The Role of Professional Planners and Social Housing Pro-viders in Addressing Food Security in Toronto

How Food Security Creates ‘Common Ground’ for Various Agencies/Stakeholders to Address Quality of Life, and How Planners/Housing Providers Can Get Involved

By Andrew Castaneda Ryerson University, Bachelor of Urban/Regional Planning IVandrew.castaneda@ryerson.ca

Submitted: 12 September, 2014 to Barbara Emanuel and Brian Cook, Toronto Food Policy Council

Preface

I am a graduate of Western University (2013), with a degree in political science and a minor in urban studies-geography. My research focus while at Western was predominantly in the municipal-regional political sphere, and I investigated issues related to planning/development policy, quality of life in urban centres, de-industrialization/urban revitalizations and how to build strong, inclusive neighbourhoods. I was accepted - with advanced standing - to the Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning program at Ryerson University in August of 2013, and will be starting my final year of formal studies as an urban planner in September 2014.

In my first year as a planning student, I continued with the theme of my previous studies, fo-cusing on the theory of comment building, with an emphasis on the City of Toronto. Addi-tionally, I have completed a client-based studio assignment regarding affordable housing (the clients were Menkes Developments, Bousfield’s Planning Consultants, and our faculty advisor was Carlo Bonnani of Build Toronto). Much of my research to date has focused on the Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy (administered via Social Development, Finance and Administra-tion), and the ‘Neighbourhood Improvement Areas’ (formerly ‘Priority Neighbourhoods’) identified in the SNS 2020, as well as previous iterations of the Strong Neighbourhood Strat-egy. This has included a number of in-depth conversations with public officials closely tied to the SNS 2020, as well as affordable housing.

This past summer, I worked as the Communications Co-ordinator for the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University under Director Dr. Fiona Yeudall, where I found an

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interest in food security - in particular its impact on quality of life, and the social determinants of health/geographies of health for low-income communities. Now, in my final year, I look forward to tackling ‘faith communities’ work in the Neighbourhood Improvement Areas as my final senior studio (Client: Faith in the City), as well as conduct an independent research course pertaining to food security, urban planning and affordable/public housing.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for such a unique and challenging assign-ment. My final year of formal studies will feature a great deal more work regarding both food security and affordable housing, and I look forward to learning more on both subjects.

1.0 Value Proposition for Social Housing Providers

There is an undeniable link between food security/insecurity and quality of life. A person can-not function properly without adequate access to food - the same can be said of an entire building and/or neighbourhood. To effectively promote ‘good health’ (not only the absence of disease, but also the capacity for positive health outcomes), this - by definition - must in-clude addressing issues related to food security.

The City of Vancouver has invested a great deal of resources, both directly and indirectly, in projects relating to food security as it relates to social housing tenants since 2009. In 2013, Vancouver Coastal Health released a resource guide outlining projects from across Canada promoting food security; the specified audience being social housing providers.

The benefits to affordable housing providers are comprehensively laid out in ‘Food Security and Social Housing Action Framework Resource Guide’, Vancouver Coastal Health has pro-duced a first-of-its-kind ‘how-to guide’ to allow affordable housing providers to see the num-ber of ways they can increase food security for their tenants, and reap benefits as an organiza-tion.

Under ‘Benefits of Integrating Food Security Into Social Housing’, VCH states the following as ‘outcomes’ for tenants and housing providers:

Outcomes for Tenants

• Improved awareness of food security• Better physical and mental health• Increased feelings of security, self‐determination, and autonomy• Decreased behavioural issues• Improved child development and adolescent well‐being• Improved sense of self‐worth and dignity

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• Increased social inclusion in the building and broader communities• Strengthened capacity to focus on other aspects of their lives

Outcomes for Housing Providers

• Healthier tenants• Improved tenant well‐being, rehabilitation, and recovery• Increased social capital• Improved building security and safety• Healthier and more stable housing environment• Fewer arrears• Decreased vacancy loss from tenant hospitalizations• Reduced staff time devoted to intervening in conflicts• Better integration and improved relationship with the broader community• Improved marketability for those buildings that have both market and subsidized units

Source: http://www.vch.ca/media/Food-Security-in-Social-Housing-Action-Framework-and-Resource-Guide-September-30-2013.pdf

In terms of social housing providers, this is a group who holds an even more preva-lent role in shaping the built environment of neighbourhoods. Social housing pro-viders - typically located in low-income neighbourhoods - are a major community influence. Well managed social housing creates opportunities and breeds trust and collaboration - poorly managed social housing does not. 

