In the northwest neighbourhood of Glenfield-Jane Heights, a new community mobile unit is getting youth off the streets and into entrepreneurship classes.
In 2024, there was a 21 per cent increase in shooting and firearm discharges in the neighbourhood, according to Toronto Police data.
Across Toronto, there’ve been 175 youth arrests so far in 2025— an increase of 59 per cent from 2024, according to the Toronto Police Service. The TPS also told The Green Line that there were 1,081 charges laid this year, up by 238 per cent since last year.
The Criminal Justice System Dashboard from Canada’s Department of Justice highlights various factors contributing to youth crime, including low family income, lack of employment opportunities, declining mental health and more.
To curb the rise in youth crime across the city, social enterprise Urban Rez Solutions partnered with the City of Toronto’s SafeTO initiative to launch a community mobile unit that drives through priority neighbourhoods, partners with local stakeholders and runs entrepreneurship programming for 14- to 29-year-olds.
On the road since April, the unit stops at Oakdale Community Centre in Glenfield-Jane Heights every Friday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. It also visits Jane and Finch, Rexdale, West Hill and Orton Park.
Inside is a studio to learn music production and video editing. The unit also offers crisis response services, arriving at youth crime scenes with a counsellor on board.
Roderick Brereton, co-executive director of Urban Rez Solutions, says economics drives most criminal activity.
“I think entrepreneurship is a way that people can make a pathway towards legal income by investing in themselves,” he says. “Using their transferable skills and [doing] it well to get that optimal performance out of potential.”
Alamin Zubeir, a 22-year-old from Glenfield-Jane Heights, says, “They teach you to become an entrepreneur, especially in this community where a lot of young Black guys don’t have the knowledge to become their own bosses. They tell us what we can do to become young Black bosses.”
This kind of community-driven mentorship is particularly impactful, especially since Glenfield-Jane Heights lacks programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters of Toronto, according to Brooklyn Watson, a local youth mentor for Urban Rez Solutions.
“The more funding that we have and [the more we hire] people who are actually from community that understand community, I think that would help with decreasing violence, along with gun violence, as well,” she says.
