Leaders slam city’s spending freeze
Budget committee warned ‘people dying in the streets’ before backing frugal plan
The city’s budget committee approved a budget freeze for next year — a move community leaders from all sectors warned is a backwards approach at a time of crisis.
“I think it’s insane,” Patricia O’Connell, the executive director of downtown drop-in shelter Sistering, told the committee Thursday regarding the direction to hold spending at 2017 levels.
The shelter near Bloor St. and Ossington Ave. has become a haven for women with nowhere else to go, especially those who struggle with addiction and mental-health issues.
Although it receives $1.8 million in city funding annually, those funds have not increased as expenses continue to rise and an affordable-housing crisis worsens, O’Connell said.
“It is unconscionable that this is happening in the city,” she said. “There is no shelter. You have to do something about that.”
The committee rejected motions by Councillors Shelley Carroll and Mike Layton that would have exempted the shelter, support and housing division from the budget freeze.
The final decision is up to council, which meets starting May 24. The budget process doesn’t officially launch until November and is not finalized until next year.
A report from city manager Peter Wallace and chief financial officer Rob Rossini clearly outlined that council must make a choice, since expenses vastly exceed revenues the city collects each year.
The report assumed a 2-per-cent property tax increase in 2018, in line with Mayor John Tory’s campaign promise to keep taxes at or below the rate of inflation.
Tory told reporters he believes taxpayers expect council to make sure “we are spending the money wisely” before “spending a nickel more” and that the committee’s direction doesn’t mean all budgets will actually end up frozen.
His appointed budget chief, Councillor Gary Crawford, said, “This will be a year of holding the line.” Dozens of community leaders signed a letter to Tory and council strongly objecting to the budget freeze. Many brought their message directly to city hall Thursday.
Lebohang Nicol, a peer support worker at St. Stephen’s Community House who has experienced home- lessness, says things are worse now for the people he helps.
“I’ve had four of my clients pass away in the last year,” he said. “If things are at such a breaking point . . . wouldn’t it be smart for you guys to invest more instead of just keep on just letting it slag?”
Derek George, from the St. Stephen’s community, said he is already feeling the effects of budget cuts.
“I just believe with every fibre of my being that governments, especially in large cities, have to focus on the needs of the less fortunate,” he said.
Rev. Maggie Helwig, who was representing the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, told the committee she sees the health of the city is suffering.
“People are literally dying on the streets and I know this because I’m at their funerals,” she said. “Please. Have vision, have hope, have compassion. We can do better than this.”