During this major revitalization of a large social housing community more than 50 years old, Public Interest developed a unique community engagement model that is now the standard for community work in Regent Park. This model has been used for two years to involve the community in all aspects of the redevelopment and has consistently produced participation from about 1,000 Regent Park residents (10–12% of the population).
We identified community members who could play a leadership role in stimulating community engagement, and we trained community “animators” to coordinate community discussions on topics affecting the redevelopment. The animators worked with user-friendly consultation tools developed by Public Interest to guide discussions and organize residents’ responses for analysis. They used this approach to gather information on the design of the new Regent Park, the commercial activity of residents, residents’ service needs, and potential relocation issues.
Public Interest staff developed a manual titled Community Engagement and the Regent Park Redevelopment, which was designed to be used internally by Toronto Community Housing to train outreach workers based on what was learned from the Regent Park community engagement process.
