South St James Town retains much of the physical character that was once present in St James Town itself. The housing is mostly two-storey and of 19th-century vintage. Many houses have been rooming houses for several decades, one of the major landlords being the City of Toronto Department of Housing; which owns several clusters of rooming houses along Wellesley Street, Parliament Street, Prospect Street, and Carlton Street. These rooming houses accommodate several hundred low-income earners close to the downtown area. There are also several denser, affordable-housing developments in South St James Town; some are City-owned and the Hugh Garner Housing Co-operative forms an important presence in the northwestern corner of the area. In at least one case, a City-owned building has been made into a co-operative housing project.

Although only Parliament Street separates South St James Town from Cabbagetown to the east, South St James Town is markedly different in socioeconomic terms. In 1996, for example, median family incomes were less than half those in Cabbagetown. As with St James Town itself, this part of Toronto provides fairly low-cost housing in an area close to the city centre.

Jim Ward