Deep roots, shared future: How Jane and Finch is building community solutions that last

This is the first in a three-part series exploring United Way Greater Toronto’s neighbourhoods work. We’ll share what’s happening in Jane and Finch, Cooksville and South Markham — three communities at different stages of the same long-term journey toward resident‑led change — and reflect on what they teach us about building lasting community solutions.

Walk through the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and you’ll find a community with deep roots. Residents who have lived here for decades. Grassroots leaders who have long advocated for their neighbours. Organizations that have built trust through years of hard work and persistence.

That history matters. It’s what makes the work happening in Jane and Finch today not just meaningful, but possible.

United Way Greater Toronto has been investing in this neighbourhood as part of a long-term, place-based approach to community change. Rather than bringing in outside solutions, United Way works alongside communities to support leadership that already exists.

“We are able to partner more deeply today in Jane‑Finch because of the strength of community leadership that already exists here,” says Alex Dow, Director, Neighbourhood Solutions at United Way Greater Toronto. “Our role isn’t to come in with answers — it’s to stay committed over time, invest in trusted local partners and support residents to keep driving the work they’ve already been leading for years.”

The Jane Finch Centre (JFC) serves as the Community Action Lead — a backbone organization helping to coordinate and co-implement a shared vision for the neighbourhood. Deeply embedded and accountable to the community, JFC is also a United Way anchor agency, receiving long-term, flexible funding to support community‑driven work, build strong partnerships and respond to local priorities as they evolve.

That shared vision is made concrete through the Jane‑Finch Community Action Plan — a community‑wide roadmap shaped by residents, grassroots groups, service providers and institutional partners, and led locally by JFC.

The Jane‑Finch Community Action Plan builds on years of earlier community‑led work — including the Community Benefits Framework, the Community Development Plan and the Secondary Plan — all developed through extensive resident engagement. 

The priorities are long-standing: housing stability, economic opportunity, access to services, safe community spaces — and increasingly, anti‑displacement. 

These are issues residents have been advocating for decades — and the work is focused on supporting that leadership over the long term. 

Housing pressure, in particular, has intensified as the neighbourhood changes. Emilia Kolodko, a resident leader and advocate, points to growing anxiety about displacement.  

“The major concern facing Jane and Finch right now, besides the cost of living, is being pushed out by neighbourhood change,” they say. “With new development proposals and the demolition of Firgrove, the forces behind gentrification have been heavy on our minds.” 

For many residents, that pressure creates deep uncertainty. “The lack of control over our homes makes it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” they say.  

At the same time, Emilia emphasizes the neighbourhood’s long history of collective resistance. “Countless cases prove that we can come together to successfully oppose eviction.” 

One of the most significant recent milestones in Jane‑Finch is the Eviction Prevention Framework — a neighbourhood‑based initiative supported by United Way Greater Toronto and currently in its final stages before public release. 

Developed with resident leaders, JFC and York University, the framework responds directly to pressures facing the community — including the Finch West LRT, renovictions, demolition evictions and N13 notices. It breaks down tenant rights in plain language and connects residents to the legal resources they need. 

For Emilia, who oversaw the framework’s development as a resident lead, the work is rooted in lived experience. “Growing up in Jane and Finch changes your perspective,” they say. “When I meet other Jane and Finch residents like myself, we simply understand each other. We share similar experiences and concerns, and we are experts in our own communities.” 

That expertise shaped how the framework was designed. “There are already resources about eviction in Toronto, but none that cater to the unique challenges of our neighbourhood,” Emilia explains. “By working collaboratively with residents, we’re able to target the issues that genuinely matter to us.” 

Equity and accessibility were central considerations throughout the process. “We understand that we may not have the same resources or privileges as other Torontonians, so we can make an Eviction Prevention Framework that is true to our realities,” they explain. 

“The Eviction Prevention Framework is a real example of what collaboration looks like,” Alex says. “It brings together resident leadership, community expertise and institutional partners to respond to real pressures — and turns years of advocacy into something practical that people can actually use.” 

