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Social housing sell off

Toronto Community Housing’s bold plan to remake housing projects is being sold as a mixed-neighbourhood utopia, but activists worry it’s just a sell-off of precious public assets

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TCH’s grand plan

As ambitious as it is audacious: to rebuild the very foundations of social housing by demolishing the failed utopias of postwar and circa 70s social housing and transforming them into mixed-income neighbourhoods.

The rationale

Doing nothing is not an option. More than 40 per cent of the 166,000 tenants currently living in TCH are under 25, “at risk” because of their address, race or socio-economic status. Mixed neigbourhoods will afford them the opportunities to move up in the world.

What has social activists worried

A massive sell-off to developers of properties in disrepair and forced relocation of thousands of tenants. How could it be otherwise? TCH says the cost of capital repairs is an astounding $300 million. And the agency will need more than a billion over the next 10 years for upkeep. Some 13 complexes (see sidebar, next page) comprising 4,344 units have already been flagged for redevelopment into mixed-income neighbourhoods over the next decade.

Tenants left in limbo

TCH says all rent-geared-to-income units demolished under its “regeneration” plan will be replaced by new ones. But the agency has effectively decided to pull the plug on maintenance beyond the bare minimum for its more rundown properties (throwing good money after bad, the former CEO calls its), consigning thousands of tenants to worsening conditions for years to come while those newfangled, mixed-income communities are being built over the next decade – and probably longer.

Reality check

There are 70,000 people on the waiting list for social housing, and it can take up to 10 years for families to get a unit. TCH says blame the province for dumping social housing responsibility on the city in 2001, and the feds for freezing subsidies in the 90s. TCH has had to float bonds, take on debt and rely on a one-time windfall of $75 million from the city from the sale of Toronto Hydro Telecom to keep up with repairs. However, January’s federal budget and the more recent provincial budget will allocate upwards of $130 million to TCH for repairs and renovation – enough, say activists, to keep housing assets in city’s hands.

Social capital experiment

There’s evidence to support the idea that integrating residents of public housing into mixed neighbourhoods can lead to upward social mobility. But that’s not been the experience in the U.S. where social science research suggests a preference among public housing residents to live solely among others of a similar socioeconomic status. In the U.S., return rates to redeveloped public housing that is not mixed-income are higher than return rates to projects incorporating a diversity of social classes.

The Regent Park experience

The good news is that some 700 more rent-geared-to-income units will have been built when the remake of Regent Park is completed years from now. But not all who were relocated under phase one of the project to make room for the new development had positive experiences.

Residents report traumatic experiences – losing touch with their social support networks and difficulty integrating into their temporary neighbourhoods, including being viewed as outsiders partly because of language barriers. (English as a first language has declined an average 40 per cent in Regent Park in recent years).

Also, not all will be returning to Regent Park. Circumstances change. Eligibility requirements change. TCH is also getting stricter about housing people whose immigration status is in limbo.

To sell or not to sell

NO

“Property is the most precious asset of any public housing authority. It’s always in scarce supply, and as a matter of principle, public landlords should only sell off land as a last resort. Cannibalizing the current stock is the worst option in the current circumstances.”

Michael Shapcott, Wellesley Institute

YES

“We were dealt a bad hand. The social housing built years ago was very poorly constructed because nobody cared. It was for the poor. Has everything gone perfectly? No. But if we want to effect real change we need to build momentum.”

Councillor and TCH board member Paula Fletcher

enzom@nowtoronto.com

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