TCH rehouses family evicted last fall

REPORTER

Toronto Community Housing has rehoused one of the five households it evicted for missed rent last fall, after a Star story that revealed one of the households landed in a homeless shelter.

Those five evictions took place between the end of a provincial eviction moratorium in August and a motion from city council to halt arrears evictions in TCH in December.

The day after the Star’s report, Mayor John Tory said he’d contacted TCH CEO Kevin Marshman, to confirm that no further arrears evictions would be taking place.

“It shouldn’t have happened, and certainly today I had a conversation in light of this story,” Tory said at the time, while noting that the evictions had still been within the bounds of the law. Asked what would happen to the evicted households, Tory said he would ask Marshman to examine the cases “and see what the appropriate response should be.”

During a committee meeting on Tuesday, Coun. Paula Fletcher asked for an update.

“I know that at least one family was rehoused as a result of work we did with the shelter and the analysis that we did of their eviction,” replied Scott Kirkham, TCH’s manager of stakeholder relations.

Asked by the Star to confirm whether the rehoused family was the one evicted into the shelter system, TCH declined to comment, saying it couldn’t reveal personal information. “We can confirm … one of the five households was rehoused,” a statement read.

Tory, in a statement Tuesday, said he was “pleased to hear” that an evicted family was rehoused in TCH.

The housing committee on Tuesday voted to send a request to council on March 10 for TCH to extend its arrears eviction halt until at least June.