Councillor wants MPPs up to speed on social housing repair

Councillor Ana Bailao is proposing council ask Mayor John Tory to send personal letters to individual Toronto MPPs about the dire state of social housing in their ridings — and potential impact on their constituents.

Bailao, chair of the city’s affordable housing committee, will table a motion at this week’s council meeting requesting Tory write to the provincial politicians outlining “the number of units at risk of closing without provincial funding.”

“It’s important that MPPs have this information at their fingertips,” Bailao said Wednesday.

Bailao said she wanted council’s endorsement to “depoliticize” the issue. “We are three levels of government that need to work together. It’s not about politics.” The motion is seconded by Councillor Joe Cressy.

For weeks, Tory has been waging a so far unsuccessful campaign to persuade Queen’s Park to pay a onethird share of funding needed to fix crumbling social housing units.

According to an internal database, half of Toronto Community Housing developments will be in “critical” condition in the next five years without additional funding for repairs.

Except for one, every provincial riding in Toronto will be home to TCH complexes in a critical state of disrepair by 2021 if more funding isn’t secured.

Council approved a 10-year, $2.6 billion repair plan in 2013 to be costshared by all three levels of government.

Since then, the city has exceeded its share by spending more than $1 billion towards TCH, Bailao’s motion says. “However, the City alone cannot fix this problem. Without additional funding, approximately 7,500 units are at risk of closure by 2023.”

The federal government has made long-term housing commitments, but Ontario’s 2017 budget “did not promise to match federal funding nor provide new funding to fund one-third of capital repairs to TCH buildings,” the motion states. With files from Jennifer Pagliaro