Stephnie Payne has been working in the community for over 40 years. As of May, 2012, she continues to be the Executive Director of San Romanoway Revitalization Association and Public School Trustee for Ward 4 for the Toronto District School Board.
How did you get involved in the community?
I first got involved in Jane Finch in the early 70’s when I was doing my York University degree at York in Sociology. Part of my course was to do some volunteering in the community and that’s when I contacted Children’s Aid Society to look at doing some volunteer work with children in the community. At that time, my supervisor was really quite good, Jackie (can’t remember her last name), I think it was Brithway or something like that) and at that point, Jackie said to me “Would you be willing to be part of an emergency foster care case? She needs me.” I certainly agreed to that and I got a call one night from her saying that there was a single mother in Shoreham with three daughters who needed immediate care so Jackie came over to interview my husband and I and we took the three girls in for about three weeks. So, that’s how I became actively involved in the Jane Finch community.
My first job was at Toronto Western on Bathurst Street, so I lived down in that area until 1969 because my husband took a job at CN in Concord so we figured it would be better here and when York Finch opened in 1970, I was one of the original nurses to work there and I worked there until I got pregnant and was going on maternity - with my first daughter in 1970.
What did the area look like in 1969?
Very different, very different then. I got to tell you, I lived at 3400 Keele Street, north of Sheppard at one point and it was interesting because at that time there weren’t a lot of visible minority, blacks or people of colour so at that time, if I seen someone who looked like me, I automatically assumed I knew them so I went to them and said, “Do I know you - are you from such and such a place?”
North of Finch was like farmland, you know. There wasn’t a Petro Can at Hucknall and Finch, there wasn’t an Esso. There was hardly anything north of Finch and Keele. So it was very different at that time.
What was going on in the area, the city and province at that time?
I wasn’t politically astute at that time so I was just sort of surviving in survival mode. And when you are a new immigrant in the country as I’d been in 1967, it had only actually been two years. So it was survival mode. Go to work, go home, you know what I mean, go home and look after your family. What I did know at that time was that I had a profound interest in working with children and at that time, it was the new immigrants coming from Jamaica and Grenada. So, the issue of the reunion and the separation of children and in integrating the kids into the system was creating some difficulty for these immigrant families. A lot of the immigrant’s mothers that came up and then sent for their children later were having difficulty with the children because a lot of these women were illegal at that time. So, they weren’t really addressing the needs of the educational system because they were being sent home and that was a major issue at the time. I remember that very, very clearly. But politically, I really couldn’t tell you.
I know that I was approached when Pierre Elliot Trudeau was running and the MP was Bob Kaplan. He solicited my support then. There were some stalwarts in the community like Donald Moore and Ed Clarke, a Canadian born of Barbadian heritage and these were some old elders. And, at that time, coming from England, you sort of get a handle of where you’re going by people knowing where you were from. “England” and they would tell you “Make sure you touch base with these people because they would assist you through the transition.” So, it was Donald Moore and Ed Clarke who took me under their wings and they said, “What do you do”? And I said, “I’m a nurse”. They said, “Good profession. Are you going to study more?” “Yes, I would love to get an education”. And, politically, get your Citizenship in three years which I did and you got to vote. “You got to vote as soon as you get that”. “Well, who do I vote for?” I didn’t know the political landscape. “You’re going to vote liberal because there is this new man on the scene, Pierre Elliot Trudeau”. That was my first voting for Bob Kaplan as a liberal candidate and I was so pleased to get my citizenship to know that I could be part of democracy in the country. Bob Kaplan was a very decent MP.
How did you get involved politically?
Politically, it’s very interesting but I remember having my first daughter at Stilecroft Public School. Tracy was a very bright girl and still is. It was when my second daughter started Kindergarten, she had a lisping problem and because she had a lisping problem it just seemed that the right stream for her was Special Education. I knew my daughter was not a Special Ed child; she just had a lisping problem. So, being my profession as a nurse, I said to the staff and IPRC team, “Could we have a speech therapist for her”? Well no, she’s a Special Ed child. So, that is when I got really involved in educational system because I wanted to know what was best for my children.
