Driven
by the common desire to make north Etobicoke a
better place to live, work and play, Rexdale Partners
(a network of community agencies), Ward 1 Councillor
Suzan Hall and the City of Toronto joined their
efforts in 2001 and began a process to develop
a revitalization plan for the area.
Rexdale Partners had brought together a group
of 78 concerned citizens and representatives from
local community agencies, who met for three days
at a "Search Conference" and, together,
they identified an overwhelming number of community
issues and concerns that needed to be addressed.
At the end of the conference, a recommendation
was made to bring together residents, businesses,
politicians, and community agencies to develop
a strategy that would focus on community development
and economic improvement.
Around the same time, plans were being formulated
by the Councillor and City staff to establish
a revitalization project for north Etobicoke.
Ultimately, the two initiatives merged and this
marked the beginning of NERP.
With the help of Councillor Hall, the North Etobicoke
Community Reference Committee (former name of
NERP) was formed. The committee brought together
all of the recommended stakeholders, along with
resource staff from the City of Toronto, to develop
and implement a viable plan of action. A preliminary
review of demographic information and individual
reports on north Etobicoke prompted the committee
to choose Ward 1, with its population of about
63,000 people, as their main focus.
Subsequently, various work groups were established
to move ahead with the project. At the same time,
the City of Toronto and the Government of Canada,
through Service Canada (formerly HRSDC), co-funded
a coordinator to do outreach into the community
to determine the needs and approach to be taken.
The recommendations that resulted from this outreach
effort confirmed the approach being taken, and
were approved by City Council. The City continued
to resource the organization through the involvement
of their staff.
Within its first year of activities, the committee
adopted a new name - North Etobicoke Revitalization
Project (NERP). Five areas of concern were identified
and the committee set up a number of work groups
to deal with these high priority issues. These
work groups were:
To
streamline the project, a new organizational format
was developed and, in 2003, a Steering Committee
was put in place to govern the activities of NERP
and its work groups. After the Steering Committee
was established, volunteers worked on an application
for federal funding through Service Canada and were
ultimately successful. This funding enabled NERP
to set up an office at Thistletown Multi Service
Centre, hire a staff of two (Project Coordinator
and Administrative Support Worker), and carry out the
LMEI project, including the development
of this website. The LMEI project is currently funded by the Government of Ontario, through the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
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