Rouvean Edwards moved to Jane Finch area in 1978 and got involved, volunteering in her children’s school and was on three founding Board of Directors. As of 2018, Rouvean is retired and happily lives in the Glen Gardens Co-op and continues to volunteer her time by working part-time in the Glen Gardens office. She has 14 grandchildren, of which 4 live with her daughter at the Co-op.
When did you first move into the community?
We moved into the community in 1978 from St. Clair and Oakwood when my last son was born, and Toronto Housing provided a 4-bedroom townhouse at 15 Shoreham. And that’s where I stayed with my family until we moved here to Glen Garden’s Housing Co-op in 1989. I’ve been here ever since. I was on the founding Board, I’m a member of Glen Gardens and we’ve been here ever since.
What was it like living in Shoreham at that time?
I found it good. There were times when we were a little leery of who was living around us, but I felt that because we were on the inner court and not necessarily on Jane street or Shoreham Drive itself, I felt that the kids were very secure within where we lived. Our neighbours were okay, and we didn’t have a lot of problems at that time. My kids enjoyed living there, I kept them on a short string, so I knew where they were and who their friends were. Also, going to Shoreham School was good because the principal that met us was Mr. Bill Hogarth. The first time we saw Bill was he was standing on the foot bridge (crosses over Shoreham Drive) and when he came to Shoreham, he would meet all the kids going back and forth along with the parents so that made everybody feel comfortable living there and going to school in the area.
With the bridge going across Shoreham, did you feel safer at that time?
Yes, because as I said, when we were told where we were going to live, we came and had a look at it. When I saw the bridge, I wasn’t too sure but then I realized it was because of the school. So, I made sure my children always used the bridge and where we were living at 15 Shoreham, when they walk through, it was very close to the bridge, so the kids took the bridge over. I know there were times when kids would just sort of run across the street but that was what Bill was doing. He would yell at them and make them go around.
That’s where I got involved with community groups. I got involved with the school and through the unemployment insurance organization. They were offering a program to train women to be in-home daycare providers at the school. So, Bill got the funding for that and then he looked for people to run the program so myself and Diane Howell was chosen, and we operated in the program out of Shoreham school. We had to get ten to fifteen women and we had to do all of the curriculum and we had to provide everything, so Diane and I did that – we trained a number of women and we also had to contact daycare centres to do placements so I got most of the women into local daycare centres. It was very interesting!
I don’t know where he got the grant from but it was for about a year, but it was posted with unemployment insurance. He told us to go down and apply but he was the one that was able to make the choice of the applicants he interviewed. He did the hiring. Very, very progressive of the principal at that time.
Then, I don’t know who it was but somebody – I was on the parent-teacher association at Shoreham and it might have been you Wanda but somebody from Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre (JFCFC) contacted and asked me if I wanted to get involved with the JFCFC board. And I did. And I was President there for a number of years.
Today, the community is very diverse. What was the make-up of the community like back when you first got involved?
It was definitely not as diverse. There were a couple of Asian people in the community that was involved in the school and the community but within the school where I first started, there wasn’t. There was one lady who had her children coming to the school and I tried to get her involved in the school, but she moved on to work for the government in immigration. As I got into the JFCFC, I found there were more people from different cultures that was involved.
Jane-Finch faces many issues today. What were the issues in the community when you first got involved?
There was not enough support for single moms. A lot of them were isolated so there was a need for interacting within the community. I found that a lot of the West Indian families didn’t get involved in their schools back home, so they didn’t think that they needed to get involved with the school system here and would leave it all up to the teachers. So, when they were asked to come in for parent teacher interviews and association meetings, they didn’t feel that they would be heard and so they didn’t. With me dealing with them (as a Black woman) – there were not as many Black families as there is now within the school system.
The other thing I found out was that was a lot of streaming within the school system. They tried to stream the kids into non-academic programs and I was faced with that with my kids. Although they were born here, some of the teachers felt they should be stream-lined into going into business or menial jobs - that type of thing. I really had to fight the school system to get my kids into the better schools – lets put it that way which they did. They were streamed into families of schools at that time and I don’t know if they do that now but for instance, my kids went to Shoreham and automatically, they were supposed to go to Jane Junior High (now called Brookview). And, from Jane Junior High, they were supposed to go to Westview. I got my kids bi-passed from Jane and they went from Shoreham to Elia and then from Elia, they went to C.W. Jefferies. All of my five kids went to Jefferies. I believe it gave them a better start.
My daughter went to Jane and I found she was a stronger person plus one of the teachers she had at Jane, who actually was one of my teachers when I went to school in Montreal. So, when Mr. Brown realized it, he was very like wow – I never taught one of my student’s children. I spoke to him about her because I didn’t want her to go to Westview and he said that’s fine, she could go to Jefferies, she had the ability to do so. But with my boys, I got them immediately, with the help of Bill Hogarth, into Elia. They went onto Seneca, only one boy didn’t go to Seneca College, but the others went onto Seneca and my daughter went on to Ryerson.
Tell me about how the community responded to some of the issues.