I’ve been at the system and I’ve been there and I advocated for my children when a lot of parents who are new immigrants to the country didn’t know how to do. I had no support in doing it but I did it, both my husband and I. So, at that time, they wanted her to go to school at Dellcrest so I said I needed to see what this Dellcrest looked like. I hadn’t a clue. So I went and took a tour of Dellcrest and I saw the students that were there and I went back to Stilecroft and made the determination that my child would not be going to Dellcrest - we needed to have a speech therapist for her and it was part of the public system. It was then that I was meeting roadblocks all the way.
Then I questioned the testing of the IPRC’s because I find it to be quite euro-centric at the time and you know, I’m in York University so my knowledge is coming out about Afro-centricity and racism and about the Americas so all of that was coming out so I used that to my advantage. Only when my eldest got into middle school (and they were never suspended), one day she was beaten by another boy so I went to the Principal and I said, “My child’s been beaten - look at her bruises, what are you going to do”? “Well, she fought back”. I told her my children are not in the habit of fighting back and this was disturbing my child very much and she didn’t want to go to school. So, anyway, the Principal called the boy in and my daughter and she wanted to suspend my child and I said, “How dare you”. That is when I thought I really had to get involved in the system.
When did you first get elected as a Trustee?
I first got elected as a trustee in 1991 and I ran in 1988 and was not successful. I lost that time by 191 votes. I ran again in 1991 and won and have served since then. Back then, it was considered a full-time job but I also worked in the community. I worked as a community worker in the Jane Finch community. I started my community work in the late 70's after I had my first degree with the now defunct Youth Clinical Services. At that time, I was doing my second degree and working part-time as a nurse because at that time we had a mortgage to pay, we had two small children. So, my full-time community work was at the Youth Clinical Services and part-time, weekends, nursing. Once I was elected in 1991, I gave up my nursing registration as a nurse and I worked full-time at the Youth Clinical Services and as a Trustee. I worked at the Youth Clinic from 1976 till 1994. I knew Lenore Suddes (Lenore was an activist in the ‘70’s).
It was interesting in that the position at the Youth Clinic was like a community school outreach worker. We had culturally appropriate discussion groups at the middle schools and at that time, they were junior high schools. It was Jane Junior High which I have a love for, Oakdale Junior High, some group work at Westview, Emery, Humber Summit Junior High. So, it was very interesting at that time and now I got to tell you that I see the young women who I worked with then and some of them are mothers and grandmothers. Jane Junior High was an open concept school way back then. I remember Mike Palermo was the kissing, hugging Principal. Always a hug and always a kiss and that of course at that time, you didn’t get anything like the principal touching me the wrong way or the CAS coming in because Mike hugged and kissed everybody at the time.
What were the issues back in the 70’s?
Of course the issues back then from a nursing perspective, a community workers perspective, then as a Trustee’s perspective and I going to highlight on the trustee’s more or less and the community worker simply that we have seen the eroding of a community because of systems. And when I say that, we had a lot of teenage pregnancies then and it was newcomers to the country and the poor white’s that was getting pregnant. The poor Anglo-Saxon Protestants that were getting pregnant. There wasn’t the amount of gun violence or things that you have seen in the last decade, however, the issues were more within the young people that I worked with - sexually transmitted diseases and the promiscuity of the newcomers who came to the country and the poor people, whether they were black, white, pink or blue. The issues that were facing the community, then the social ills were into the schools then because the schools were a microcosm of the community. So, of course, this fell into the system. And what happens then. The drop-out starts, the crime started to escalate. With that, it seems like the unfair treatment of Blacks were then being forced onto our community by our police.
I think that’s when you will see in the late 70’s and 80’s, the marches started to 31 Division and I have got to say that Linda Morowei and people like Lennox Farrell were instrumental in keeping the force of telling the police to stop the brutality of Black youth. They would just be walking and then arrested. That too, led into the school system, the educational system because Jane and Finch was seen as an area in those times that most affluent teachers can come here and hide out. Not doing what they should be doing to our kids so a lot of our students were streamed into basic and Special Ed. Few would make it through the academic stream unless they had parents...and I found that the educators at that time looked at the immigrants based on the issue of single parent or two families. You seem to be more respected if you were two parents and had a profession because I found in my case, with my husband and I, we were respected simply because I had a profession.
