The Fight to Save Little Jamaica!

In this week's Your Voice, Brandon travels to Toronto's Little Jamaica which has been known for its culture, food and good vibes for more than 50 years. But right now, the community is at risk due to gentrification. Currently there are organizations like Black Urbanism TO (BUTO) trying to save the neighbourhood.

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Toronto community group looks to increase Black property ownership in Little Jamaica

An urban planning group in Toronto is embarking on a project that aims to increase the amount of commercial property owned by Black businesses in the city’s Little Jamaica neighbourhood.

The project, dubbed 'Pathways to Community Ownership' hopes to increase property ownership within the community and the capacity of local Black businesses to understand alternative business models.

The project is led by Black Urbanism Toronto (BUTO), a group founded in 2018 by Brock University alumni Romaine Baker, Dane Williams and Theo Adje.

The group originally planned to create a documentary capturing the “culture and different actors of Little Jamaica,” but that soon gave way to a much greater purpose.

“Black Urbanism Toronto aims to increase the participation of Black people in community development and to advance the collective cultural, economic and social interests in the neighbourhoods we call home,” Williams told CTV News Toronto on Thursday.

“We understood that Black displacement and erasure are patterns that we see continuously see repeating themselves in Canada, so Romaine, Theo and I decided that we wanted to do something about it.”

Read the full article

Thanks for attending our first LJCLT Advisory Working Group session!

Thanks to everyone again for joining our first LJCLT Advisory Working Group session! It was so great to meet so many of you in person, and I am so happy that so many others got to join online!

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Here’s a short recap of what we accomplished in our first session:

• Answered questions about what a community land trust is, what it can do in the neighborhood and the current direction of the LJCLT.

• Shared ideas on resources and networks to advance the land trust

• We decided on the following 5 Afrocentric Values to inform the governance infrastructure of the land trust

  • Umoja (Unity)

  • Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)

  • Kujichahulia (Self Determination)

  • Ujamaa (Collective Economics)

  • Nia (Purpose)

Please see below for materials from this session, plus additional BUTO reports that further explain CLTs, other ownership models and how we got to the point of incorporating the Little Jamaica Community Land Trust.

I apologize for not having sent folks off with food this session, so please send your e-transfer emails and breakfast/lunch/dinner is on us!

Thank you, guys! Have a great week. 🙂

Anyika M.