City staff recommend new housing corporation to oversee public seniors buildings

Thestar.com
June 27, 2019
Emily Mathieu and Jennifer Pagliaro

Toronto Community Housing Corp. could be relinquishing control of all seniors buildings if city council signs off on the latest draft of a contentious proposal that sees control of those properties transferred to a new city-run corporation.

A Seniors Housing Corporation could, if approved, operate as a separate corporation charged with overseeing 83 public housing buildings with about 14,000 units, city staff recommended in a report released Wednesday and that will be discussed at the mayor’s executive committee next week. A final decision is up to council in July.

TCH would retain control of the rest of the housing portfolio and council, the report outlined, would be asked to approve the creation of a city housing unit to ensure strategic oversight for both TCH and the seniors buildings as well as overseeing the delivery of services to those buildings.

A key recommendation is to implement an integrated service model to better co-ordinate and give easier access to health services and social supports delivered by both the city and through the Toronto Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), a provincial body.

“The objectives of the integrated service model are to promote aging in place, better quality of life, and successful tenancies for tenants” living in those designated buildings, staff wrote. If the plan is approved, staff are recommending the model begin to be implemented in 10 of the 83 seniors buildings in 2020.

The proposed changes, staff wrote, align with the city’s commitment to improve living conditions in TCH buildings under a plan named Tenants First.

The new model would cost an additional $5 million to $6 million more than the current cost to manage those buildings. That estimate does not account for some potential cost savings in the proposed handover, which have not yet been calculated by staff.

Councillor Josh Matlow, the city’s seniors advocate, said the proposed shift toward enhancing public housing for seniors is “one step” towards preparing for the needs of Toronto’s rapidly aging population.

“We have a responsibility to proactively prepare for the reality in front of us and to serve the population in our city well” through the coordination of city services, ranging from health divisions and social services to planning and parks, Matlow said.

“These services are all in various silos and divisions and corporations and our goal, through our seniors strategy, is to create one division that can comprehensively and holistically deliver services to seniors where they live.”

The Tenants First plan was born out of a mayoral task force on Toronto Community Housing first announced in January 2015, shortly after Mayor John Tory’s election.

The task force was led by former mayor and senator Art Eggleton and just one year later would put forward recommendations that resulted in the biggest shakeup in the housing provider’s history. It recommended ways to tackle TCH’s ballooning repairs backlog, its organization structure and the need for better support of tenant needs.

Changing who was in charge of the seniors buildings, however, was not included at the task force report. After council directed city staff to report back on implementing the task force recommendations, staff began recommending carving out some units under separate corporations.

What the task force did recommend was the creation of more seniors-only buildings, noting the increased satisfaction of residents in those buildings compared to those in mixed-use buildings. It also called for providing a more co-ordinated approach to senior residents by the city and the province.

In 2016, more than 21,000 households were made up of seniors living alone and 25 per cent of all TCH residents were seniors, the report outlined. Another 12,000 tenants were expected to become seniors within 10 years.

At that time half of the seniors in TCH units were living in mixed-use buildings, the report said.