Council tells TCHC not to close more homes

City must find hundreds of millions of dollars in budgets to stop closures

City council has sent clear direction to Toronto Community Housing Corp. to not close any additional homes with hundreds at risk of being shuttered for lack of funding.

But in the absence of commitments from other levels of government, it is council that will have to find hundreds of millions of dollars in next year’s and the following budget in order to prevent those closures.

They don’t yet know how to close that gap.

Council, voting 36 to 6 on a motion by Councillor Joe Cressy at a meeting Tuesday, asked Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) to ensure no additional units are closed.

Cressy said closing even one more unit would be a “collective failure.”

“As a city and as a province and as a country, we have let down TCHC over many years and we’ve let down the residents who live there,” Cressy said on the floor of council.

By the end of this year, a total of 600 units are expected to have been closed due to a lack of repairs.

Another 400 are at risk of closure next year.

“In a city like ours, we should be having a debate about how much housing to build, not how to better maintain and govern the housing we have,” Cressy said.

Capital repairs originally planned for 2018 total $438 million and another $500 million in 2019. With city funds running out and no new funds committed, TCHC has prepared for additional closures. The corporation is short $262 million for repairs in 2018 and $428 million in 2019. That does not include additional funds required for redevelopment projects and climbing operating costs.

To date, the provincial government has not committed to the 10-year, $2.6-billion repairs plan, despite repeated private meetings, public demands, press conferences and letters to Toronto representatives from Mayor John Tory.

The federal government has announced billions of dollars in countrywide funding, including social housing, but it has not yet been detailed how much will be available to TCHC and how soon.

There are currently more than 181,000 people on the waitlist for subsidized housing in Toronto.

Councillor Ana Bailao, the city’s affordable housing advocate, said they will continue to look at various financing options, including additional mortgage refinancing on TCHC properties.

Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19 Trinity—Spadina) said the real test for council will come at budget time.

On Tuesday, council unanimously supported the overall direction presented by staff in what’s called the Tenants First plan — an attempt to decentralize parts of TCHC.

The most significant part of the plan recommends hiving off dozens of seniors-designated buildings and making them accountable to a new city agency. With files from Ainslie Cruickshank