In Toronto, poverty kills.

That is one of the stark messages in Vital Signs, the Toronto Foundation’s annual snapshot of the city’s quality of life, being released Wednesday.

According to the report, a compilation of the latest statistics and studies in 10 areas including health, income, housing and learning, Toronto’s mortality rate is 16 per cent higher for low-income residents than it is for the wealthy.

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It means there are 64 more deaths for every 100,000 Torontonians living in poverty compared to the number of deaths among rich residents, says the report, citing a recent city public health analysis.

It is one of hundreds of statistics in the report that for the first time uses an “equity lens” to show how quality of life in the city varies dramatically depending on income, neighbourhood, race, immigration status, gender and age.

The report acknowledges Toronto has much to celebrate — its population is growing, its skyline is rising and its economy is booming. But many residents are not sharing in the city’s wealth and opportunity. And that undermines Toronto’s commitment to fairness, the report warns.

By highlighting the disparities in opportunity and access, rather than “erasing them with averages,” the foundation hopes to spark a conversation with policy-makers, residents and philanthropists on where best to focus attention and resources.

The foundation administers almost $500 million in assets for individuals, families and organizations who want their charitable donations used to improve Toronto’s quality of life.

With a provincial and municipal election this year, foundation CEO Sharon Avery says she hopes the report will be a call to action. In her introduction, she invites readers to “ask your elected officials and candidates what they think about the growing inequities in our city.”

Toronto’s demographics, pulled from the 2016 census, set the stage. For the first time in the city’s history, there are more seniors than children. One-third of the city’s families with children are led by lone parents, 47 per cent of residents are immigrants and 51 per cent belong to a visible minority group.

Although Torontonians are relatively healthy compared to the provincial average, the percentage of residents who rate their health as either “excellent” or very good” varies by neighbourhood and immigration status, the report shows.

While 64 per cent of residents in Toronto-Danforth report excellent or very good health, barely 47 per cent of Scarborough residents do. Similarly, almost 67 per cent of Canadian-born Torontonians say they are in good or excellent health while just 54 per cent of immigrants can say the same.

Rosie Mensah, 23, grew up in the city’s Jane and Finch community, an area with a high concentration of immigrants and visible minority residents living on low incomes. She has seen the health gap first-hand.

“You often hear people talking about living in ‘food deserts’ where there aren’t enough grocery stores. But I live in a ‘food swamp,’ inundated with fast-food and other unhealthy options,” she said in an interview.

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Even healthy food such as fruits and vegetables in area discount grocery stores are often mouldy or rotten, she said.

Mensah’s mother died when she was 7, leaving her father to raise four young children on his own. Her family could afford only cheap, processed food with a long shelf-life and rarely ate fresh fruit or vegetables. By the time she was a teen, Mensah was overweight, malnourished “and not feeling very good about myself,” she said.

As a result, Mensah began to learn about nutrition and the high rates of diet-related illness in her community such as diabetes and heart disease. The knowledge helped her make more healthy food choices on her limited income and ignited her passion for food security.

As a member of the Black Creek Food Justice Network and a master’s student in the University of Toronto’s public health program, Mensah is determined to help residents in her community access healthy food and live better lives.

“Experiencing a good quality of life is really just a dream for poor people because it’s not their reality,” she said. “Toronto as a whole seems to be a great city. But when you take a deep dive, you see it’s not like that everywhere. There is a huge gap. It is a completely different place from one neighbourhood to another. And that has to change.”

Mensah says she feels “extremely privileged” to have overcome the odds against her success, as a child of immigrants, someone who is Black and who experienced poverty, poor health and poorly-maintained public housing in a neighbourhood with under-performing schools.

“For me, education made the difference. But I know not everyone has that opportunity,” she said. “A greater investment in education in these communities is needed to break the cycle over the long-term.”

While less than 13 per cent of students in the Toronto District School Board identify as Black, the report says they make up almost 23 per cent of students in the “applied” and “essentials” streams. Only students in “academic” streams have access to university.

As the report notes, inequity is interconnected.

“Insecure housing diminishes access to nutritional food, which affects health and consequently access to education and employment,” it says.

“I have experienced so many of these compounding factors,” Mensah said.

“I am really hoping this report starts a conversation and gets people talking. I want them to ask the politicians in the upcoming elections what they think about this, or even if they know about what’s going on,” she added. “I really want them to be challenged.”

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