While some providers are satisfied by simply ensuring that the building is structur-ally sound, more involved providers have seen real opportunity to positively impact quality of life in their communities; addressing food security is something which has been reaping positive results in Vancouver since 2009.The importance of addressing food security for Affordable Housing Provider becomes two-fold:

1) Affordable housing receives large amounts of public money - as such, value per dollar spent is important to continue receiving funding. By NOT addressing issues related to poverty and food security, affordable housing providers visit additional burden upon themselves (as landlords), upon the municipality (in policing and social services costs), and the Province (healthcare costs). Planners similarly must ensure that they are not visit-ing externalities upon a municipality in the form of contributing to the obesogenic built environment.

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2) Affordable housing providers can directly, and positively, alleviate the impacts of poverty and food insecurity for their tenants (as well as the municipality and Province) by way of minimal investment into programs/ideas intended to increase food security (when com-pared to the costs externalities impose upon the public purse). This is thanks to a unique positioning in relation to low-income communities. These efforts can be undertaken in conjunction with professional planners to encourage participation among residents, as well as attract investment from organizations (public and private).

2.0 Current Food-Related Initiatives

Outside of the Toronto Food Policy Council, food security is still relatively scarce in other city initiatives. This is not to say that opportunities do not exist. Moreover, some current food-related initiatives in the City of Toronto (and abroad) are not positive, and are the result of the current action/inaction of planners/housing providers.

Vancouver Coastal Health, Food Security and Social Housing Action Framework Resource Guide’

I have included an annotated bibliography of the Vancouver Coastal Health report, which out-lines a number of food security initiatives across Canada, including a number of Toronto ini-tiatives.

The Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020

We need to look to the ‘Neighbourhood Equity Index’ criteria of the Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020 - a system devised in collaboration with UrbanHEART @ Toronto and the World Health Organization - to see the priorities of the program. Of the domains considered ‘Physi-cal Surroundings’  and ‘Healthy Lives’ are the most applicable to planners, social housing providers, and those working in food security. In fact, access to healthy food is listed as a di-rect indicator of neighbourhood equity under ‘Physical Surroundings’ with an overall weight-ing of 3.8% of the total score. 

Additionally, ‘Diabetes’ is listed under ‘Healthy Lives’ with a weighting of 11.7% (the full ‘Healthy Lives’ domain category is weighted with 29.9%, making it tied as the most heavily weighted domains essential to identifying neighbourhood equity). Indirectly, food security overshadows economic and social development, accounting for nearly 35% of the total criteria available for assessing equity, yet has little to no visibility in the overall scope of the SNS 2020 which seeks to address the built environment after nearly a decade of focus-ing on the provisioning of social services.

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2.1 Three Patterns of Modern Development and the Obesogenic Environ-ment

The ‘Obesogenic Environment’ (physical surroundings/lifestyles which de-emphasize physi-cal activity, but promote ‘energy-rich’, or high calorie, diets, as typified in North American car-focused urban centres) has been identified by the IDF as one of the biggest contributors to diabetes worldwide. Economic development, specifically the rise of food processing/retail and its direct marketing to low-income populations, has proven to be challenge for growing communities - especially those with lower socioeconomic status. The ‘low price/high calories’ formula tends to appeal more to low-income urban populations; many of whom are located in ‘food desserts’ (urban areas lacking adequate access to nutritious foods). The result can be entire segments of an urban population being exposed to a significantly higher threat of Type-2 Diabetes based on food access alone. 

The IDF states:

“The real challenge is to tackle the underlying determinants of type 2 diabetes globally, which, put simply, means modifying environments to make them less obesogenic. This challenge is as great if not greater than reducing tobacco consumption. Modifying the obe-sogenic environment is likely to require a broad range of policy measures across multi-ple sectors.”

Source: International Diabetes Foundation, ‘The Social Determinants of Diabetes And The Challenge of Prevention', 2014

http://www.idf.org/diabetesatlas/5e/the-social-determinants-of-diabetes-and-the-challenge-of-prevention

Patterns of Development

A common challenge for many low-income areas, public or private, is often interconnectivity with the rest of the city, as well as to the adjoining neighbourhood. This is often a direct result of the built environment, as it exists at the city planning level. These three patterns of devel-opment are:

Sprawl Suburbs: Post-WWII North American urban development has been typified by the suburbanization of the 1950’s, and the urban re-intensification of the last 10-20 years which has been positioned as the counter-culture to the suburban ‘standard’. In both cases, the im-pact of food security (and public health) has been exacerbated by externalities created from these two patterns of development.

