The Tamil Co-op: Memories and Community
Tags: Housing, Cooperative Housing, Tamil, Toronto

By Harrish Thirukumaran

The Tamil Co-op contains a rich history in not only delivering a home made from bricks and mortar to various tenants, but also as an area for developing a sense of community. This has been strongly attested to in a reflection by Manivillie Kanagasabapathy, a former tenant of the co-op, during her time there.

Apart from being a collection of people, events or things, it was a reality in its own right as it was shaped by the tenants’ presence. Indeed, Kanagasabapathy was one of the few individuals to witness the co-op come to life during the 1980s. She was there as its library was being established from the assistance of her father and other tenants. Fireworks were lit from the rooftop garden and a ‘third-floor’ park where tenants like Kanagasabapathy played in. This community would have one another’s backs. Every day was an occasion living in a house where a best friend was on a floor below someone and your cousins could be in the apartment room across from yours.

Oftentimes Scarborough has been referred to as ‘mini-Jaffna,’ based on the sizeable Sri Lankan Tamil community in that area. She would argue that one could first find this in the co-op.

A great many programs and activities came about from the building. It boasts of many firsts for the Tamil community, which include the first Tamil library in Canada, reestablishment of NGO as the roots of Tamil Dance, and language classes. More importantly, it serves as a starting point for the Tamil community in Toronto itself. The building led to her appreciation of Tamil history, culture, dance, drama and as an incubator of ideas, both old and new. There were also informal exchanges in the park on the third floor among her parents and other tenants about their lives in Sri Lanka, Canada, and the co-op itself.

Both informal and spontaneous in nature, these conversations and debates among the adults in the building, as children and youth like herself listened in, represented what made the Co-op special to Kanagasabapathy.

The community and culture that radiated from this seemingly regular building was even noted by a scholar known by Kanagasabapathy.

“You know it would be very interesting to do a study of the building and the people who lived there. Life has taken them to many places but they all began in that building,” remarked the scholar. This building is made up of eight floors, 129 units, a rooftop garden, and a third floor library. This physical structure has seen hundreds of families and produced thousands of memories.

What started out as a form of affordable housing in response to the influx of Tamil refugees because of Black July 83’ and the subsequent Sri Lankan civil war has become something more. It has evolved into a shelter that welcomes individuals of various ethnic backgrounds that reflects the multiculturalism that Canada has proudly identified with.

These were sentiments captured by Sinnathamby Sittampalam, a co-ordinator with the housing provider from 1989 to 2005.

The Tamil Co-op is proud to announce that it will celebrate its the 30th anniversary on Saturday, November 10 at 20 Wade Avenue in downtown Toronto.

It hopes to continue being recognized as one of the epicenters of the Tamil community and to take in new tenants when necessary to start their life in Canada.