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Tenants not buying sell-off strategy

Why does Toronto have a social housing crisis when residential construction is booming and innovative community housing projects are right under our noses?

That was the lingering question at an event Thursday night that brought together councillors, tenants, and social housing experts at the Edward Day Gallery on Queen West. Hosted by the fledgling Social Action Coalition, the informal schmooze was the latest grassroots effort to tackle the city’s affordable housing problem.

Those efforts were galvanized by Mayor Rob Ford’s proposed sell-off of 675 Toronto Community Housing properties, which was put on hold last month when the mayor agreed to appoint a special task force to find another solution to TCH’s $750-million repair backlog. Tenants’ groups claimed victory at the compromise, but even Ford’s critics concede he’s right: the living conditions in many TCH units are abysmal, and millions of dollars are needed to fix them.

“There is an issue. Let’s not kid ourselves. Toronto housing is not working,” Councillor Ana Bailão told the audience of over 100 people.

“But selling some of our houses is not a solution when we have 80,000 people on our waiting list.”

Bailão is the woman Ford picked to head up the task force, and as soon as council gives her the green light next week she’ll assemble her team with the aim of reporting back in the fall.

Michael Shapcott, a veteran in the social housing expert who also spoke at the meeting, believes the task force is a step in the right direction.

“The good news about the task force is, it takes the issue out of the ideological cauldron of City Hall,” says Shapcott.

He contends that the current TCH board-which Ford appointed last year after playing up an expensing scandal that hit the previous board-is committed to a sell-first mentality that is keeping it from realizing long-term solutions.

He says that selling units amounts to “cannibalizing” TCH stock, and the experience of places like Atlanta and Chicago shows that divesting the city of some properties to fix others only increases waiting lists and puts community housing into a “death spiral.”

According to Shapcott, viable strategies to address TCH’s backlog include expanding an energy retrofit program that has already saved the city $100 million, and tapping into the provincial affordable housing loan fund.

But most importantly, he says, Torontonians need look no further than our own skyline to see how social housing can be done well.

“In Regent Park, the way they’re financing much of the development is simple,” Shapcott says. “They’re basically doubling the number of units on the land, selling off half those units to private developers, and using the money from the sale to subsidize the redevelopment of the TCH units.

“It’s not rocket science. And in a city like Toronto where the condo market continues to defy gravity, we can do a lot of other creative financing like that.”

Not every TCH property is ripe for large-scale redevelopment, but the Regent Park model is currently being replicated in Lawrence Heights and Alexandra Park.

Another line of attack that Bailão will pursue is urging the province to come to the table with a funding commitment, and while some might be skeptical that’s realistic in the current economic climate, Shapcott points out that even the Drummond Report austerity blueprint recommends negotiating a new housing agreement.

That would be welcome news for Miguel Avila, one of the 160,000 people currently living in TCH units. He describes himself as a “proud community housing tenant,” and argues that the shaky economy is precisely why we need the social housing system, not an excuse to stop investing in it.

“Not everybody’s rich,” he says. “People who used to be middle class have seen their jobs moved somewhere else. Social housing allows them to retain that dignity level, to have a roof over their heads, so there’s opportunity for their family to get ahead.”

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