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In heavily suburbanized areas, the built environment is tailored for cars and drivers (meaning very poor walkability/accessibility to fresh food), and often sees large-scale commercial cen-tres -be they big box, strip mall, or large-lot standalone - as ‘food hubs’. While many contain grocery stores/food retail, it must be acknowledged that not all grocers are the same, and of-ten it is local socioeconomics which dictate the type/quality of grocery store/food retail which serve these areas.

Additionally, there are (more often than not) convenience stores, fast food/other unhealthy - but time-friendly - food alternatives located within the same retail hubs. These hubs are not restricted to grocery store-anchored retail developments, as ‘strip malls’ are also common-place in sprawl suburb communities. These almost invariably feature high-sugar, high-sodium, high-fat foods/beverages, as well as selling cigarettes.

Tower Blocks: The concept of the ‘tower in the park’ was popularized in North America in the 1950’s/1960’s, as apartment towers began to dot Toronto’s skyline. What was once a grand concept has lost much of its lustre in the past two decades, as we’ve seen many of the city’s apartment tower neighbourhoods accelerate through their life cycles much faster than antici-pated.

In the City of Toronto, ‘vertical poverty’ is a phenomena which was identified in 2011 in a United Way report. Poverty and food insecurity are two sides of the same coin, as ‘access’ to food isn’t just the ability to reach a food retailer - it can also be ‘ability to pay’. For example, Black Creek (the neighbourhood which is home to Jane-Finch) is a mix of both tower blocks, as well as sprawl suburbs - the majority of the built environment in the area was constructed pre-1970, during the ‘golden age’ of automotive culture in North America.

The result is a highly pedestrian-unfriendly area which has been identified as featuring a number of ‘food deserts’ - many located around low-income communities. Good food is ex-pensive and located unnecessarily far from these communities.

To address the many negative externalities created by popularized suburbanization and ‘apartmentization’ - or tower block development - (including a great many to do with per-sonal and public health), planning and development professionals were forced to re-examine urban population density - the solution was to ‘revitalize’ city centres , and original city sub-urbs, and promote infill intensification to repopulate these faltering neighbourhoods and once again make them liveable. This approach has created its own set of externalities, which have direct implications to food security at the neighbourhood/community level.

Re-Intensified Urban Neighbourhoods: The issue is not the revitalization itself, so much as the toll it can take on existing neighbourhood food systems. With an influx of new residents with higher incomes come business - including food retail and restaurants - tailored to their spending power; businesses which are likely too expensive for current low-income residents. What then occurs is a polarization of the customer base of businesses in the existing food sys-

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tem: those who can afford to shop at the newer, more expensive alternative, and those who cannot. Planners can help ensure, by way of community/secondary plans, that re-emerging neighbourhoods can grow sustainably, inclusively and prosperously by helping facilitate zoning/incentives intended to attract a wider breadth of food retail options (and encourage local agriculture and food-sharing programs).

What should also be remembered is that the popularization of ‘dollar store’ retail stores, combined with an expanding range of food merchandise - including a greater number of grocery items - further polarize that customer base. A major reason for dollar store popularity is that they significantly undercut convenience stores (major stressors in food deserts) on ‘junk food’ (candy, pop, chips, etc,) as well as grocery stores (dry pasta, instant noodles, soups, canned goods, breads, spices, household goods) and are located significantly more com-monly in both the urban and suburban environments.

I feel that there is a large amount of opportunity in studying the food systems of transitional neighbourhoods, as it creates a number of interesting questions:

• What impact do low-quality food retail stores (dollar stores) have on neighbourhood food systems, and the obesogenic environment?

• What policies are allowing retailers selling unhealthy food to be able to do so more easily than retailers trying to sell healthy food in low-income neighbourhoods?

• What more can planners do to help the situation beyond just community/secondary plans (New York City’s FRESH program, for example)?

3.0 Stakeholders

Urban Planners

Addressing food security is a truly cross-discipline effort. In addition to the benefits which so-cial housing providers can create (as well as receive), urban planners also stand to benefit from working to address food security in urban centres. As it stands, food security does not have a high priority in professional planning in Canada, but this is not the case in the United States.

