“Hi Tiffany!” says one of the boys in a gaggle of kids on the playground, as Tiffany Ford approaches in a pale pink blazer.

This community, known as Firgrove, just southwest of the Jane St. and Finch Ave. intersection, is where Ford, 36, grew up.

Ford — proudly raised by a single mother in public housing whom she credits with working hard to take her, often by bus, to programs and experiences outside of the neighbourhood — became the first tenant representative for her Toronto Community Housing (TCH) development at age 18. She became the Toronto District School Board trustee for the area in 2014.

She is now running for council.

With ward boundaries shifting amid election uncertainty, recent comments by incumbent candidate Giorgio Mammoliti, a longtime politician who has represented the area for decades, have polarized residents who live in Firgrove and in the wider Jane-Finch community. Ford says those comments validate the idea that new leadership is needed.

Both Ford and Mammoliti are registered to run in a revised 25-ward election.

Mammoliti has been accused of dehumanizing residents in a video on the ultra-conservative website Rebel Media posted Aug. 10, in which he calls some living in social housing in Jane-Finch “cockroaches.”

“One per cent of their population are a big problem to not only the residents in (TCH) but the much larger communities, he said, referring to those he says are criminals. “I see it like spraying down a building full of cockroaches. The cockroaches are just going to scatter. So start evicting them. They’re just going to scatter.”

He continued: “I think we need to knock the buildings down completely” and build a mix of new housing.

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A second video of Mammoliti visiting Firgrove and reiterating his “cockroaches” comments was posted on the site Aug. 16.

Mammoliti stands by the comments. “I’m not going to play these little political games with the Toronto Star,” he says when a reporter calls.

“I was referring to the one per cent and for us to evict them and have them scattered,” he says. “But I didn’t call Jane and Finch cockroaches.”

Ford, as a young Black woman who was raised in social housing and who has lost friends to gun violence, says his comments reflect a need for “better representation.”

“Having those councillors actually coming to the community and speaking with the community and finding out what their needs are and being proactive and being able to advocate on behalf of them is really, really key,” she says. “We’re not getting what we need, because no one is really giving us what we need.”

The southwest part of Jane-Finch, including Firgrove, is part of the existing Ward 7 (York West) represented by Mammoliti. He won the 2014 election with 46 per cent of the vote.

In a 25-ward council, which has been imposed by new legislation brought by Premier Doug Ford’s government, all of the Jane-Finch area will be represented in the Humber River-Black Creek ward, which is home to more than 108,000 people. It’s where the average household income of $65,458 is well below the city average of $102,721, according to 2016 Statistics Canada census data.

It is home to thousands of TCH residents with more than 3,000 units within its borders. Police data shows the Jane-Finch area continues to see higher than average crime rates compared to the rest of the city.

Before the election boundaries were revised, several other candidates were signed up to run in the area, including: Kristy-Ann Charles, Amanda Coombs, Nick Di Nizio, Keegan Henry-Mathieu, Adeleke Keshinro, Winston La Rose, Ida Li Preti, Suzanne Narain and Deanna Sgro. Under the new 25-ward framework, candidate registration runs until Sept. 14.

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Councillor Anthony Perruzza — who represented the neighbouring ward and the northwest part of Jane-Finch for more than two decades and who would be facing off against Ford and Mammoliti if they all continue in the 25-ward race — says Mammoliti is “perpetuating hate, fear and division” with his recent comments.

Mammoliti also claimed he is responsible for revitalization in the Firgrove community, where today no revitalization has occurred.

“We’ve already knocked down half the units at Firgrove,” he said in one video.

Last week those empty townhomes were still standing, as they have been for many months, surrounded by a more-than-six-foot chain link fence.

A severe lack of repairs and government funds for the 1970s-era, publicly-owned complex meant that last year, after two of the townhome blocks were deemed uninhabitable, more than 130 families were forced to relocate across the city — children and great grandmothers alike. Another townhome block, which has long been covered in blue, metal siding to hold together the crumbling exterior walls, will be uninhabitable in two years, a TCH spokesperson said.

Though the housing agency has begun a master plan for a possible rebuild, the funding has not yet been secured.

Ford says she was “naive” when she first ran for trustee, thinking: “I just really wanted to help my school.”

Playing sports and travelling to other schools left her wondering why her school, Westview Centennial Secondary School, had been so neglected. She remembers parents and players having to stand or sit on the grass to watch games on their soccer field because they never had bleachers. When she became a trustee, the students she spoke with told her the same story. She saw the board invest in metal bleachers for the school last year.

“It’s about dignity,” she says.

Shannon Holness, 28, who grew up in Jane-Finch and lives in Firgrove, says when she hears comments like Mammoliti’s it makes her not want to get out of bed, but it’s nothing new. Holness advocated for residents during the relocation process and she is a founding adviser in the political group Progress Toronto that is actively working to elect more progressive voices to council.

“We have representation right now that consistently undermines and stigmatizes the community,” she says of Mammoliti. “The councillor should be too busy to resurrect old rhetoric that we’ve heard before.”

Her vision of Jane and Finch is not that it be torn down and that it be seen as a resource-rich and multicultural place where people should not be judged based on where they live.

When asked what she most wants in a councillor, she reads from a very long list. At the very top:

“This community deserves a councillor who has a presence and is connected to the community members in a relationship of respect.”