I’m not sure if within the community development program from the JFCFC, under the leadership of Peggy Edwards, if some of those issues were dealt with. With CD, we also had people from other organizations on that board like the Red Cross, we had the Asian Community Centre, we had a few others ones but I know some of those issues might have been brought up and I think that with the community workers and the social workers reaching out to the various housing places and having programs there, they enlightened a lot of the women and that they should get involved with their kids and see where they were going to be placed in schools and get involved in the school system. It took a while to get some of them interested but I think a lot of them did and was able to make some impact.
How did governments (politicians and bureaucrats) or influential people respond to the issues in the community?
I was part of a ministerial group that met – all the ministers in the area and some of them did talk about some of these issues but again, they didn’t seem to get too involved. It was more of talking around the table type of thing that had an impact on their church members and their kids. There wasn’t a lot that they were able to do. I know a couple of times the local government people would come to various community meetings, whether it was their annual general meeting and things like that. They would come and make promises to the point where they knew some of things were needed in the Jane Finch community and they would say they would do what they could. At that time, I wasn’t too aware of how government and others responded.
You sat on the Board of the Jane/Finch Centre for many years. Tell me about those experiences and what did you do that you feel made a difference; what was challenging?
It was a good experience. I got on the Board in the mid to late 80’s. At that time, Mary Crabbe was there, you were there, Peggy was there. It was very interesting, I mean when I was elected President, it kind of blew my mind because I had never been President of an organization and I didn’t know what it entailed. We had some very good people on the Board. Peggy Edwards was there as a representative of the Centre and most meetings were at the Centre and we had people like Pat O’Neil. I remember specifically I was working at the Red Cross at the time and one of the Board members at the time – can’t remember her name but we would sit around the table and have different items that we had to discuss, and I remember Pat who was so eloquent and she knew the issues and that she would make her presentation at the Board. Pat attended all of our meetings and I remember this person calling me up and she said to me, Rouvean, I think I want to come off the Board and when I asked her why, she said “we have ideas, but we don’t get a chance to express them”. When Pat made her statement, it sounded so right that even when we go to vote, she would have things to say but because Pat was so articulate, I didn’t feel I could vote against her. If the questions came up, she felt she couldn’t answer them. So, I went back to the next Board meeting, I said to them, you know we’re going to give everybody a chance to express their feelings on the topic before we make a vote. A few people then were willing to challenge or even raise questions so that there was more dialogue. Peggy was very good at clarifying things for us, but I don’t think she (Pat) ever gave the people the feeling that they could express their feelings. From then on, that’s what we did. We made sure that everybody spoke – we would go around the table and if they chose to say something, it was up to them. They didn’t feel that they had to. But, at least it was open. It was all very interesting because we had people from different community organizations that was on the board (who were also residents), we also had some of the moms from the groups at JFCFC and a few of them when they first came on, they didn’t feel that they had anything to contribute. I remember this other woman, Wendy, who came on the Board for one term and she thought she could not do anything on the Board and we said to her, you know if you just sit and listen for awhile, then after when we started doing the “what do you think about that”, they were able to pull themselves out and at least say something.
It was very diverse and educational. There was a lot were single moms, some on social assistance and they were able to express their opinion. There was one discussion when they couldn’t go and cash their cheques without spending so much at the grocery store. We found out that the grocery store would always put their prices up around baby bonus times and of course they would have to spend more. I know a lot of work was done on that and it was stopped. The Board took action on that and it was supported by community development. They could cash their cheques at the grocery story – the one that was in the Jane Finch Mall but then they would have to spend a good portion of it.
The other thing about the Board was going down to the United Way. As President of the Board, I would go down with Peggy Edwards to make our proposal and that was scary. The first time that I had to go, that was scary because of the questions you had to answer to the “big-wigs” at the United Way. Through being on the Board, I was able to meet Lincoln Alexander down at Queen’s Park when JFCFC might have been given an award or some presentation and I was there as President and had a chat with him and things like that – that was nice!
Working with the Board was awesome – some of the things were hard, not always a bed of roses when you had to make decisions if an employee had to be let go and we had some interesting sessions there, not knowing how it was going to turn out but it was a challenge and learning experience.
I was on the Board for a long time. At one point we had forgotten it was re-elections and I ended up going into another 2-year term where I should have been off and then I think the Board put in place, a past president position for an additional year. When I started it wasn’t implemented and we talked about it and decided we should do that to keep continuity and also to help the new President. There was that one year that we were so tied up in business that we didn’t realize that my term had ended.
You were a founding member of the Glen Gardens Housing co-op. Tell me about that experience.
When I heard about it, can’t remember who filled me in, but I know when they were building Pioneer Co-op and I asked about it and they said it was Co-op housing, I asked what that was. So, they explained it to me. Then when they were thinking about Glen Gardens, somebody mentioned it to me and I went to a couple of meetings at Pioneer Co-op and that was interested. We were all excited, looking at the blueprints and the dynamics of all of that. There was one meeting I thought I was going to but missed out because when it came to the point where they were choosing those that would be moving in here automatically because we didn’t have to apply then because we were on the Board. My mom took sick in Montreal and they said that if we weren’t at the next meeting that we wouldn’t be chosen and that we would have to go through the process of applying. So, I said I had no choice, my mother was sick, and I had to go to Montreal, so I did. But, when I came back, they said that they had kept my spot for me, which was nice. That was very interesting.