In terms of the ‘Five A’s’ of food security, planners/housing providers can address:

•Accessibility - whether nutritious food can be readily accessed •Agency - whether a community/neighbourhood is able to participate in creation of policies/programs which affect their food security 

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Both have a direct impact on Accessibility, as they shape the built environment of neighbourhoods. Planners impact ranges from zoning which regulates where food stores may/may not be located, to the planning of transit from residential areas to healthy food stores, to the creation of secondary/community plans which promote a higher quality of life, as well as share a community’s vision for its own future (food access is inevitably addressed by way of ‘desired development’ - few neighbour-hoods ‘want’ fast food in their community, rather it is often careful market research conducted which identify these neighbourhoods as ‘optimal’).

Planners can also affect Agency by way of creating secondary/community plans, as per the 2011 ‘call to action’ by the Ontario Professional Planners Institute. By creat-ing a secondary plan for a prescribed area, planners engage communities in a series of in-depth exercises to accurately capture the desire of a neighbourhood to experi-ence positive growth. 

The end result of a SP/CP is a community which is zoned in such a way as to encour-age the development of businesses the community deems desirable (healthier food options is often a concern raised in the community consultation process, as well as a ‘key planning issue’ as per the OPPI ‘call to action’).

As such, urban planners can - by professional mandate - help facilitate discussion re-lated to the built environment, as well as types of land uses which are deemed de-sirable by the community. Ultimately, planners help take abstract ideas from public meetings and make them into tangible council-approved ‘declarations of interest’ to help a neighbourhood state that they wish to be involved in shaping the built envi-ronment around them - this is the very definition of agency. 

To engage planning professionals, an appeal to planning’s foundational concepts is sufficient as a basis of opening a conversation; a professional duty to address quality of life. In terms of the Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020, ‘Access to Healthy Food Stores’ (an indicator in assessing neighbourhood equity) was defined as an is-sue related to the ‘Built Environment’. 

Canadian Institute of Planners

At the Canadian national level, the Canadian Institute of Planners identifies ‘Healthy Communities’ as a current issue of importance in planning. In the conclusions of

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‘Health Equity and Community Design’, the final instalment of the ‘Planning Healthy Communities Factsheet Series’, it is stated:

“Low socio-economic groups, often with already compromised health, live in lesser quality built environments with more limited mobility options and have less access to shops, health and social services, school, employment, retailers of fresh groceries and healthy food, etc. These factors, in turn, have been demonstrated to exacerbate health problems and increase gaps in health between groups in Canadian society.”

(Canadian Institute of Planners, ‘Health Equity and Community Design: What is the Canadian Evidence Saying?, http://cip-icu.ca/Files/Healthy-Communities/FACTSHEETS-Equity-FINALenglish.aspx)

Moreover, the CIP’s vision statement is as follows: “Improved quality of life through excellence in professional planning.”, and the Values of the CIP are identified as In-tegrity, Innovation and Collaboration. The prospects of achieving these values all re-side within addressing food security.

(Canadian Institute of Planners, ‘Who We Are’, http://cip-icu.ca/Who-We-Are)

Ontario Professional Planners Institute

The 2011 ‘Healthy Communities and Planning for Food Systems in Ontario: A Call to Action’ was released to inform Ontario planners about the importance of food sys-tems in healthy communities. In it, the position of the OPPI is made quite clear:

“OPPI calls upon planners, citizens and all stakeholders to make healthy community planning, and in particular, planning for healthy food systems, a priority.”

Under ‘Professional Planning Practice’, it is stated:

“One of the best known policy efforts of planners has been growth management. This policy supports the preservation of farmland, ensures food production and food security, maintains agriculture in the economy, allows for stewardship of the coun-tryside, and protects a vital resource for future generations.

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Our practice as professionals includes many more opportunities to engage in plan-ning for food in all sizes and locations of urban and rural communities.”Key Planning Issues identified include:

•Using good planning principles to connect the planning needs of urban and rural communities and promote efficient, complementary land use systems.

•Incorporating food systems into the framework of planning policies such as Places to Grow, the Greenbelt and the Provincial Policy Statement.

•Including consideration for food systems in an integrated community sustainability plan, Official Plan, secondary plan, zoning by-law, and public health reports.

•Understanding and connecting stakeholders and in multiple geographic regions to break down institutional barriers in addressing the impacts of planning policies on food systems.

As to ‘Education and Research’:

“Planning students should be encouraged and enabled to explore this field. Plan-ning schools need to pursue further research in this area. Practicing planners and their knowledge and experience should be incorporated into related research.”

