Within the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, former CEO Derek Ballantyne is still held in very high regard. That’s quite a contrast to the cloud of disdain now hovering over anyone who’s had any authority in the public agency.
Ballantyne is credited with having the vision to replace a vast array of decayed public housing stock without handing the bill to taxpayers. Given his accomplishments, he should be Rob Ford’s hero. After all, that’s exactly what Ford says he wants to do with the TTC right now: to fund public development using private sector money.
The TCHC was set up as an arm’s-length corporation so it could be nimble and operate more like a private company, another feature of the mayor’s model of how the city should be run. Now it’s being punished for doing just that.
But get a grip. There’s a strong argument that The Scandal – sole-sourced contracts, pricey chocolates, etc – is so insignificant as to make any overhaul a stunner.
“What I’ve seen in that audit for the most part is a corporation doing things that they normally do,” says U of T housing expert David Hulchanski. “I’m sort of impressed if that’s all the auditor found, as none of that is too shocking – unless you want to make political hay out of it.”
Indeed, what insiders are now saying – rather quietly at the moment – is that taking bids on contracts can take time and money, and just because you go through the motions doesn’t mean there’s a better all-round deal in the end.
And in some cases, some small TCHC contracts were not only good value for money, but also went to workers’ co-ops that would directly benefit tenants. Does Ford really have a problem with that? He’s not exactly a champion of cumbersome bureaucratic regulations.
The real issue, Hulchanski says, is that TCHC is a vastly complex organization juggling multi-million-dollar maintenance deficits for ancient housing stock re-gifted to it by the province along with the responsibilities that come with housing 164,000 of the city’s most vulnerable.
Your typical landlord doesn’t have to worry about assisting tenants with addiction and mental health issues, or providing language services.
“I think there’s a big storm here over very little, given the size of that corporation and all the things it does,” says Hulchanski. As far as the decimation of the board goes, “The response was not proportional.”
Last week seven citizen board members quit unexpectedly, and so did two councillors loyal to Rob Ford, Frances Nunziata and John Parker. Two more, Maria Augimeri and Raymond Cho, are refusing to leave. And so are the two tenant reps, Dan King and Catherine Wilkinson.
At a meeting in Regent Park on Monday, March 7, tenant representatives were no doubt miffed about spa trips and chocolates. Regent rep Elias Kassahun says some fellow residents are angry enough to have even accused him of being on the take. But given the more important issues, the assembled reps were curious about how they’d be any better off if their two members on the TCHC board – the ones they elected – were sacked.
By attempting to force those board members out, Ford is unilaterally unwinding a whole spool of tenant democracy. Across the city, 375 tenant reps are elected by residents. They in turn vote for the two tenant board members. “They were put in there by a process to represent tenants, and I see no reason for them to resign until there’s evidence of wrongdoing or neglect on their part,” says Hulchanski.
And so far there is none. Hulchanski, a former Ontario Housing Corporation board member, adds that there’s no way TCHC board members would have known about the minutiae of details catalogued in the auditor general’s report.
The board had its hands full, says tenant board member Dan King, one the four remaining board members making a last stand against the Ford Nation army. For starters, says King, there are the Regent Park, Lawrence Heights and Alexandra Park redevelopments. There, he says, TCHC is taking unsustainable communities and replacing them with ones that “work financially and socially.”
“The exciting thing about Toronto Housing is creating something out of nothing. How do we find funding for maintenance in what is really a deficit situation? It’s amazing that we uncovered so many creative ways to get maintenance value.”
In other words, the board was more occupied with the broader issues of running a massive, underfunded housing corp that came into existence because other levels of government didn’t want the hassle.
“Successful programs may not work if you change all of the management and all of the knowledge on the board of directors – and you lose a big block of your staff,” says King.
So on top all the challenges the TCHC already has, now it’s going to have to do it all fumbling around in the dark.
TCHC tally
Number of tenants 164,000
Number of households 58,500
Number of buildings 2,240
Percentage of city population housed by TCHC 6
Percentage of tenants with rent subsidies 93
Number of employees 1,400
