Jane Davidson-Neville is a name familiar to many housing co-opers, after her long career in the sector. We know her best as a Lifetime Director, an honour given to her in 2011.
Jane began her co-op life in Cabbagetown where, after the uncertainty of having landlords, she saw the advantage of having more control over her own housing. She moved into the newly-built TC Douglas Co-op on River Street in 1981. Among other appeals was the fact the co-op had strong female leadership. Feminism is a theme central to Jane’s life both before and since.
Before becoming a co-op member, Jane was a professional singer but took a job with more reliable income in the co-op sector, initially as an administrative assistant at Hugh Garner Co-op and then to Spruce Court where she became its manager.
Jane started attending CHFT meetings, impressed that CHFT was female-led by then-Executive Director, Alexandra Wilson. Jane served as a CHFT Director from 1986 to 1989. She left the board to join the CHFT staff in the member services area. She’s proud of her role in creating co-op staff training, including one-on-one on-site training for new co-op staff members. She also did some development work, particular at 91 Spencer Avenue Co-op. She stayed at CHFT for a decade until illness took her out of the workforce for about a year. She returned to work at CHFT but switched to co-op management at Cathedral Court Co-op, just beside Woodsworth Co-op where she lived in the 80s and 90s. Davidson-Neville is a long-time environmentalist and cyclist and one of the many features of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood is its ideal location for bicycle commuting.
In 1996, Jane left co-op living for Ward’s Island, one in the chain of 9 small islands in Lake Ontario, connected to Harbourfront by a ferry service. The Toronto island community is a land trust, one of Toronto’s first, and is the largest urban car-free community in North America so fits well with Jane’s environmental commitment. She regrets that efforts to build co-ops on the Island have not been successful.
In 2003, Davidson-Neville took a job with the newly formed Agency for Co-operative Housing, again under Alexandra Wilson’s leadership. For 15 years, as a Relationship Manager she was part of the team linking federal co-ops to CMHC using a risk-based, data-driven and client-focused approach designed to monitor co-ops’ performance and give special attention to those identified as at risk. Since leaving the Agency, Davidson-Neville has assisted a couple of co-ops as interim staff and hosts co-op meetings online for CHFT. She is also a non-resident co-op director.
Jane believes strongly that the secret to successful co-op living is in the communication. She once taught a course about this using the experience of fellow CHFT lifetime member, Brian Burke, of Riverdale Co-op, as a case study. Jane recognizes the need for clear and effective member communications as a mechanism to ensure people exercise power in a constructive way and mutually support one another for harmonious living. After decades of living in, working in, and liaising with co-ops, Davidson-Neville identifies “education” as the most important co-op principle, surely stemming back to her time at CHFT. Like many of her fellow CHFT honorees, Jane regrets her 20-year-old self was preoccupied with what other people think. Now she engages freely with organizations aiming to disrupt the status quo, including the Toronto branch of the Red Rebel Brigade, an international performance artivist troupe dedicated to illuminating the global environmental crisis and supporting groups and organizations fighting to save humanity and all species from mass extinction. As well as urging us to think differently about our relationship to the environment, Davidson-Neville believes that to increase the availability of affordable housing will require people to find a new way to think about financial security. We’re proud to see, as she dons her bicycle helmet to cycle back to the Island ferry, that Jane Davidson-Neville is clearly walking the talk.