Source: http://ontarioplanners.ca/PDF/Healthy-Communities/2011/a-call-to-action-from-oppi-june-24-2011.aspx

American Planning Association

At the national level, the American Association of Planners identifies ‘Food Systems Plan-ning’ as:

“Like air, water, and shelter, food is essential for life and plays a central role in our health, economy, and culture. Healthy, sustainable communities require healthy, sustainable food sys-tems.

Planners play an important role in the development of healthy, sustainable local and regional food systems to support and enhance the overall public, social, eco-logical, and economic health of communities. Community food system planning is the collaborative planning process of developing and implementing local and

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regional land-use, economic development, public health, and environmental goals, programs and policies to:

• Preserve existing and support new opportunities for local and regional urban and rural agriculture;

• Promote sustainable agriculture and food production practices; • Support local and regional food value chains and related infrastructure involved in the

processing, packaging, and distribution of food; • Facilitate community food security, or equitable physical and economic access to safe,

nutritious, culturally appropriate, and sustainably grown food at all times across a community, especially among vulnerable populations;

• Support and promote good nutrition and health, and; • Facilitate the reduction of solid food-related waste and develop a reuse, recovery, re-

cycling, and disposal system for food waste and related packaging.”

Source: American Planning Association, Food Systemshttps://www.planning.org/nationalcenters/health/food.htm

At the city level, New York City Department of Planning has adopted the FRESH(Food Retail Expansion to Support Health) program, a program which uses zoning and tax incentives to promote development of full-service grocery stores/healthy foodretailers. it does this as it identifies two types of impacts grocery stores can affect incommunities:

•Quality of Life•Economic Development

Source: http://www.nyc.gov/FRESH

The template for FRESH can be applied nearly anywhere in Canada, as it uses both zoningeasements/exemptions, as well as city/state financial/tax incentives - practiceswhich Toronto has used in similar capacities to build/facilitate affordable housing projects inthe past.

This could most likely be implemented as policy at the city-level by planners, or as acomponent of community/secondary plan at the neighbourhood level. At an upper-tier level

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(in the case of any municipality with such a model), taking a regional approach to effectivefood zoning can help to encourage the participation of provincial/state governments as thereare numerous municipalities present at the table, translating to more weight politically. Thelargely non-partisan nature of food helps create an effective ‘common ground’ forstakeholders, as do ‘public health/quality of life initiatives’ (Example: The SNS 2020 wasapproved by Council as a Whole on 1 April, 2014 - the breadth of people voting in favourranged from staunchly conservative mayor Rob Ford - who had previously stated he wouldnot support ‘priority neighbourhoods programming’ any longer - to staunchly liberalcouncillors such as Kristyn Wong-Tam, Adam Vaughn and Josh Matlow).

3.1 Value Proposition for Professional Planners

For professional planners, especially Ontario-based Canadian planners, what is clear is thatfood security is emerging as a relevant and important consideration for planners in denseurban areas, as indicated by the inclusion of food security in the mandate of the AmericanPlanning Association, and the efforts of the New York City Department of Planning. As such,like the above mentioned patterns of development, food security will (and should) be anotherexample of American planning/development trends which translate to the Canadianexperience. Its absence at the Provincial government level in Ontario (by way of the Ministerof Municipal Affairs and Housing) is more telling of the Provincial political agenda than of thestate of public planning in Ontario, as indicated by the unwavering acceptance of theimportance of food systems thinking to both the Canadian Institute of Planners, andOntario Professional Planners Institute.

Food systems thinking WILL become an important component of planning in Ontario in thevery near future for the simple fact that three years after the OPPI’s ‘call to action’, it is over-

dueif absent The more recent stance of the CIP supports the belief that food security has officially‘arrived’ as a key issue for planning. The amount of academic and professional work beingdone to increase the exposure of issues related to food security in low-incomeneighbourhoods, and highlight their impact on public health, will see this become a topic ofdiscussion more frequently than ever before in the City of Toronto.

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In the interest of best practices in professional planning, enriching professionalknowledge on the topics of food systems thinking and food security offer planners not onlynew tools and skillsets for helping to positively influence the built environment to promotegood public health, but also new avenues for professional collaboration and publicengagement - two vital activities in professional planning.

4.0 Suggested Resources/Broad Ideas

Of importance to Planners and Affordable Housing Providers in the 2014 Ontario Budget

•Ontario is finalizing an agreement with the federal government to extend the IAH program for a further five years. The Ontario government would contribute $80.1 million annually for five years to this program.

