In a high-stakes policy shift, Toronto may soon drop some needy communities from its roster of “priority neighbourhoods” and replace them with communities now thought to be needier.

The city government is about to begin selecting the first new crop of neighbourhoods since the priority initiative was launched eight years ago. The selection process, likely to be completed in 2014, is complicated and political: neighbourhoods that make the updated roster may get millions of extra dollars from governments, corporate donors and non-profits.

To help councillors decide which areas to choose, officials are now in the process of developing a new quantitative ranking of neighbourhood need. They are openly hoping that some of the current 13 neighbourhoods don’t make the statistical cut.

MORE FROM THESTAR.COM

MAP: Toronto’s “priority neighbourhoods”

“What’s going to be interesting, once we set the indicators and the criteria and run the analysis, is to see how many of the existing priority neighbourhoods are no longer at the top of the list. And I’m hopeful that there’s going to be some,” said Chris Brillinger, executive director of Social Development, Finance and Administration. “Because, what’s the point of the work? If we’ve achieved nothing in eight years of targeted investment, then there’s a different set of questions to be asked.”

United Way Toronto, the city’s key partner, will maintain its strategy of focusing on particular neighbourhoods. But it doesn’t yet know if it will continue to invest heavily in the areas that are removed from the city’s list, said chief executive Susan McIsaac.

Champions of the priority initiative, such as former mayor David Miller, have always said it was primarily intended to help residents become better able to address local issues on their own. McIsaac argues that resident-led groups in some of the current 13 neighbourhoods are ready to thrive without intensive United Way support.

“It was never our intention to go in and create United Ways in these neighbourhoods. The idea was always to empower residents to do this work themselves,” she said. “I think, in many cases, the residents will carry on long after United Way is gone.”

Leaders in the 13 neighbourhoods say their communities are not prepared for a large-scale withdrawal. Cutty Duncan, an organizer in Weston-Mount Dennis, said the priority initiative has indeed produced successes — but the Weston Rd. area, he said, receives a constant stream of new immigrants who need assistance.

“It’s human work we’re doing on the ground, really, and it’s harder to measure those results. So if you’re going to take resources away from a community because the measurement tools are different, there is some danger there,” said Duncan, a project coordinator with the United Way’s Action for Neighbourhood Change. “I believe that we still, as a community, need support.”

All 13 priority neighbourhoods are located in the city’s “inner suburbs”; among them are Jane-Finch, Malvern, Crescent Town, Flemingdon Park-Victoria Village, and Lawrence Heights. They received an estimated $225 million from governments, companies and other entities between 2005 and 2011.

The newly chosen neighbourhoods will be called “neighbourhood improvement areas” under a council directive intended to address concerns from some residents about the stigma they believe comes with the phrase “priority neighbourhood.”

Everything else is up in the air. Nobody knows how many communities will be chosen, how much money will be allocated by the city, what types of investments will be made, or whether the provincial and federal governments will offer significant support.

The provincial government was a major contributor to the original initiative, which was launched after a spate of high-profile shootings in 2005. Absent another outbreak of violence, the second round may not receive the same attention or resources from governments or other supporters.

“My concern is that if we’re not all on the same page, all levels of government, we’re not going to be able to get there,” Duncan said. “I worry that we’re not going to have the commitment over the period of time we need to make these changes. We need more money to be able to make this kind of stuff happen, and I don’t see us being able to achieve that.”

A group of experts has come up with a list of ways to assess a neighbourhood’s overall health: graduation rate, poverty rate, life expectancy, voter participation, distance to facilities like libraries, and so on. Brillinger’s team will attempt to develop a mathematical formula to determine which ones need the most attention.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Council’s final selections may not follow the math. Councillors who represent current priority neighbourhoods are likely to fight to remain on the roster even if the formula concludes other areas have become more deserving.

“The bottom line is: we don’t want to be kicked off the boat,” said centrist Councillor James Pasternak, whose North York ward includes the Westminster-Branson priority neighbourhood. “It’s not good city policy just to pull the rug out from underneath that success.”

Another wild card: the mayor. While Miller touted the initiative at every opportunity, once calling it his “baby,” Ford, a skeptic of most social spending, has long doubted its value. “I coach football in a priority neighbourhood and I haven’t seen the benefits,” he said in 2010.