Plan to create new corporation to run TCH seniors buildings moves forward

Thestar.com
July 5, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro

The city is one vote away from agreeing to create a new corporation to manage 83 Toronto Community Housing buildings for seniors.

On Thursday, Mayor John Tory’s executive committee voted to approve in principle a staff-recommended plan, part of the broader Tenants First initiative, to carve out the responsibility for those buildings and some 14,000 units.

The focus on providing better supports to those residents in the face of an aging population that includes many vulnerable people was a welcome idea from members of the public who spoke to the committee and council members Thursday.

“I think everything we end up doing here starts with being a good landlord,” Tory said Thursday in support of the new structure. He added measuring the success of a new corporation would be something he’d be a stickler on.

One key tenet of the move, said Chris Brillinger, the executive director of the city’s social development, finance and administration division, is “to reduce the number of strangers going into each building” by increasing the consistency of staff who interact with senior residents in the buildings.

The provincial Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) would work with the city as part of an “integrated” model to provide better care and easier access to services, city staff propose -- a partnership that already exists, Brillinger said.

Brillinger said a “care co-ordinator” would be assigned to a “limited” number of buildings as well as identifying a “lead community service provider” per building through the agencies the LHINs work with to ensure all of the services that can and are provided to residents are working together to help residents.

Staff reported the integrated model, which would initially be rolled out across 10 yet-to-be-identified buildings, would cost $1.78 million in 2020.

“As part of the budget approval process in 2020, staff will present a business case that takes into consideration use of existing resources,” the staff report says.

In the long-term, the new model would cost $5 to $6 million more than the current management structure, the report said, which does not account for potential cost savings. A permanent funding model has not yet been presented or considered by council.

Toronto Community Housing (TCH), which has faced years of embattled upper management and a lack of funding for critical repairs, would retain control of the remaining housing portfolio that totals some additional 2,100 buildings, which also house senior residents.

John Plumadore, with the Toronto Seniors’ Forum, said the organization support the creation of a new corporation with increased supports for seniors and a “due diligence process” that would look at the “legal, financial and labour implications” of the change as planned by staff. Staff say a report on that due diligence is scheduled to come to council in early 2020.

Marcel Pereira, a TCH resident, said as tenants they never chose or signed off on the Tenants First plan presented by staff and were worried the plan was not transparently costed nor was it necessarily the best use of funds.

“Not all seniors throughout TCH will be in this new seniors portfolio,” Pereira said, noting those living within non-designated buildings can also be vulnerable and in need of increased services.

“This is our home and we want to build on the strengths (and) tenant-staff collaborations not tear it down,” Pereira said.

TCH has experienced success with co-ordinated care teams in the past.

The highrise at 220 Oak St., a non-seniors building but which has housed some seniors, was once one of TCH’s most problematic addresses in terms of emergency calls, crime and other issues. A dedicated team from the not-for-profit agency Cota moved in to a ground floor office at the end of 2014 and, with funding from the Toronto Central LHIN, have been helping residents with everything from bedbugs to mental health challenges to getting government-issued ID.

The Star spent nine months documenting the improvement of the quality of life for residents inside that building, despite ongoing challenges, and the impact of the Cota team’s work.

“We are more than a landlord,” said Councillor Joe Cressy at committee on Thursday, saying it is important for those seniors buildings to continue to be owned publicly. “We have to ensure that the city and Toronto Community Housing co-ordinates the delivery of services.”

Council will debate the plan for the seniors buildings at a meeting that begins July 16.