Grant: Operating Grant: Population Health Intervention Research

Built over 50 years ago, Regent Park is one of the oldest and largest public housing developments in Canada. It has come to be known for its deteriorating buildings, poorly planned public spaces and its concentration of poverty, violence, drug use, and poor health and educational outcomes. Since 2005, it has been undergoing a complete demolition and reconstruction into a higher-density, mixed income, mixed-land-use community. The proposed research will follow an existing cohort of 132 people (recruited between 2010 and 2013) who have been relocated as part of the redevelopment to assess the impact on their mental health. Regent Park occupies a 69-acre site just east of the downtown core of Toronto and is home to 7,500 people living in 2,083 social housing units. When the revitalization is complete in several years, the community will have grown from 2,083 households to more than 5,000 households with new parks, stores, services and community facilities. All 2,083 of the rent-geared-to-income units will be replaced, 700 new affordable rental units will be added and there will be more than 3,000 new condominium units. As buildings are demolished and replaced with new units, households are relocated to social housing units elsewhere. Residents then return to newly constructed housing in the new Regent Park, creating an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the impacts of a population-based housing and neighbourhood intervention on mental health. Currently, almost no quasi-experimental studies have been conducted on housing and health and very little is known about the health benefits of housing improvements. This study will help to fill this gap, with implications for policy in Canada and elsewhere. The proposed research will allow us to achieve maximum value from the data previously collected by following not just the short-term effects of redevelopment on health, but also the medium-term effects.