How did the community respond to some of these issues?
The community back then responded in a way I would say it was more or less I don’t know if its fair of retaliation simply again we go back to the inordinate number of newcomers that were illegal. If you were illegal, you want to fight for your child and fight for your community but there were repercussions. At that time, the immigration were rampant in picking up people and sending them back so you got to understand I’ll see you on the street tomorrow and two days later, you were in the detention centre and you were deported back to your country. So, people were scared and even the Caribbean students that were very bright on student visas were scared as well because I remember Dr. Kwame now, he was a student visa so he would cover his head for the fear of being picked up by the police and being sent back to Guyana so it was those things. So, what we did, we formed an alliance with other Canadians such as naturalized African Canadians and I don’t know if you would remember Rochelle Carnegie whose (you said the name of her mother but I couldn’t get it).................Carnegie’s daughter and Qumena and quite a few of us, we used to meet sometimes at Driftwood Centre - part of the old Black Panther group we thought we were but we were wannabees, we were actually wannabees! Linda Morowei and a lot of us and this about finding, strategizing how we were going to deal with some of the issues that were facing us - new immigrants to this country.
There wasn’t the violence. If you had a murder in the community primarily at that time, if it had to be immigrants, it was probably a domestic violence issue. There was abuse, domestic abuse at the time which was prevalent simply because of the immigrant women being exploited by someone or a significant other who was a naturalized Canadian or permanent resident. And that would be about as far as the crime would go. But the children of these immigrants then, the separation and reunion syndrome set in and these children were coming, not really knowing and understanding the mothers, finding the parent with new partners and the possibility of new siblings. So, that created a vast division and set some materialist things and the expectations of the child coming here. When I was in the Islands, my mother sent me this and sent me that but you come here a see a completely different reality that mother can’t really afford those shoes. How did she get to send them to me and now I come here and I thought I was getting this and now I can’t get it. So, the rebellion started then and the teenage girls started to get pregnant, the incestuous relationships between step father and the young mother’s daughter so those were some of the more prevalent issues that we were seeing at that time.
When did you think that you were starting to have some positive impacts on those issues?
Well you know, I’m still thinking about if I really had a positive impact on some of them? You know, it wasn’t until about the 80’s that I think I had a position impact because I really got active seeing my two girls growing up and I thought, I’m not missing anything and it was at one group program at Oakdale Park that Irene Pengally, who you would probably remember worked at Oakdale Park and she was very, very fond of Grey Bob - very, very fond of him. I remember specifically one day Grey Bob came in and he had gotten himself in a little scuffle and the Police really went down on him so Irene advocated for Greg Bob and that’s when I sat with Irene and I said, “We need to look at different strategies to work with our various communities and bring in some sort of common sense to the issues of police brutality of Black males”. I remember Irene said, “Yes, Stephanie, I agree with you - what could we do”? We need to form some kind of committee and I think it was between Irene and I, I don’t remember who else that we started meeting with police and forming the 31 Division Community Liaison. I was part of that with Irene and bringing some of these issues out at the meetings.
I got really involved because I felt I was making a positive change and there were times when the police would say, “Stephnie, we have this kid, do you know him”? “What about him”. I would say but you know the family has just come from Jamaica and this is that so I sort of talked to them about the separation and reunion syndrome and what these kids were really like. Most officers at the time would say, but he doesn’t look at me he holds his head down. Well that’s respect for the elders. I don’t remember who was the superintendent at the time I could only remember going back to Fantino but that really enlightened me in that I was able to take new officers that came into the division on a tour of the lanes - Firgrove Shoreham, Driftwood to meet with the residents and talk to them about Black youth and when the youth spit or sis the teeth or whatever they do - what does it mean and why the hell the head down because as a child with me growing up, I couldn’t look at an adult in the eye because it was disrespectful. Those were the things that I tried to do and I got to say that Irene Pengally was very encouraging to me and supportive of me in things. I know there were times where I got really hot headed because it was primarily the Black youth that we’re seeing today that were being incarcerated.
