Housing on ice as homeless freeze
In late January, amid frigid temperatures and several COVID-19 outbreaks at city shelters, St. Michael’s Hospital reported a rise in homeless Torontonians arriving at the emergency room with frostbite and hypothermia.
According to city councillor John Filion (Ward 18-Willowdale), on the eve of Toronto’s colossal midJanuary snowstorm, someone set fire to the tent of a Willowdale man who was living in a local parkette. Luckily, he was not inside the tent at the time.
Meanwhile, only a couple kilometres away, on a sprawling TTC parking lot, the prefabricated units of a brand new modular housing project sat empty in the snow.
In fact, they still sit there today, untouched since November, throughout Toronto’s dangerous cold snap, throughout homeless Torontonians’ many visits to the ER, throughout their deaths.
The modular housing units sit empty near Finch Station, a fiveminute drive from their intended destination. That destination — 175 Cummer Ave. — should be the site of a housing solution in a bitterly cold city facing a housing crisis. Instead, it represents a crisis of confidence in the provincial government to deliver on the promise of housing for all.
If you want to see a politician talk out of both sides of his mouth, behold: in the same week Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark unveiled a bold plan to challenge urban NIMBYism and enable the construction of 1.5 million homes in the next decade, he maintained his refusal to approve the construction of supportive housing that could have been built months ago.
Last spring, the city asked the minister to sign off on the MZO — Minister’s Zoning Order — necessary to build modular supportive housing at 175 Cummer Ave., a three-storey building that would boast approximately 59 studio apartments. But the minister has refused to sign the MZO because in a statement made to the Star, he is unsatisfied with the “consultation” conducted around the project.
“I’ve said many times, not just with this project, but with many, many other projects, municipalities have to do their due diligence,” Clark told the Star. “They have to have proper consultation before they even request the MZO. So, you know, I’ve spoken with the local MPP and it’s encouraging that he and the mayor are working together to look at alternate sites to ensure the process works.”
According to the minister’s spokesperson, Clark “will speak with mayor (John) Tory and MPP (Stan) Cho to ensure” the project is “moving expediently.”
But the minister’s enthusiasm for further consultation is rich because his government’s new report on housing affordability recommends limiting exactly that: the seemingly endless community consultations that stall new housing in cities.
From the report itself: “NIMBYism (not in my backyard) is a major obstacle to building housing. It drags out the approval process, pushes up costs, and keeps out new residents. Because local councillors depend on the votes of residents who want to keep the status quo, the planning process has become politicized.”
And yet, ironically, in the Willowdale case it is the local MPP, not the local councillor who appears to have politicized the process. Local councillor John Filion is on board with the project despite strong opposition from a group of residents. So is deputy mayor Ana Bailão who is frustrated it hasn’t moved forward.
The person who remains opposed to the project at 175 Cummer Ave. is Cho, the novice MPP from Willowdale who is staring down an election season and trying to appease a group of constituents who don’t want the project to move forward.
Specifically, they don’t want it to move forward at 175 Cummer Ave. where it would exist next to a seniors residence — a situation some on a local Facebook page opposed to the project appear to believe will increase crime in the area.
But residents’ prevailing concern, according to Cho himself, is that the leafy Willowdale neighbourhood is unsuitable for people exiting homelessness. “When we’re talking about suitability, we have to think about the needs of the people,” the MPP told me.
“I look forward to the day I can walk with the mayor and cut the ribbon on modular housing in Willowdale,” he said. But today is not that day because in his view and in the view of some of his constituents, the proposed location for the modular housing is too far away from grocery stores and amenities to be suitable for previously homeless residents. Despite a Google search revealing that the site is only a 10-minute bus ride and 15-minute walk to the nearest grocery store, Cho has previously referred to the neighbourhood as a “food desert.”
“When we’re talking about the most vulnerable in our communities we want to set them up for success,” he told me. It’s not every day you hear someone reference a deep concern for homeless people to justify denying them a home. But it’s not surprising either.
When residents and leaders of any political stripe say they believe homeless people should live closer to amenities, what they really mean is that they should live away from other people. Neighbourhoods are for us. Main drags are for them. Housing is a human right anywhere but here.