Growing up in a household which supported the NDP (formerly CCF) household, Don Altman was so steeped in progressive and community-minded ways of thinking, it’s no wonder he became a housing co-op member!
As a teen, Donald became involved as an NDP youth in York Centre where he grew up; it dawned on him then that the co-operative movement was the only viable model for organizing the world as opposed to capitalism or a variety of forms of socialism. It wasn’t, however, until he ran into a friend at UofT who was looking for a roommate, that Donald acquainted himself with the idea of co-operative living. He moved into Campus Co-op and soon took a leadership role as council chair of Lowther Division, one of the four divisions that made up the co-op – a little taste of the lifetime of co-op voluntary leadership he was embarking on. After completing a masters in geography at Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois. Donald returned to Canada, this time to Queen’s in Kingston where he began a PhD – thesis topic, Housing Market and Neighbourhood Change. He put his money where his mouth was and moved into another student co-op – Elrond College – where he was first the Work Schedule Controller and then a director. Not long after, he was elected as a director for the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO), which describes itself as “an alliance of housing co-operatives helping to build a world where every community benefits from resident-controlled housing by educating and organizing youth and emerging leaders to create and care for co-ops in the US and Canada.”
Returning to Toronto, he got a job at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) as a sessional instructor in Geography. As a NASCO director he kept in touch with the three student co-ops in Toronto – Campus Co-op, Neill Wycik, Innis College Co-op. He also joined the board of Karma II Food Co-op and was elected to the supervisory committee (internal audit) of the credit union at Ryerson – Universities and Colleges, now Alterna. It was during this time he met some of the co-op leadership including Mark Goldblatt and Alexandra Wilson (both honorary lifetime members of CHFT), and Michel Labbe who went on to found Options for Homes, a developer of affordable condos, among other things.
In 1980, he moved into Church Isabella Residents Co-operative where he still lives. While the monthly housing charge was greater than the rent he was paying at the time, Don knew it was important to be living according to the principles he believed so strongly in. It is a 48-unit co-op composed of rehabilitated rental buildings and, later, a new build.
Around the same time as he found his co-op home, Don made his professional home at the City of Toronto, first in the planning department where his geography background made sense. Then his career took a turn into the world of finance where Don drew on his organized, logical brain to develop his financial management skills, initially in the budget office and then in the finance department as the Manager, Corporate Financial Strategies. There he developed strategies to counter financial risk associated with things like climate change, demographic change, and economic cycles, including pushing from the inside for the development of the very successful BikeShare program. Don Altman retired from the City in 2016.
Many organizations have benefited from the financial skills Don honed at the City over the last 40+ years. First among them is Church Isabella Co-op. Don has chaired the co-op’s Finance Committee and Subsidy Committee since 1983 and has at different times been the board chair and the treasurer. That’s just the start of an impressive list of achievements in the not-for-profit sector including being active in the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association; Karma Food Co-operative; the Co-operators Insurance Company; the Worker Ownership Development Foundation; and Alterna Savings, to name just a few.
With over 40 years in the same co-op, where he lives with his partner, Judy Skinner, Don’s had time to reflect on what makes a successful community. For him, it’s when people are engaged and care about the living arrangements enough to make decisions according to the one member/one vote principle. Donald Altman has become a strong advocate of improving people’s financial literacy, to make sure those decisions are the best they can be. We congratulate Donald Altman for being named an Honorary Lifetime Member of CHFT in 2005.
