‘I want this building cleaned up’: Councillor
dards) inspector. I’m mad at Toronto Housing for what MLS tells them to do.”
Ford said he made a recent visit with an MLS officer. But nothing was done.
“ I know where to turn. The bottom line is they ( MLS and Toronto Community Housing Corp.) just aren’t doing their job,” he said. “ It’s all red tape. That’s all it is. If this was the private sector, it would be done in seconds.
“ I want this building cleaned up. I want it painted. I want the cockroaches and mice to be gone. I want the holes in the wall fixed. I want the unplated cars removed ( from the parking lot and garage).” From a hallway window near the top of the 10- storey building, Jawahir Farah watched her sons apprehensively as they returned to school after lunch.
“ It’s depressing,” said the single mother of two boys, 9 and 8. “ I worry about them since the shooting. They walk home with a neighbour.”
Farah said she was an accountant with the ministry of finance in Somalia, but left during the civil war. She said she’s taken courses here but she still can’t find a job. “ I’m looking for a factory job now,” she said. The building has seen better times, said long- time resident Dagmar Syringe, who has lived there for 32 years and also complained of water leaking through her bathroom ceiling.
“ All the locks are broken, front door, side doors. The garage door is always broken. You don’t need a key to come in the building. It’s disgusting. And they took our security away, when the new management came in January,” she said. “ It’s not fair.”
“ We need help here,” resident Ivy Bentu told Ford as she stood outside the building talking with friends. “ We need security.”
Joseph Carnevale, director of investigations for the city’s municipal licensing and standards department, said work is already underway to identify problems at 75 Tandridge Cres.
“ There have been a couple of complaints, and we are certainly following up with our officers,” he said. Derek Ballantyne, president and CEO of the Toronto Community Housing Corp., said his officials visited the property two weeks ago, on the weekend and yesterday. He said the building, which is managed by Greenwin Property for the public housing agency, has had some problems.
“ Like much of our portfolio, it is close to 40 years old. It’s tired,” Ballantyne said.
“ It needs to be renovated from top to bottom. That’s what we’ve been telling city council.”