I was part of the North York Committee on Race Relations and I do have a plaque down there (on the wall for positive race relations in the former North York). Barry Thompson led that and he is still around. After Barry Thompson, it was Rick Gosling. The City was trying to elevate some of the issues that we were facing in North York because that’s when the towers went up in the 60’s and the housing started to develop like warehousing people in Jane and Finch at the time which started to create tensions between the home-owners and landlords. The majority of the landlords at the time I think built these towers in the hopes that they would be privatized like condo’s, not thinking that it would become ghettoized later on in years. So, I think we have to go back to City Planning in North York - how did they ever allow this to happen but in hindsight 20/20, I don’t think they thought it would be like this.
Tell me about the diversity. Has it changed over the years?
Well it’s amazing. The diversity was different because when you go back then, the diversity was primarily Eastern European, Irish (Protestant and Catholic) because these building were primarily owned and the residents were other than Blacks in these 3 towers. For instance in San Romanoway, it was like a palace because they used to be gated coming into these building way back and it was like the Royal Garden in here. It was primarily residents who were Irish and I still met a lot of people who say, “I used to live there - that are really quite influential today. We had a lot of people from the east coast here - Newfoundland, Ireland and Eastern European and quite a number of people with various religions such as Jews living in Jane and Finch. So you will find the scattered immigrants and those scattered immigrants were fairly well off like the Italians who practically owned the community at that time. You didn’t see a lot of Spanish people, Vietnamese or Chinese or anything like that. They were far and few between. We couldn’t even have had a West Indian market up in Jane and Finch. We didn’t have any take-outs for West Indian foods at that time.
Tell me about Greenwin and how you got involved with your current job?
I will, but I think that’s for every building within our community, with our priority neighbourhoods and other neighbourhoods. The thought never went into who would end up living in buildings because they were seen as such up-scale buildings. How I got involved with Greenwin goes back to probably about maybe 28 - 30 years ago when Ross McLeod, the Teleguard CEO started having security in the community because of the social ills. The mall decided they wanted security. Ross McLeod formed Teleguard Security Company and his officers were working in the Jane Finch Mall, working in these buildings and it just so happened that one day, I was in the mall and these security guards were dragging a young Black man out and I could not stand for this. So, when I went to the security and held his hand, I said, “Let him go - you can’t do this to humans”. He just pushed me off and was going to arrest me.
He finally let the guy go and I said you need to let me speak to the owner who was Ross McLeod. Ross called me and we talked and we met. I told him his guards needed some race relations and anti-racism training. So, I did that for Ross McLeod for these officers in 1994 and since that time we have become close. Ross would call me with various issues with his guards. And, Ross was managing Greenwin here, the security in here because the social ills were hitting San Romanoway. San Romanoway was built in the early 70’s. Ross introduced Greenwin and said if you are going to do all this work to sustain some of the social ills, you can’ do it without Stephnie Payne. This was in 1999. I think in 2000, I think that’s when I came to you Wanda and you sort of cautioned me about landlords and development and what they were doing and I thought, oh my God, I can’t do this. I can’t sell out anymore and I had various meetings with the Principals in the building, the owners of #5 and the management and I said look, I really don’t want to work with landlords because you are habitually exploiting the residents. We’re not about that, we’re about revitalizing in the neighbourhoods and we want to see things change. How are you going to do that? What are you about to spend? Was it going to cost the tenants? So I asked the critical questions that you Wanda would want me to ask before I got myself involved so that when I got involved in 1999 in various meetings one day, I said, “Let me see your plan”. So he presented this huge document that’s called Greenwin Renaissance.
Through that Greenwin Renaissance, I could see what they were about to do the whole revitalization under the crime prevention through environmental design model which was very interesting to me because crime was on the agenda and we needed to do something about it. Of course, in this neighbourhood, the crime in here was 128% above the national average in 2000 so I said to the whole team, “This is where you have to put your money where your mouth is. I know that you are losing big - vandalism, crime and everything and the perception of the area was bad so let’s try to correct that”. So, we need to hire a sociologist to do a quality of life survey and that’s how I got involved by assisting with the surveys, looking at the data, analyzing that data into putting social development programs into the neighbourhood. I started as the Executive Director in 2000 but was a consultant from 1999.
