Room for improvement
Tenant, neighbours speak out about neglected rooming houses
Rick Keegan uses dark humour to describe life in and outside his Cabbagetown rooming house, a fetid, bug-infested three-storey Victorian that attracts a roster of transients who gain entry by kicking in the front door.
“It went from crack to meth and, if you can believe it, I miss the crack days,” says Keegan, describing the current drug of choice for visitors.
“Crack users are a little paranoid, you can get them out of the house, you just go and tell them to get lost and they go, but you try and tell that to the meth heads and they want to fight.”
Keegan, 61, says this while sitting inside a busy Tim Hortons across the street from part of a row of tall, narrow Parliament St. homes listed on the city’s Heritage Registry and owned and operated by Toronto Community Housing (TCH).
Rooming houses across the city — and what to do about them — are on the fall agenda at city hall.
This month, city staff will report to the executive committee on new zoning and licensing regulations for rooming houses, including 27 rooming houses operated by TCH.
Toronto has 433 licensed rooming houses. Hundreds more are unlicensed.
The city is also reviewing a report from the mayor’s housing task force recommending up to 5,000 TCH units be transferred to community non-profits, something the housing agency would eagerly embrace.
“Current (TCH) rooming houses would fit well with this model by allowing nonprofits to provide more supportive housing without the financial burden of buying the building,” Lisa Murray, a spokesperson for the agency, wrote in an email.
Heather Wilberforce, president of the Winchester Park Residents’ Association, says her organization has been patiently waiting for anything to be done to address the years of complaints about the noise and neglect in Cabbagetown’s TCH rooming houses.
She calls them “an embarrassment to the city of Toronto.”
Last month, TCH hosted a barbecue for tenants and area residents that included a tour and “safety audit” of rooming houses in the area, including the row on Parliament St., painted a garish lime green and purple for reasons that no one can explain.
Wilberforce attended with other members of the association. She was appalled by what she saw on the tour.
“I expected what I would see to be difficult, but was completely unprepared for the amount of incorrigible vandalism, holes in walls for the disposing of used syringes, filthy kitchens, filthy washrooms” and an “unadulterated stench of human body odour, dirty clothing/linen, excrement and urine,” Wilberforce wrote in an email recently to Mayor John Tory and housing officials.
TCH spends $225,000 annually for superintendents and cleaners to service its rooming houses, TCH’s Murray wrote in an email. “Rooming house common areas are cleaned daily from Monday to Friday, however TCH is not sufficiently funded to provide evening and weekend cleaning.”
She wrote that $300,000 has been spent on capital work at the Parliament St. houses since 2014, including security cameras, roofing and electrical and heating systems.
TCH works with licensing and standards inspectors “to stay compliant with all building standards and requirements, and address any repairs that are identified,” her email said.
When the Star visited recently, things were relatively quiet — which Keegan attributed to the presence of a brawny TCH safety unit officer hovering outside, something he said was an anomaly.
Murray wrote that the housing agency “dedicates a significant amount of Community Safety Unit resources to patrolling rooming house properties and several are patrolled on a 24/7 basis. Third-party security personnel have also been hired.” Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said officers are at the Parliament St. buildings daily and have made numerous arrests that have led to tenants being evicted. She also said police have attended several meetings with TCH and Councillor Pam McConnell about problems at the buildings.
Keegan says in the seven years he has lived at the Parliament St. rooming house — paying $115 a month for a room — efforts to crack down on the drug dealing and vandalism have done little to improve living conditions in the row homes, built in 1879.
He estimates he is one of 12 men living there, though it’s hard to tell for all the coming and going. Murray says TCH’s hands are tied. “In many cases antisocial behaviour in and around rooming houses
“I would like for people to know what is actually going on in their city because I don’t think this kind of stuff is even allowed.” RICK KEEGAN ON ROOMING HOUSE CONDITIONS
is not caused by the tenants themselves, but by invited guests of the tenants who (TCH) cannot legally (remove) off the property, or people who take over the units of vulnerable tenants.”
On nearby Winchester St., after years of resident complaints about the row of TCH rooming houses, the agency has been evicting tenants for antisocial behaviour and leaving the units vacant while “future use of these houses is being considered,” Murray wrote. Wilberforce says it is about time. “We want to see these managed and secured and we want to see conditions in them improved for the people who live inside.”
Back at Tim Hortons, Keegan explains how he feels uncomfortable complaining about his accommodations, which stand in stark contrast to the million and multimillion dollar homes in one of the city’s most desirable and historical neighbourhoods. He explains why he’s doing it now. “I would like for people to know what is actually going on in their city because I don’t think this kind of stuff is even allowed, tolerated — that the law wouldn’t descend.”