•To help foster partnerships with local communities, the government is investing $50 million over five years to create a new poverty reduction fund targeted at supporting local solutions to poverty. This fund would address poverty by building on local strengths and addressing local needs. The funding would support innovations through partnerships at the local level.

The Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020

The Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020 is ideal ‘neutral ground’ for planning profession-als, social housing providers, and food security professionals alike. With a 5-year, $12M budget (up from just under $30K previously), and a mandate to improve quality of life for To-ronto’s 31 least equitable neighbourhoods (many of which have been identified as ‘food in-secure’ - see appendix for GIS maps) by way of dynamic and innovative partnerships and ideas, this provides an excellent forum for discussions of food security with these two abso-lutely vital elements of the SNS 2020. A largely apolitical endeavour, the SNS 2020 will be ac-tively seeking dynamic collaborations for when it’s $12M budget begins in Q1 of 2015.

Faith in the City

An interfaith initiative to address issues affecting ‘faith communities’. My studio this term will be working with this organization to help illustrate an ability to produce social capital as an alternative delivery method in these areas. The early indication is that the City of Toronto is eager to finally effectively identify the role ‘faith communities’ play in Toronto’s neighbour-

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hoods, in the hopes of establishing strategic partnerships (a public-public partnership, so to speak) to promote strong, healthy communities. FITC identifies food security as one of its primary ‘action areas’, but could very easily expand to include affordable housing so as to broaden its cross-disciplinary appeal. It should also be noted that there is expected to be a strong tie-in to the SNS 2020.Fresh Food Stores

Toronto Planning has an excellent archetype for proactive public health planning in the form of New York’s FRESH program. An initiative undertaken primarily by the New York City De-partment of Planning in 2009, there has been a great deal of success in using two common business incentives available to planners: facilitation of public funding in socially-beneficial build projects, and zoning easements (typically height and density).

Source: http://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/html/2009/fresh.shtml

Canadian Institute of Planners/Ontario Professional Planners Association

The bodies which oversee professional planning, in addition to making it clear the impor-tance of food systems planning to the ability for planners, offer a number of resources in-tended to illustrate the importance of food security from the perspective of the professional planner. Here are two particularly helpful resources:

‘Healthy Communities and Planning for Food Systems in Ontario: A Call to Action’, 2011http://ontarioplanners.ca/PDF/Healthy-Communities/2011/a-call-to-action-from-oppi-june-24-2011.aspx

‘HEALTH EQUITY AND COMMUNITY DESIGN: What is the Canadian evidence Saying?’, 2014http://www.cip-icu.ca/Files/Healthy-Communities/FACTSHEETS-Equity-FINALenglish.aspx

Vancouver Coastal Health ‘Food Security in Social Housing Action Framework and Re-source Guide’, September 2013http://www.vch.ca/media/Food-Security-in-Social-Housing-Action-Framework-and-Resource-Guide-September-30-2013.pdf

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5.0 Concluding Remarks

There is no denying - food security/food systems thinking are here to stay in terms of appli-cability. and relevance. With a strong focus on the social determinants of health in so many different aspects of planning and affordable/social housing provision already, food security should not so much be considered ‘learning something new’ as ‘revisiting a number of fun-damental theories’ for planners/housing providers.

Can planners make a neighbourhood food secure? No. Can a social housing provider make a neighbourhood food secure? No. Can a social agency make a neighbourhood food secure? No. Independently, the task of facilitating food security is too heavy for any one body or dis-cipline to bear, as noted by the International Diabetes Foundation. Collectively, however, there are a number of opportunities for collaboration and synergy between various actors and stakeholders to help positively impact food security in Toronto’s neighbourhoods, and promote good public health and a high quality of life for residents in all of the city’s 140 neighbourhoods.

Food security is both a short-term fix, as well as a long-term solution, in terms of creating stronger and healthier neighbourhoods in Toronto. Wheels are in motion to ensure projects which aim to improve quality of life meet less resistance and more public funding, but with meaningful collaborations between the parties outlined in this report, even more benefit can be created at even less cost to the individual participants and stakeholders involved.

The question of whether we should help affect food security has long since been answered - yes. Now, the most important questions for planners and social housing providers become WHAT can we do to help? The answer begins with engaging with agencies/organizations working to address food security, from there we can get a better idea of HOW we can help and WHERE.

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