Pham 1

Hung Pham

GEO 793

Ryerson University

November 10th, 2021

A study about Jane and Finch community

As an international student from Vietnam, I feel a strong connection with my community

so I am always aeger to go meet up and study about people from my community in order to

understand life of my people here. However, after researching I have found out that most people

Vietnamese people stay in Jane and Finch area but that area is known as the most dangerous area

in Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I was curious because I thought Jane and Finch area is similar to

Chinatown or Korean town for specific ethnic people but no, It is a highly diversed multi cultural

area, it varies from South east asians like Vietnameses, Filipinos to Africans ( Ethiopian,...).

However, this community has had a stigma of the least liveable community and I want to tackle

in to understand why a developed country like Canada has such a famous problem.

In 1400, this area is first occupied by First nations and they have stayed here for 150

years (Romanska 2021). At first, this area was named Elia because the first group that came to

this area were from Pennsylvania and they were followed by English and Scottish people in

1820. They lived here until 1950 because it was sold to land developers as a solution to solve the

housing crisis (Romanska 2021). In 1960s, the Ontario Housing Corporation changed the area

into an instant community to solve the over growing of Toronto area. Later on, Jane and finch is

used as an area for low income households( Romanska 2021). Since its a common community

for low income people to live, it has become a belief that Jane and Finch area is a dangerous

place. It is an intense neighbourhood, even it is labelled as an un safe place for kids, In the news
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“Jane and Finch: Toronto’s most dangerous place to be a kid” by Jennifer Pagliaro in 2013, kids

are told what to do and what not in order to stay safe. It is unnatural for a teenagers to worry

about their life or their safety at a younge age like that, they should priority about studying or

taking care of themself only. However, staying cautious is not enough, some kids even died

because of the shooting. In an article which was published by CBC news in 2020, a shooting in

jane and finch has resulted in the death of a tween even when he was with his mom. This action

shows that even when you are with your family, you are still possessed by deadly threats. It

shows that comparing with others community, Jane and Finch has both the lowest educational

level and lowest income level across GTA(Wilson, Landolt et al 2011). Comparing with City of

Toronto, the percentage of low income before tax for all population is 31.9% , the Jane and Finch

area is 6% higher which is 37.9%(Wilson, Landolt et al 2011). It even gets worse for racialized

groups, while the percentage of low income racialized people at city of Toronto is only 24.4%, it

is almost 10% for Jane Finch area which is 33.0%(Wilson, Landolt et al 2011). This due to the

fact the percentage of no high school or at least high school certificate or equivalent at Jane

Finch area is alarming, which is at 29% and 30% respectively (Wilson, Landolt et al 2011). That

is an extremely high figure cause that shows not half of the youth here want to do something to

change their family or at least their future. This is a result of too much gang activity and also

social insecurities and that runs among the community. With a low rate of educational level,

people in the community find it hard to get a high paid job because those professional job will

require a long times to study and also student loans that not too many people can commit. Not

only that, due to the fact that this area has a lot of uneducated people, people are not qualified for

workplaces, thus results in low income household and people have to work illegally or do

illegally in order to live and pay bill.Jane and finch is also highly diverse area, it is famous for its
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diverse race and ethnicity (Ahmandi 2017). According to the study, 60% of people here were not

not born in Canada and it is 50% for Toronto. Which makes sense because renting price is

cheaper than Toronto and therefore new people who come to Canada to study or to work have a

chance to find a place with reasonable renting fee. Culture diversity can create more jobs,

cultural learning and more community events. It also plays a part in enhancing recognition

among citizen in the community, It is important to understand the cohesion within the

community to understand the correlation between races and crimes if the government want to

tackle the problem. It is sadly how with the highly diversity of ethnic, instead of bonding

together Jane Finch is famous for its crime rate and it is not wrong. WIth a highly diverse

community, conflict can not be avoided, It shows that youth have to deal with conflict at young

age because it has a lot social and ethnicity pressure (Dlamini, Anucha and Lovell 2015). They

are exposed to those things as a result of position in society but mostly when they are minorities.

And everything adds up, the building of the youth’s stress leads to being excluded from society,

racism, systemic discrimination,.... It helps us understanding that without acknowledging and

studying social oppression, we cant solve the problem with gangs activities that involves with

young kids. Everything in the world always has two faces for it and Jane Finch area is not

excluded. A Jane-Finch resident who is called Paul Nguyen has created a website called

jane-finch.com, where people can come and has option to learn about the history of the

neighbourhood but also place where Paul promotes music talents in the community and it also

has some game on the web so kids can play it. It is a great invention from Paul because not only

it erases the bad look toward society a bit by sharing the positivities from the community but it

also plays a part in keeping teens and kids occupied while their parents go to work, so they can

spend time playing games on the website instead of doing crime activities.
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Music is a way to connect people and hip hop is a way to express your perspective and feelings

about your world. The Jane-finch studio from the website that I mention has published a very

famous song called “ you got beef” by Chuckie Akenz, it is the most famous song on the website

and on jane-finch youtube channel where it gets a total of over 1.1 millions view after 15 years.