For Emilia, the framework is also about restoring confidence. “The Eviction Prevention Framework looks to counter that sense of hopelessness and disempowerment by encouraging confidence. With the rise of demovictions and renovictions, we’ve witnessed the power of collective organizing rooted in community networks, resources and leadership.” 

“In all of its history,” they add, “Jane and Finch residents have always fought injustice — and we need this today more than ever.” 

Community Action Grants are another key piece of this work. Administered by United Way Greater Toronto, these fund resident‑ and community‑led projects are aligned with the Community Action Plan. With the second-round recipients announced earlier this year, these grants are reaching parts of the neighbourhood larger organizations can’t always access. 

They also do something equally important: recognize organizing, research and advocacy as real labour — making it possible for resident leaders to acknowledge the work that has long gone unpaid, especially around housing and anti‑displacement. 

“They invest in both existing and emerging leaders — people using their own knowledge and networks of the neighbourhood and their understanding and life experiences with the issues to push forward solutions,” says Clara Stewart-Robertson, Director of Community Planning, Development & Partnerships at JFC. 

One example of this grassroots leadership is Nu Rising Community Services, a newly formed organization grounded in the lived experience and leadership of long-time Jane‑Finch residents. Their Community Action Grant supports C.O.U.R.A.G.E. (Community OG’s Using Restorative Action for Growth & Evolution) — a resident‑led, community well-being project engaging youth in the Shoreham and Driftwood areas of Jane Finch through weekly workshops focused on life skills, mental and emotional wellness, conflict resolution, healthy relationships, and leadership.  

Nu Rising brings decades of informal leadership into structured, sustained programming. The group had already identified the need, secured space, built trust with families and had youth participating before receiving funding. The grant gave them the stability to keep going — supporting programming that is, as Clara notes, “directly responsive to a smaller group of people with very specific outcomes.” 

One of the things that makes the Jane and Finch approach distinctive is how it holds space for many different kinds of partnership — formal and informal, institutional and grassroots. 

“There are trust-based relationships with residents and grassroots groups, and then some initiatives have more formal, collaborative mechanisms — partnerships with organizations like TTC or York University,” Clara explains. 

Both play a role. The informal relationships build the trust and knowledge that make formal advocacy possible. And formal partnerships help translate advocacy into policy and systems level change. 

United Way also helps move this work forward by co-chairing a Community Impact Table of funders and leading the Black Creek Humber Summit cluster table with the City of Toronto — helping move community priorities into broader decision-making spaces. 

“In Jane‑Finch, we’ve seen how important it is for funders and government to work differently,” Alex says. “That means showing up consistently, collaborating with funders and other partners to be able to listen to the priorities being put forth for the neighbourhood — not just funding projects, but supporting the systems and relationships that enable those projects to succeed and have a legacy beyond the life of the grant itself.” 

Sustained collaboration over years and decades doesn’t happen by accident. For JFC, it comes down to accountability to the community, and a willingness to stay the course, even when the work is challenging. 

Clara explains that JFC tries to approach the work with honesty about what isn’t working, just as much as what is. “We really try to acknowledge where we’ve failed and where we’ve learned lessons,” she said. “We learn everything from community. None of these projects are possible without our partners. It just does not exist without anyone else.” 

At its core, the approach is relational, not transactional — grounded in long-term commitment, humility and the recognition that residents are the experts in their own lives.  

“It’s always the residents that come to us with the ideas, because they’re the ones on the ground experiencing material conditions themselves. They’re the ones seeing it play out every day,” Clara says. 

Jane and Finch shows what’s possible when community development work is sustained over time. When residents are treated as leaders, not just participants. When planning leads to action — and when setbacks are treated as learning, not failure. 

The second round of Community Action Grants has been announced. The Eviction Prevention Framework is nearly ready. And the Community Action Plan continues to evolve, shaped by the people who live and work here. 

“This moment in Jane‑Finch reflects what long-term investment can make possible,” Alex says. “There’s strong alignment between resident leadership, community planning and funded action — and that creates the conditions for deeper systems change. What’s happening now builds on decades of work, and there’s still more ahead.” 

The work continues — and so does the momentum. The foundation is solid, built by the community and ready to carry this next chapter forward. 

Next in the series: We head to Cooksville, where years of planning are now moving into action.