About 1,400 of Toronto’s subsidized housing units sit empty each day as city struggles with waiting list, auditor general says

Thestar.com
June 26, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro and Emily Mathieu

After a 12-year wait for subsidized housing Tambrey Wedgerfield isn’t picky when asked what would make her happy about her next home.

“I don’t know. Somewhere nice, somewhere where you can feel safe anyways,” says Wedgerfield. “No one can tell you what to do and how to do it. You can do stuff at your own pace.”

What Wedgerfield is waiting for is a rent-geared-to-income apartment. Her name is on a centralized housing waiting list which means, at some point, she could be offered a place to live in Toronto Community Housing properties, co-operative housing or non-profit housing.

The list has grown to include more than 102,000 households, according to city data.

But despite that Toronto has at least 1,400 empty units, the bulk in TCH buildings and among those in public housing 140 were being used by contractors and for storage and programming throughout TCH buildings, based on an audit of city systems.

Auditor general Beverly Romeo-Beehler also concluded that outdated systems, a lack of cross-agency communication and innovation means the city could, but is not, providing subsidized housing for at least 2,200 more people.

Included in the audit findings: People in emergency shelters were not given top priority for available housing, just over half the people on the centralized wait-list actually qualified for the programs and lost rental supplements cost the city $7 million last year.

Councillor Ana Bailao said the recommendations were welcome and aligned with the city’s goals. A key issue, she said, is getting people into appropriate housing within a reasonable period of time.

“The lists are really poorly maintained, it takes a lot of resources,” she said. “We’ve been asking what can be done, how can we speed up this process.”

Bruce Malloch, director of communications for the public housing provider, said when it comes to the empty units the “vast majority of them are due to pending demolition” as part of redevelopment projects.

“Others are vacant so we can complete badly needed capital repairs and then rehouse tenants, or are held for tenants who will be relocated due to a revitalization, or are used for operational purposes that enable TCHC to deliver local maintenance service or community programming,” said Malloch, in an emailed response to questions. Some units because of size or location are also likely to be rejected by prospective tenants, he said.

In her report, Romeo-Beehler called for improved tracking systems, to make sure it is clear if applications are active, as well as modernizing the way the city connects with applicants by moving to text, phone or email rather than mail.

Subsidized housing is meant for people whose lower incomes qualify them for a top-up in rent, paid by the city to housing providers, and include seniors, people experiencing homelessness or struggling with health issues and families struggling to get by in Canada’s largest city.

Among them is Wedgerfield. She was among thousands of Indigenous children taken from their parents and forced into foster care through what came to be known as The Sixties Scoop and is only now reconnecting with her many siblings and her roots.

Wedgerfield relies on Ontario Disability Support Payments, though proudly counts work as a hairstylist and bike courier as part of her past, and lived in a string of rooming houses until a few weeks ago when she got into temporary accommodation through Dixon Hall Neighbourhood Services.

Even the few weeks of privacy and quiet, she said, have made a difference. “I feel more at peace and I don’t feel anxiety and I can relax.” That means spending time with her two cats and curling up with Dreamcatcher, by Stephen King. A unit in a TCH building could be available soon, she has been told, but fears the building is unsafe and might not accept.

Empty apartments are not without costs. Even if a unit is empty, housing providers still receive rent-geared-to-income funding from the city -- resulting in an estimated $7 million loss in just 2018, according to the report.

“Throughout the year, on average, 1,400 social housing units remain vacant across the entire social housing system. Given the demand for housing, this funding could have been better used to help more households in need of financial assistance for housing.”

Toronto Community Housing had 200 bachelor units designated for seniors sitting empty in 2018 and deemed “rentable” by the auditor, the report showed, despite roughly 11,300 senior households hoping to get into subsidized homes. Of that group, 87 per cent “never received a housing offer” during wait times that averaged 3.5 years, the audit found.

Toronto Community Housing was reported to have 1,160 empty units, of which 1,020 were defined by the auditor as “rentable” as well as 140 being used “for purposes other than housing” including contractors, for storage or recreational programs.

Romeo-Beehler also identified more than 185 units, throughout TCH properties scheduled for demolition, that could be used to provide temporary housing for people experiencing homelessness. The auditor general noted using those empty units to provide relief for the city’s at capacity emergency shelter system would be a “complex matter” but “appears to be feasible” and should be considered.

The vacancy issue has been previously identified by TCH, a city agency and the largest provider of social housing in Canada.

The 102,049 applications were active as of the first quarter of 2019, according to data on the city’s website, with more than a third identified as seniors. During that same reporting period, 522 households were counted as housed, 4,138 applications were counted as inactive or cancelled and 6,181 applications were renewed or reactivated, based on city data.

What Romeo-Beehler found was after the removal of incomplete applications, ineligible candidates and factoring in that the status of 27,000 households was unknown, that just 56 per cent of the overall applications were confirmed to be eligible and active.

“Being able to distinguish between those who are without assistance and actively waiting and those who have housing helps everyone better understand the situation, priorities and the number of units needed,” the report said.

“While it is the city’s practice to confirm that applicants have an ongoing interest in accessing (rent-geared-to-income) assistance, the city does not review documentation to verify ongoing eligibility (specifically, the requirement to prove status in Canada as a citizen, permanent resident, refugee, or refugee claimant).”

It was not clear, the auditor said, whether the cases of unknown households were from a lack of contact by the city or a lack of response from the applicant. In response to the audit, city management agreed with all the recommendations and promised to deal with the backlog in reviewing the wait-list system by the end of 2020.

If a unit does come up, providers can be forced to rely on incomplete or out-of-date contract information, as well as reaching out to people who do not qualify for what is available, according to the report.

Under the current rules, applicants can refuse an offer for housing up to three times before they are taken off the centralized wait-list, the report states, and the province is “reconsidering the legislated requirement which allows applicants the option to refuse three housing offers.”

Another element that slowed the process, the audit found, was confusion on the part of the applicants about the process of identifying where they wanted to live.

“What applicants may not know is that the more buildings they select, the more likely they will be matched to receive an offer. If an applicant only selects one building, they will not receive offers for other comparable buildings,” the report states.

The audit also raised concerns about applicants who may not be given priority, including two-thirds of the 3,250 households who listed an emergency shelter as their current address but were not given priority status because they were not listed as experiencing homelessness.

Fixing this, the audit said, could also help alleviate some pressure on the emergency shelter system.