New corporation to be created for Toronto Community Housing seniors’ buildings

Thestar.com
July 17, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro

The city will create a new corporation to act as landlord to all seniors-specific Toronto Community Housing buildings in hopes of improving supports for 27,000 seniors.

Ten sites will be part of a pilot project scheduled for 2020 and will see the city partner with the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network to provide consistent, familiar and increased supports to address a range of health and other needs of those tenants.

The vote at council on Tuesday for what’s called the Tenants First plan marks a significant departure from the current governance structure of TCH, and what senior staff and council members called a milestone in efforts to transform the public housing provider.

TCH, which is owned by the city, will no longer be responsible for the 83 seniors’ buildings, but will remain a landlord to some 2,100 other mixed-tenant buildings.

Council also unanimously voted to shift control of real estate development under TCH’s purview to the city’s new real estate body, CreateTO, shifting TCH’s focus to largely landlord duties.

“I think there is unanimous agreement throughout this chamber that the one thing that cannot prevail is the status quo,” said Mayor John Tory, who created a task force in his first term to recommend changes to TCH. Although the task force did not specifically recommend a separate corporation for seniors’ buildings, it did recommend better care.

“We were not the best landlord we could be,” he said.

Changing the structure for governing seniors housing will likely cost $5 to $6 million, staff say, with some yet-unknown potential cost savings. Staff do not yet know the cost or potential savings for transferring the real estate function, council heard Tuesday.

Councillor Joe Cressy said when it comes to development functions, the creation of buildings should not be done in absence of considering the people who will live there and the needs they have. He said though he supported the decision on seniors’ housing wholeheartedly, council should be careful not to solve one problem and create a new one.

Councillor Gord Perks said many vulnerable residents, including those with mental health challenges, youth and working mothers, remain unsupported by the city as a landlord.

“I am profoundly disappointed in the current administration that we solve the problem for mom and apple pie, but we don’t have the same commitment and courage and urgency around people where there is more stigma attached. It’s frankly infuriating,” Perks told council. “I think it’s incumbent on all of us to step up.”