What were governments, religious leaders or influential people doing to respond to the issues?
You have to go back to those times when in North York, Jane and Finch was starting to develop a reputation of ill repute. We were not amalgamated then so of course anything west of Bathurst didn’t happen and I think, even to this day, it still doesn’t happen as it should. The immigrant population started to come in, the illegal immigrants - immigration was here; daily, nightly - all the time so it wasn’t of interest. These people actually could not vote. If I can’t vote for you, what would your interest be in assisting a community? It was like a slum like you would call in New York because there was not the interest. So, government didn’t actually do a lot.
We had agencies around here and at that time the only really credible agency was doing meaningful work - and I’ll go back and this is not because of you (Wanda) but it was the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre who started out as a little grassroots organization doing community development work. And then we had the Youth Clinical Services which did really good work with the young people in the counselling and the medical aspect of sexually transmitted diseases - the whole issue of confidentiality around the issues. When you really look at it, some of the agencies that flew out of Jane and Finch since then, I think they all had their own agendas.
We needed to form some form of umbrella group to deal collectively with the issues and that really didn’t happen because I think that if that had happened. we would not have been in this crisis that we faced later on. The Network of Community Based Organizations was an attempt (Peggy Edwards initially led that) but then again we go back to - there were very few people who actually stayed around like yourself and me but there were good people here but of course people look for upward mobility in their personal lives and people did that but you stayed in the community, I stayed in the community and its for personal reasons that I stayed because I felt that I could contribute more and I’m sure you felt the same way and that’s why you are here to this day and I have nowhere to go till I retire and I’m gone!
But, you know what....I think it’s getting better. It’s getting better. Although we still have the poverty, there hasn’t been the amount of homelessness that I think government sources would have expected or that they were expecting to happen in Jane and Finch. We see that more primarily in the downtown core. I mean up here, we might have lots of people living together but we don’t have that homelessness as government sources had expected would happen. As this would have been the forgotten corner of Toronto but it’s not. It because of the residents, because of the people who work and live here, we keep it on the forefront - don’t forget us and I think we mobilize in a way that I don’t think when I started out I didn’t imagine this happening.
What did you find most challenging both past and current?
Most challenging was the illiteracy rate of individuals in this community. The issue of stagnation within members of our community that came here as highly trained and professional individuals that just felt they were here for survival means and the issue again was entitlement. Individuals just felt that this is Canada and I’m entitled and that was one of the biggest challenges for me talking to mothers, talking to fathers, talking to young people of where I think they should go or how I could support them in going forward. At one point I sarcastically said to an individual, “I think when you got out of the airport, you asked the customer officer where the closest welfare office was”. I said that sarcastically because I felt that this individual and some others weren’t helping themselves to do better. So, that was a challenge.
The other was the educational system - one of the biggest challenges for me because I felt that the system was letting down a number of kids that has creating a lot of crime and victimization. Today, I still see those challenges like even working here at San Romanoway, our grade 3 kids still cannot read, they cannot write and why is that? What is the system doing to correct these ills and where is it going to lead these people when they turn into grade 9. High school rates really escalate at grade ten. So, it’s a big concern for me.
Another challenge for me from then until now - we’re a dying breed of leaders and I don’t see that we have articulate and competent young people out there to take over from us. The people out there that I see are confrontational, adversarial and I was probably like that when I started out but you know, you have to learn when to catch bees with honey and not with vinegar. So, what I’m trying to say Wanda is that you and I don’t have very long around but who will take over the charge from us? That’s a big issue and a big concern for me because I feel if we don’t mentor and prepare our young people to take up the baton, we’re going to lose Jane and Finch. We’re going to lose it and we fought for too long.
What are you most proud of doing or being involved in?
