Audio slideshow: How reliable is the TTC?

I completed an audio slideshow for my multi-platform project on transit delays in Toronto.


I took to the streets with a radio recorder and asked 10 commuters for their thoughts on the TTC.

I picked the four whose comments best reflected what I'd heard Some were quite satisfied, while others complained of unpredictable service.


Here it is:

East York's low prices, chummy neighbourhoods attract homebuyers

Linda Reid loves living on the western edge of East York.

“It's a fabulous neighbourhood,” she said, citing its diversity, good schools and nearby transit.

Reid likes exploring local shops and catching up with neighbours.

“It's almost like a small town,” she said.

This sense of community, along with recent trends in the real estate market, is what’s attracting people to East York.

This month the National Post reported on the neglected two-storey house next-door to Reid that fell into disrepair after its owners took ill. Though people who toured the house encountered peeling paint, piles of clothes and the smell of cat urine, the house sold for $1 million.

Reid says the new owners are already planning big renovations.

“A lot of people move for location,” said East York realtor Linda Ing-Gilbert. “Everything else in a home can be changed.”

Reid knows this well. She said her neighbourhood has been under “constant renovation” over the last 10 years. While she's enjoyed meeting new neighbours, she knows house prices – and her own taxes – are going up drastically from when she moved in three decades ago.

“I could afford to move here then; I couldn't now,” Reid said. “I'm one of the few that are left.”

Like the rest of the city, East York house prices have been on the rise because of a shortage of homes on the market. Last week, the Canadian Real Estate Association announced that the cost of a single-family home in Toronto hit $606,600 as of January, a 50 per cent jump in six years. That's $100,000 higher than the Canadian average and slightly higher than the surrounding GTA.

These rising costs are making East York's Second World War-era bungalows attractive as buyers can build on these smaller homes to fit their needs.

“What East York offers is more land,” Ing-Gilbert said. “There are lots of World War II bungalows with a lot of space. That can be hard to find.”

While some people choose bungalows to accommodate reduced mobility many homeowners add and extend floors at a lower price than buying a large house.

World War Two-era bungalows are being dwarfed by built-up homes

as homebuyers seek the location and space of East York.

photo by Dylan C. Robertson

Madeline MacKay lives in a three-storey build-up down the street from Reid.

“You'd never know you were downtown,” she said. “It feels like a real community. You get one-of-a-kind businesses and lots to see. My son loves the parks and the attractions.”

MacKay says she can hear streetcars rolling by from her third floor on quiet Sundays.

“It's magical,” she said.

Jane Pitfield, head of the East York Historical Society, says she welcomes a mix in housing, but feels it's important to preserve the area's identity.

“People choose a neighbourhood because of the character of the neighbourhood. When the character begins to change it does affect real estate values potentially and all of the sudden it doesn’t feel like the neighbourhood you chose to live in.”

Ing-Gilbert agrees that a community's feel is important for homeowners and suggests concerned residents form preservation groups.

“I think that history's important for our neighbourhoods,” she said. “Houses have to conform to the streetscape to maintain the feel of their neighbourhood.”

Pitfield remembers pioneering real estate guidelines for Leaside when she served as councillor for Ward 26/Don Valley West, until 2006. The community's suggestions included maintaining most of the house's height, materials and distance from street. The guideline was “consulted like a bible” by the city's adjustment committee and promoted to residents.

“If you had property sold beside you, you could make sure the developer knew about the guidelines,” Pitfield recalled. “90 per cent of the time, just by talking about it, I found that builders and private citizens who owned the land tried to get it right; because they wanted to conform and build something that would fit into the neighbourhood, knowing it was important.”

Reid says she's confident about her neighbourhood, regardless of house prices and building norms.

“No matter how it changes, I'm sure this will still be a special place.”

This article was published in the East York Observer on February 17, 2012.

British home children author connects with her roots

Sandra Joyce holds a photocopy of the
Pier 21 record of her father's arrival in
Canada. The discovery lead her to travel
the world and author a historical novel.
photo by Dylan C. Robertson

A few years after her father's death, Sandra Joyce was on a visit to Halifax. She stopped by Pier 21 to check if they had records of her father's arrival in Canada.

“It says here: Orphan Homes of Scotland,” the English teacher says, pointing to a photocopy. “I never knew he was an orphan.”

It was a discovery that would lead to publishing a book and travelling halfway across the world.

The Street Arab: The Story of a British Home Child is Joyce's first novel. Based on her father's life, it tells the story of one of the 100,000 orphans that Britain sent to Canada between 1869 and 1939.

Joyce spoke to members of the East York Historical Society on Jan. 31 at the S. Walter Stewart library. Though the characters are fictional, her book sticks closely to the history of home children. The novel took Joyce four years of research and a trip to the Scottish orphan house where her father lived.

“It's very rewarding, but also the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,” Joyce said.

Faced with crowded orphan houses following the First World War, Britain created a scheme, in connection with Canada's agriculture department, to send young labourers to the sparsely populated colony. Some were sent over in boats that shipped Canadian timber to Britain, since they were empty for return routes.

The children, who mostly came from large cities, were sent to rural Canada to work as domestic or farm labourers. Seen as deviants on both sides of the Atlantic, the children had several derogatory nicknames.

One term, the inspiration for the title of Joyce's book, comes from a quote in Anne of Green Gables: “No London street arabs for me ... I’ll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born Canadian.”

While governments only monitored if farmers were satisfied with the children's behaviour, many children suffered isolation and abuse. The program was axed after a number of suicides.

“It was luck of the draw. Some had terrible lives, some got lucky,” said Joyce. “But really, what they didn't have was love in their lives.”

She recalls growing distant from her father and says many descendants of home children never got to know their family members and their history.

“These children were not able to form relationships very easily. While I was a child he was very sweet, but as I got older he grew away from me,” Joyce said. “I feel like I was robbed of that side of my family.”

Although being told from birth that her grandmother was dead, Joyce found out she had died in 1985. In her research, she came across a photograph of the dozen children who arrived in Canada from the same orphanage in 1925.

“I have scanned it over and over and I still don't know which is my father.”

Joyce, who is working on a sequel to her first novel, is pushing for awareness of this episode of history. Her book's foreword is written by MPP Jim Brownell, whose grandmother was a home child from the same Scottish orphanage. With Joyce's help, he enacted an annual British Home Child Day. Her book launched on the inaugural commemoration on Sept. 28, 2011.

Estimates say roughly 10 per cent of Canadians descend from home children. Britain had smaller child emigration schemes with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Within the past decade, Australia and the United Kingdom have apologized, but Canada has only issued a statement of regret.

“That made me angry and motivated me even more,” Joyce said. “As Canadians we tend to think of ourselves as advocates of human rights and freedom. And here we were doing things to children not so long ago. So how can we point the finger at other countries?”


This article was slated for the February 3, 2012 edition of the East York Observer, but was published Feb. 17.