TCHC launches aggressive push to sell 675 homes

Housing agency says the proceeds are needed to cut a $750 million — and rising — repair bill

Toronto Community Housing has launched a strong push to convince city councillors to okay the sale of 675 single-family homes. A report on the matter goes before a special executive committee meeting next Friday. TCHC issued a statement this week saying its bill for backlogged repairs now stands at $750 million, up $100 million from last year. The corporation says it needs proceeds from the house sales — at least $222 million — to address the backlog. Without new money for the fixes, the shortfall is expected to continue to rise by $100 million a year, reaching $1 billion by 2015. “By doing nothing, we’re going to be beaten here,’’ Len Koroneos, TCHC’S interim CEO, said in an interview this week. TCHC has nearly 60,000 units in buildings and houses across the city. Buildings are an average of 40 years old, and many are crumbling. New repair needs are outpacing the housing corporation’s ability to pour money into improvements, TCHC says. The corporation invested $72 million in fixes to multiunit buildings last year, but says that amount was surpassed by $173 million in new repair needs. The 675 homes — some vacant and in poor condition, others livable — are valued at between $250,000 and $1million. TCHC has already sold nearly 30, 20 of them to an aboriginal housing group, but the proposal to sell the lot has raised consternation. Ontario’s housing minister has expressed strong concerns, saying es- sentially that she’s uncomfortable with uprooting families from mixed-income neighbourhoods and moving them into subsidized highrises. Residents in many of the houses have also been up in arms.

TCHC, on the other hand, argues that with only 2,600 people living in the single-family homes compared with about 164,000 in the mostly multi-unit buildings that make up the rest of its portfolio, selling the houses would benefit more people.

A discussion of the sale at last month’s executive committee meeting was put off, so as to answer

The sale would take place over three to six years, with no more than 60 to 75 houses put on the market each year

questions about how tenants would be relocated and how proceeds would be spent ward-by-ward.

For example, according to the breakdown released Friday, Councillor Anthony Perruzza’s area (Ward 8, York West) needs about $14 million worth of repair work. Upgrades would benefit 10 neighbourhoods in the ward, addressing issues such as crumbling roofs and ceilings, deteriorating beams, furnaces that need repair or replacement, as well as hot water boilers, elevators and plumbing.

Koroneos says the sell-off would take place over three to six years, with no more than 60 to 75 houses put on the market each year.

TCHC would still have to borrow substantially to keep the agency’s portfolio in a “fair state of repair.’’