Sitting at a new, brightly-coloured table outside Chester Le Community Corner, Aziza Chireh was feeling better about the public townhouse complex she lives in.

Workers for the Home and Garden Television show Green Force improved the yard outside Chester Le Boulevard's drop-in centre this month in ways Chireh said will benefit the community's children and mothers.

They will now meet fellow residents from different backgrounds, she said. '

"It will be more safe, more safe for the kids because you know your neighbour. If something happens, you can solve a problem."

The landscaping completed and celebrated at a block party Tuesday can also help residents of the often-troubled street near Victoria Park and Finch avenues to lift their spirits.

Chireh's two-year-old son Nabil Ahmed, who lay in the stroller beside her, is mentally challenged, she said. "We want him to meet a lot of people. We want him to breathe the air."

Besides the tables, interlocking brick on the lawn and large stones that can double as benches have made Community Corner, a converted townhouse, more of a meeting place. Its entrance is also partly shaded by an overhanging wooden pergola.

The area is more beautiful than before and will provide space for seniors and children to meet and socialize, Chen Junjiang, sitting under a tree with her grandchildren, said through an interpreter.

New staff at the centre have also started organizing activities for children ages 12 to 15, "the ones that are the most stranded" and therefore idle during the summer, said Melissa McLetchie, one of three youth planners.

"Most of the activities will be free and all they have to do is show up," said McLetchie, who lives in Malvern and hopes to see the same progress she's seen there come to Chester Le.

"It is good that they're getting the spotlight because they deserve it," she said.

The landscaping has made the centre's yard "an oasis in the desert," said Ward 39 Councillor Mike Del Grande (Scarborough-Agincourt), adding he hopes it will encourage more little improvements that add up to making the area attractive.

Another resident, Sophie Butcher, said she was impressed by what Green Force accomplished in a short time but unimpressed with comments Del Grande made earlier this month saying he doubted people from Chester Le are denied jobs because of their address.

Though the councillor had suggested residents should build their skills to get employment, Butcher argued many residents are well-educated and insisted many, including her, are denied work when employers see they live in Chester Le.

If the city made investments for small physical changes in high-risk neighbourhoods such as Chester Le "amazing changes would happen," said Gael Gilbert, executive director of Agincourt Community Services Association and head of the social service coalition behind the centre.

"I don't think it takes a lot. It takes lighting, landscaping, flowers," she said.