The delay with our contractors here was off (three weeks late) and we had to leave Shoreham and others had to leave from where they were living as we had planned to move in by a certain date and it didn’t materialize. So, we ended up going into a hotel. We went to the hotel on Norfinch, in the community, with my family and my mother was with me at that time. When that was coming to an end, they were going to re-locate some of us to the one at Keele and Wilson, but I begged not to because when I saw the high-rise hotel and knowing I had to go to work in the community and knowing we were at this hotel, was better. I knew one of the house-keeping staff and with my mother being an elderly person, we stayed there and other people stayed at the Novotel (Yonge Street) and one of our babies that was born, was born from that Hotel and then moved in here. It was educational, meeting with contractors and things like that and the people we met with were from social housing, Janet and Linda, were awesome people to work with. We moved in and still had a lot of quirks. One person had hot water coming out of their toilet. When she turned it on, the toilet would flush hot water!
I find Glen Gardens home and raised the rest of the kids here until one by one, they moved out. My daughter liked it so much that she moved in again.
When you think back to living in the community, what are you most proud of and what have you found to be most challenging?
When I listen to some people and they have so much negative thoughts and ideas, I tend to ask myself a question, “where was I”. To be honest, I don’t look for the negative, I always look for the positive. So, if something doesn’t go right, I try to look at what good can come out of it. I’m very proud that I was able to raise my five kids in this community without them getting into major trouble. They didn’t hang out with the group that would get them into major trouble and yes, they had their little ups and downs like everyone else but other than that, they were able to do their education, they didn’t drop out of school because of hanging with the wrong group and things like that. I always said to them that I would rather they bring their friends home than you go to their homes if I don’t know who they are. That has always been my open door with their friends. Their friends were always welcome. So, when I listen to some people saying about the challenge of bringing up their kids, they just can’t wait to get out of the Jane Finch area. I have never felt that. All except one boy works in this area. One worked here for awhile and is now working at Jane and Steeles so he’s still not far away but lives in Brampton. I find that living in the community like this – yes, it has its challenges, but I think how you face your challenges and how you approach people that might be presenting these challenges to you, makes it completely different in how the outcome is. Because if you have a positive attitude you believe that with God, all things are possible, I raised my children that way because of that – I love this community. Now if had the money to buy a house I would probably look for property in this community.
I worked at the Red Cross as the Manager for a number of years. Red Cross started off in the Yorkwoods Public School and when I was hired I was told that we had to relocate the office so I to go real estate hunting and found a location at 1181 Finch. I set up office there, set up a food bank and we had a very good Christmas basket program going for a number of years. We worked with the schools in the area to provide for over 125 families with Christmas baskets. I was also on a group that got money from COMSOC (the government) and what we did with that was to provide assistance to moms with new babies, if there was a fire, through that funding we would outfit the whole family if they lost everything. There were times we had to fly people out. I remember one time when we had to fly one woman out to Vancouver. Her daughter was killed there, and she was on social assistance and she didn’t have any way to get out to claim the body or to identify the body and through that funding, we were able to fly her out to BC, let her bury her daughter and return home.
I worked the Red Cross for 8 years. But, they restructured because they had an office in Flemington, one here, one in Mississauga and they had the central office on Yonge street. They wanted to have one person who would be in charge of the main office downtown. They were going to amalgamate eventually. Because I was there not too many years, and Donna Wilson had moved from my position to head office on Yonge, they brought her back to the Finch office for awhile and then let me go and then after that they amalgamated to one office on Yong street and closed down the satellite offices. But I think they kept Flemington to my knowledge, but they closed down the Mississauga office and the one here.
I was also on the founding Board of Directors for the Black Creek Community Health Centre (BCCHC). I think all told, I was there 8 or 9 years. So, founding Board member of the JFCFC, Glen Gardens and the BCCHC. I enjoyed working at the BCCHC Board. We had to hire Cary (the Executive Director), the temporary secretary, and Peggy Edwards was involved with that as well from the JFCFC and we got the location and things like that.
Even working here with Linda (Manager), and she has spoken of it many times when she first came up here and her husband died, they were wanting to send her back to the states but I believe that you were one of the ones, if I remember and we did a petition to go to Immigration Canada and basically stating that she was very involved in the community with two daughters that were Canadian born and it was just a matter of weeks, that the papers came in and he died just prior to that for her to sign them. I remember having a meeting over at Northwood CC and talked about it and she was there. Linda was living in the Jane Sheppard housing and she was in a women’s group, volunteered with her kids and then hired to work with as women’s group leader and then she was hired for the handicapped program, sponsored out of Driftwood Community Centre. Somebody called her up and said there was this job development program happening and they needed a coordinator and that is how she got involved.
Any other comments?
None that I can think of!