$100 Advocacy Ideas
Ismail Afrah loves ideas. Whenever this young Somali man discovers a shiny new concept, he swoops it up – and deposits it into his cherished stash of $100 Advocacy Ideas. He shares these treasures with me as he recounts the story of the Regent Park Community Benefits Coalition, and I soon realize that Ismail’s impressive intellectual abilities were crucial to the Coalition’s success. Having sharpened his skills in undergraduate philosophy classes, he was the one who led the research, devised the strategies, and articulated the way forward. But he does not take sole credit for the community benefits story; instead, he stresses that it was a collaborative effort. After all, to build on everyone’s strengths is, he believes, a foundational idea when it comes to advocacy.
The story began in the spring of 2018 when Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) announced that they were initiating a Request for Proposals (RFP) to select a developer for phases 4 and 5, the final two phases of the Regent Park revitalization. Residents were shocked. They had assumed that Daniels Corporation, the developer for the first three phases, would complete the project. Infuriated by this unexpected change, residents demanded a voice in the RFP process.
Their advocacy, in which Ismail participated, led to two ground-breaking concessions. First, TCHC permitted four residents, sworn to confidentiality, to review the RFP documents and suggest amendments. In a second concession, not only did TCHC set up a neighbourhood Revitalization Working Group but – to everyone’s surprise – they accepted the group’s request for developer presentations that the entire community could score. When these presentations eventually took place on October 5, 2019, nearly 250 residents would show up to add their combined rankings to the formal selection process. It would be an unprecedented event.
In the meantime, Ismail was fully engaged in the RFP phase of the story. True to one of his $100 ideas – work at multiple levels – he served on both the RFP Advisory Team and the “Revite” Working Group. Further, because Ismail believes advocates should do the homework, he bought the definitive text on government procurement and read all 1500 pages over the 2018 Christmas break. “It gave me the necessary legal language to challenge the TCHC lawyer,” he explains.
In early 2019 – almost by accident – Ismail happened upon an idea that would redirect the neighbourhood’s advocacy efforts: leverage community benefits. He learned that all three levels of government had policies recommending that massive infrastructure projects include local poverty-reducing benefits, such as job training, employment, and supply contracts.
Since the RFP Advisory Team had not yet completed its work, Ismail rushed to get “community benefits” inserted into the RFP text, along with a clause allowing the community to negotiate the allocation of those funds in the first year of the contract. Then, in keeping with another $100 idea – collaborate with partners – Ismail reached out to the Toronto Community Benefits Network, whose staff contributed their experience as he and several colleagues launched the Regent Park Community Benefits Coalition in August 2019.
There was no time to lose. After the developer presentations, scheduled for early October 2019, TCHC planned to launch negotiations with its top-scoring candidates. The Coalition had only a narrow window to persuade TCHC to guarantee that they would include community benefits in both the negotiation process and the final contract with the developer. To achieve this goal, the Coalition created two documents in October 2019: the Community Priorities Report and the Community Benefits Framework.
The Priorities Report outlined those benefits that would best serve the Regent Park community – but the document still needed resident approval. For this, Ismail turned to his more passionate team members. They rounded up a group of youth who knocked on doors, created a banner, and led the way to a nearby hall, where over 100 residents enthusiastically endorsed the report’s priorities. “I couldn’t have done it,” admits Ismail. “Our team was amazing!”
The Framework laid out the principles and processes that should guide TCHC in negotiating community benefits with the developer, consulting with the community, and eventually producing a legally-binding document that would ensure delivery of the agreed-on benefits. It took many months of nail-biting advocacy, but on March 4, 2020 – before the delayed negotiations began – TCHC finally signed the Framework.
While TCHC bargained with its three top developers, the community waited – month after month. Yet even before TCHC reached a final deal with its chosen developer, the impact of the Coalition’s work was rippling through the community. Its successes inspired everyone: the group’s members, other advocacy groups, and other revitalizing neighbourhoods, who, rather than plodding through treatises on procurement, could now point to the precedents set by Ismail and his team.
Most of all, the group’s successes transformed Ismail. He tells me how he used to feel powerless, which is not surprising given his background: early years in war-ravaged Somalia, some brief schooling in Kenya, then plunked into Canada – and Regent Park – at the challenging age of 15. Now in his early thirties, Ismail has, through the Community Benefits Coalition, discovered a life-shaping passion for advocacy. “And with our achievements,” he explains, “my expectations of what I can accomplish have grown exponentially.”
On December 15, 2020, TCHC finally announced that Tridel Group would be the new developer for phases 4 and 5. Along with this news, the neighbourhood also learned that the contract included community benefits valued at $26.75 million. The Coalition’s investment in Ismail’s $100 Advocacy Ideas had resulted in unbelievable gains – gains that will foster the economic and social development of Regent Park for years to come.