It is an iconic song for Asian community in the neighbourhood because it can give them strength

and they do not feel left out tan others communities due to language barrier. And struggle not

only applies to poor and struggling people, it also applies to a rich international student as well.

Andree right hand is famous and rich international student from Vietnam. He choosed to live in

Jane and Finch community for his stay in Canada to pursue higher study because that is where

the Viet community is. In the song, he has confessed about all the hardship he has been through

and even with money and all the privileged he has had back in Vietnam but it does not make his

life easier in Canada. That shows even with money, it can not solve discrimiation or give you a

head start.
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Picture 1: a satellite view of Jane and Finch area

This picture shows the boundary of the area, it also shows a few main roads of the areas, which
are: Jane street, sheppard avenue west, Weston Road

Picture 2: Jane and Finch mall with 2 cars

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This is the most common place for people in the Jane and Finch area to hangout. In the pictures,
it shows that not only does this mall have tims hortons, it also has a super market so citizens can
go there and fulfill most of their needs in one place

Picture 3: Jane street and Finch avenue west intersection

This is the intersection where the community is named after. In the picture it shows a few high
rise building in the neighborhood and a plaza. Also there is a construction .
From the discussion above, it is clearly that Jane and Finch area has to bear a huge

stigmatization on its shoulder. Since 1970s till now, Jane and Finch is a place for low income and

immigrant live. Living in a stigmatized area makes the resident feel like all of their basic needs

are inferior to others, like quality of school, healthcare services,food quality....which affects

directly the resident’s experience in stigmatized neighborhood, they feel undeserved and they can

still feel the impact of growing up in a stigmatized territory because they can face discrimination

easily because they have a sense of insecure or ashamed from where they come from. Not only

that, a sense of weak security also appear among resident. Since people live in a low educated

area, they have tendency to believe that there are more crime activities occur in place they live, it

can create a fear among residents and others, it may results in a weak bonding inside the

communities and which contributes to more chaos to havoc since people do not want to be

involved. An another thing that affects life in this area is the housing quality, due to the fact that
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“bad” area has a low reputation for being safe so the renting fee and the price for the house is

cheaper when compares with other areas. It also creates a fake sense of satisfaction among

residents. Due to a study in 2014 by Martin August, it shows that 41% people don't like the home

they live in and they can find the smallest flaw in their household like broken fridge, low quality

stove (August 2014). It proves that just because of living in a stigmatized neighborhood, it has

already affected citizens mentally which is unfair for them. Jane and Finch may appear to be not

as good as other communities but all the securities worker, teachers, and others community

workers in the neighborhood are all qualified so there will not be huge different in the quality

between Jane and Finch community and other communities in Toronto. In fact securities in Jane

Finch are is weaker than other ares but it can be fixed by increasing citizen’s cautious level and

enforce more police man in “heated” part of the area.

In conclusion, it can be said Jane and Finch does have several drawbacks in the

neighborhood, it does have some weak stats when comparing with other GTA neighborhood. It is

understandable how it is famous for its high crime rate, dangerous place but mainstream media

also plays a huge role in implanting the idea of bad neighborhood into people’s mind in a way to

gaslight people. After all, Jane and Finch area is not as good as other areas in Toronto but if it

stands on its all alone its a liveable neighborhood cause it provides low rent fee and many

working cultural learning opportunities for people.

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Bibliography

1, Pagliaro, Jennifer. “Jane and Finch: Toronto's Most Dangerous Place to Be a Kid?”

Thestar.com, 31 Aug. 2013,

https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2013/08/31/jane_and_finch_torontos_most_dangerous_plac

e_to_be_a_kid.html.

2, Romanska, Anastasiya. “The History of the Jane and Finch Neighbourhood in Toronto.”

BlogTO, BlogTO, 20 Feb. 2021,

https://www.blogto.com/city/2021/02/history-jane-and-finch-neighbourhood-toronto/

3, “12-Year-Old Boy Dies in Hospital Days after Brazen Jane and Finch Shooting | CBC News.”

CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 12 Nov. 2020,

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/12-year-old-dead-shooting-1.5799108.

4, Landolt, Patrica, Ruth Marie Wilson and et al. Working Rough, Living Poor. Access Alliance,

2011,

(https://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Access-Alliance_Working-Rou

gh-Living-Poor-Final-Report-June-2011-E-version.pdf).

5, Ahmadi, Donya. “Diversity and Social Cohesion: The Case of Jane-Finch, a Highly Diverse

Lower-Income Toronto Neighbourhood.” Urban Research & Practice, vol. 11, no. 2, 2017, pp.

139–158., https://doi.org/10.1080/17535069.2017.1312509.

6, Dlamini, Nombuso, Anuza Ucho and Lovell, Alexander 2015. “ Defining and Analyzing

Community Violence in their Community: Jane-Finch Youth Perception of Violence in their

Toronto Community”. York University.

7, Paul Nguyen (Jane-finch.com)

8, Akenz, Chuckie, “You got beef”. 2006 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iK_bu_z6Bk)

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9, Andree and Nah, “Grown”. 2008

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5gVDyAZkfM&ab_channel=PaulNguyen)
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Appendix
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