The Green Line team visited 877 Yonge St. to learn how St. Clare’s Housing, Nightwood Theatre and Tapestry Opera are using the arts to combat stigma around affordable housing.
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Andrea Adams, executive director of St. Clare’s Housing, says her organization is working to fight the “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) attitude towards affordable housing that some residents in Yorkville have since it’s one of Toronto’s most affluent neighbourhoods, where luxury and designer stores dot most streets.
(For the uninitiated, NIMBYism is when people hold negative attitudes or stereotypes about the people who live in affordable housing or use emergency shelters, according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.)
In response, St. Clare’s, a charity that provides affordable mixed-income housing in downtown Toronto, launched a performance arts space in the basement level of 877 Yonge St., one of its buildings, to make affordable housing more desirable to locals.