Toronto city councillors seek clarity on funding for vulnerable youth

Thestar.com
February 20, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro

City staff are being asked to spell out what has been funded and what is needed to sustain Toronto’s plan to help vulnerable youth at risk of violence ahead of the budget being finalized next month.

With outstanding questions about whether the youth equity strategy has been fully implemented, staff have also quietly revealed that a related anti-gun-violence plan -- partially based on the youth equity strategy -- is now largely unfunded.

Councillor Josh Matlow, left, says he is "concerned that council doesn’t yet have all the facts" from city staff about funding for the youth equity strategy. Mayor John Tory, right, supports the staff plan.

Council unanimously approved a youth equity strategy in 2014. It was a plan designed by staff, at the urging of Councillor Josh Matlow, to act on comprehensive research outlining how poverty, racism, a lack of opportunities and other factors have contributed to youth violence. Since then the strategy has helped, for example, reintegrate jailed youth back into the community and mentor young people in various communities on mental health and trauma.

After the Star reported in October that most of the strategy’s 110 actions had not yet been fully implemented five years later, Councillors Matlow and Kristyn Wong-Tam asked staff to report back on what it would take to fully fund and, importantly, sustain each action as part of this year’s budget process.

Responding to that request last week, staff published a briefing note on the strategy saying it would be “fully implemented” with $2.5 million in additional funding. That funding is now included as part of the 2019 budget. That budget will be finalized by council in March.

Now the councillors, in a letter to top bureaucrat, city manager Chris Murray, say staff did not answer their specific questions and they’ve again asked for an explanation of what funding has been approved for each of the 110 actions under the strategy and what it would cost to sustain each of those initiatives in 2019.

“Rather than being asked to tell the mayor and council what a good job we’re doing and what we want to hear, I’d rather city staff tell us what we need to hear about how to actually see the youth equity strategy realized,” Matlow told the Star. “I’m concerned that council doesn’t yet have all the facts it needs to make an informed decision and to get results to support the lives of our city’s youth and to contribute to make our communities safer.”

Tory’s spokesperson Don Peat said he is supportive of the strategy and backs the staff plan to fully implement it.

Several issues remain unresolved.

The briefing note provided by staff says 84 of the 110 actions under the youth equity strategy are “funded, implemented or in progress.” City staff say the other 26 actions will either be implemented in 2019 or are no longer relevant.

Under questioning at the budget committee last week, Chris Brillinger, the city’s executive director responsible for the youth equity strategy, said it would be difficult to say whether all of the actions listed under that single category have adequate funding to be fully implemented and sustained because, he said, some of the actions do not have clear benchmarks to measure progress.

Despite that, staff continue to claim the plan will be fully implemented with the $2.5 million in additional funding recommended in this budget.

A chart provided by city staff to the Star in October provides a more nuanced breakdown on the status of each action. That chart shows only 39 of the 84 actions identified by staff as “funded, implemented or in progress” -- less than half -- were considered “sustained” at that point. Another seven were considered “no longer relevant” or “completed.” The remaining 38 actions were listed as in the “research and model design phase,” in the “pilot phase” or having “not started.”

A city spokesperson told the Star on Friday that the October chart was an “old document” that was “prepared by front line staff” which “should no longer be used as a resource.”

Another outstanding issue is the lack of funding for related programs that staff recently requested funding for.

Buried in the same briefing note provided by staff this month, is the admission that an anti-gun-violence plan is now largely unfunded.

That plan, approved by council in July, was hastily drawn up in reaction to a spate of violence last summer. Some of the initiatives in the anti-gun-violence plan are “directly related” to the youth equity strategy, staff told the Star. There were also funding requests for police and other enforcement initiatives that are not related to the youth strategy.

The funding relied entirely on requests to the federal and provincial governments. Of the $32.65 million for community-based programs requested for funding by the city, staff reported only $6.76 million over five years was promised by the federal government for one project. Brillinger told the city’s budget committee last week that staff were told by their federal counterparts that no other funding would be granted.

Despite that, the staff briefing note says all youth equity work applied for under the anti-gun-violence plan “has been included in the 2019 staff recommended operating budget.”

Staff gave conflicting answers to the Star on which initiatives under the anti-gun-violence plan directly or indirectly relate to youth equity strategy actions. It appears some funding related to youth equity strategy actions remains unfunded.

For example, one of the initiatives under the anti-gun-violence plan would allow for the expansion of the Furthering Our Community by Uniting Services (FOCUS) program developed and piloted under the youth equity strategy. FOCUS brings together community agencies, police and other crisis response personnel to intervene and address immediate issues involving serious violence. A pilot in Rexdale that proved successful was already expanded to three other communities.

The FOCUS initiative was estimated to cost $400,000 annually. It is currently not funded in the 2019 budget.

Brillinger told the budget committee there are plans to expand to seven more communities and “a need and interest to broaden beyond the seven if resources permitted.”

A request from Councillor Joe Cressy for more information about that funding and expanding FOCUS was rejected by the budget committee last week.

Another planned anti-gun-violence initiative that is now unfunded was the expansion of enhanced youth spaces at a one-time cost of just over $1 million in 2019. The youth equity strategy called for the creation of 10 new enhanced youth spaces, which have been opened in existing city-run community centres and libraries with daily programming and dedicated mentors.

When asked about this initiative, staff pointed to the previous investments in expanding youth spaces, but did not address what was to become of the new funding request.

In trying to account for what has been spent on the youth equity strategy to-date, there has not always been a clear answer.

A chart posted with the staff briefing note says the city has spent more than $103 million on the strategy since 2015 -- a figure that includes the nearly $62 million the city has spent on youth shelters, which staff say is connected to the strategy’s actions on housing.

But that $103 million figure differs significantly from a chart staff earlier provided to the Star in December and from information posted to the city’s website that says the total cost of implementing the strategy is $15 million and that $13.5 million has been the “total direct investment to date.”

Staff have not responded to questions about those inconsistencies.

Tory’s spokesperson Peat said in a statement that the mayor “has been clear that he supports fully funding the strategy,” which he said will be achieved with this budget and the $2.5 million in additional funding. He also said Tory has been “assured” by unnamed federal ministers that more funding will be forthcoming from that government.

Controversial enforcement initiatives under the anti-gun-violence plan have apparently been scrapped -- for now.

Senior police officials surprised councillors at budget committee last week when they announced, under questioning, they are no longer pursuing the controversial ShotSpotter technology -- said to be able to detect the sound of gunshots -- that was endorsed by council and Tory himself. Officials said they encountered “legal issues” after doing due diligence.

Last week, Tory was asked about the technology after the statement from police officials.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it coming back if we can address some of these issues,” he said.