Place and Somali Women and Children Ontario Helping Construction Workers Advance Their Careers Prime Minister highlights public transit investment to create jobs and build back stronger communities in Calgary Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" 2014This article was published more than 11 years ago A new measure is being used to rank Toronto's neighbourhoods – the "neighbourhood equity score" which combines ratings for economic opportunity participation in decision-making and physical surroundings change the way Toronto's 140 neighbourhoods are evaluated by city staff when they decide where to direct services The new rankings are likely to set off a lively debate about the city's role in providing social services and what areas of the city are most deserving of extra funding and attention – all against the backdrop of the fall civic election The new measures were developed in conjunction with researchers at St Michael's Hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health and are adapted from work done by the World Health Organization Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. 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