Regent Park community members depute on affordable housing at the Toronto and East York Community Council Meeting

By Fred Alvarado Fred is a community journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

Recently, Regent Park residents, local advocates, and community members deputed at the June 22nd Toronto and East York Community Council Meeting for the discussion of the 325 Gerrard Street East (Regent Park Phases 4 and 5) - Zoning By-law Amendment and Rental Housing Demolition Applications decision report approval.

The speakers were:
1. Miguel Avila, a Regent Park Neighborhood Association member.
2. Zaheed Alli, a Regent Park Resident.
3. Andre Bermon, a Heritage advocate.
4. Ismail Afrah, Chair of Regent Park Social Development Plan
5. Walied Khogali, a member of the Regent Park Neighborhood Association
6. Stephanie Beattie, a Regent Park resident
7. Rabia Alsabaie and her daughter Sarah. Rabia is also co-chair of the SDP Community Working Group.
8. And finally, Ali El-Chanti, a Regent Park resident.

Regent Park Residents Walied Khogali, Sarah and her sister Mela Alsabaie spoke to RPTV News to learn more about what they had to say at the Toronto and East York Community Council Meeting.

“We had many residents depute. We had many Regent Park residents came out to speak out in favour of their community and they made a simple ask which is the motion to be amended to address the challenges that we know will make it difficult for our folks living in our community. We want to make sure that social housing is deeply affordable”, said Walied Khogali.

“We need to move to affordable housing and the prices are very expensive, very expensive; I also talked about how Toronto Community Housing actually said to me and my family that we can’t move in to affordable housing unless my Dad has two years left to live, which is ridiculous just because my dad had a brain tumor surgery a couple of months ago”, said Sarah to RPTV.