My proudest moment is....we have a breakfast and after-school program here now and it’s seeing the children, seeing the respect - walking into the community, going to Zellers or No Frills - Miss Payne...and just hearing my name from people. “I’m short of change; put a dollar in here for me”. Just knowing people that know me that I can give when they need and they don’t have to steal it. And telling individuals, you don’t have to steal - come and ask and you will get. And it’s not just here. I did it within my nursing career, within my community work working career and I’m most proud to see that because governments looking at us differently and where partnerships are forming within community organizations. I think its a long time coming but the reality is hitting home when we can sit and talk about an umbrella group, looking at sharing resources, sharing insurances, sharing supplies, sharing IT’s maybe having one big Executive Director to look together to form that bond so that we’re all not grasping for the same money and the same dollars from the government. I think that would be one of the ideals going out for me. That would really, really please me going out - to see the agencies coming together - same goal because we all have the same goal and purpose. So, let us all work together. And, I think that would be it for me.
What has this community taught you?
This community has taught me to be tolerant, to be sensitive, to be fair, and to be respectful of others regardless of where they come from and who they are because simply, I don’t know their twenty-four hour circumstances. It’s really taught me, first and foremost to listen and be non-judgmental. I think that is what I have done. There are times with human beings, I would snap like anyone else but the tolerance and listening and to be able to share my own personal experiences with some of the people who think that I’m higher and mighty above them to see that I actually lived on the street in London and that I was a street kid so I know from whence they speak. It’s taught me a lot and I’ve got to say, the murders in the past few years in this community really brings a different sense of caring to me. I always cared about people.
One of the most tragic situations for me was the Alan Ben murder in 2007 when I drove my car and Alan was walking out and I said walk down Jane Street safely. And, I got to Bathurst and Finch and they told me he was dead. Like what could I do? Alan was mentoring my children in the programs so the next day I came in and all the young boys I had in here and they were crying. I couldn’t be stone-faced; I had to cry with them because I felt in my heart that the tears were bursting my veins. When these boys looked at me and said, “Miss...You’re crying”? So, that was a moment for me that I think - I don’t know how to explain it.
When the Crown asked if I would give an impact statement on behalf of the youth and myself, I said that I would give one but I didn’t think I had the courage to stand and read it so I emailed it down and it was read in court. The youth were in my office when the Crown called and they were sad to know there was a conviction but on the other hand, they felt that justice was done. I think that is why we persisted in forming a scholarship. So, I’m proud to put my name on a scholarship and provide funds so that at least 3 youth from this community who has been through what Alan has been through could get a scholarship to go to post-secondary education.
What are your hopes for the future and what needs to be done to get there?
My hopes for the future would be to see a collective, cohesive community - a community where everyone could walk at the intersection of Jane and Finch and be proud and not be judged by who they are but by the characters that Martin Luther said comes from within. My hope would be that the community agencies would join together to form a holistic group to care for the needs of the residents within the community because we’ve got good people working here - and really good people living here. We need to think of them more, not as a commodity and I think a lot of people think of Jane and Finch as a commodity. What my hopes would be for the future - another would be to stop all this darn researching on Jane and Finch and do some meaningful stuff. There are too many people coming in wanting to do research on Jane Finch and going out and getting the accolades for it. People have been here for years.
Any last fond memory?
When I talk about memories, it seems as though I am leaving right now and unless I drop dead, I don’t plan on leaving right now! I think the fondest memory of this community is in November, 1994 when I was re-elected as Trustee for the second term, after the issue of Show Boat where everyone tried to push me down and no one thought I would be re-elected. I was fired from the Youth Clinic because of that and the lawyer representing me on that dismissal case, showed up at my campaign party and handed me the most beautiful bouquet of red and yellow roses. I broke down and cried. I think for me, that’s a memory where I will not forget that night because everyone in the whole of Toronto and probably internationally, thought I would go down. I didn’t go down, my votes went up. Just when I thought the community came out and rallied, it wasn’t just people like me, it was others because a lot of people don’t have citizenship to vote so it was others who see what I had been doing and what I had done that cared. So, that was one of my fondest memories in this community. The other thing is just seeing young people growing into wonderful, contributing adults - makes me quite fond. Trying to work with the marginalized and get the young men off the street and telling them not to be premature baby fathers and the young girls, not to be premature baby mothers. These are some of the things that I take pleasure in doing. I remember kids and each kid; I remember them - maybe not their names but I remember the children.