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May 7, 1997

FIGHT TO PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS IN HOUSING

Without any public consultation or discussion, the Harris Government has moved to undermine the protections in Ontario's Human Rights Code for single mothers, people with disabilities , people relying on social assistance and many disadvantaged groups. Section 200 of Bill 96 (the so-called Tenant Protection Act) would amend Ontario's Human Rights Code to allow landlords to refuse to rent to people on social assistance and other disadvantaged groups on the basis of "income information". The result is that while social assistance recipients, single mothers, people with disabilities, young people and other disadvantaged groups are formally protected from discrimination in housing, landlords will be able to refuse to rent to members of these groups with impunity simply by disqualifying them because of their low incomes.

The amendment would be particularly disastrous for households on social assistance, who represent over a third of Ontario's private market tenants and many of whom are searching for more affordable apartments because of the 21.6% cuts to welfare. Studies have shown that over half of landlords controlling the most affordable apartments in Metro Toronto refuse to rent to social assistance recipients even though it is illegal to discriminate. The situation will get dramatically worse if the amendment to the Code is passed, because no one on social assistance can satisfy minimum income criteria. Landlords apparently pressured the government to amend the Human Rights Code after it became clear that they would likely lose a lengthy human rights board hearing into income discrimination which recently wrapped up after 59 days of hearing (Kearney et al v. Bramalea Limited et al.) A decision is still pending from the three person human rights tribunal. In the hearings, landlords were unable to come up with any reliable evidence that low income tenants are more likely to default on rent despite having spent a lot of money to hire experts and conduct surveys to try to prove it.

Twenty three organizations representing Children's Aid Societies, young mothers' groups, refugees, women with disabilities, visible minority women, tenants' associations, social housing providers and poor people were granted intervenor status by the board of inquiry. All of these organizations submitted written briefs in support of the three low income women who had the courage to take on the landlords of Ontario over a fundamental issue of human rights and access to housing. The landlords were financed by an Ontario organization of landlords. Only one intervenor, Cityhome, a social housing provider which uses minimum income criteria in market rent units to "limit" the number of low income tenants in its complexes, intervened on behalf of the landlords.

In 1993 a United Nations Committee reported that it had received evidence of widespread discrimination in housing in Canada against social assistance recipients and low income households. It recommended improved human rights protection and enforcement. Bill 96 is explicitly in contempt of international human rights commitments made by Ontario. It may also violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by discriminating against the poor. Keith Norton, recently appointed by Premier Harris as the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, has announced his intention to speak out against the proposed amendment and has written Premier Harris and Al Leach, the Minister of Housing, asking that the amendment be withdrawn.

Income discrimination is the most serious barrier facing low income households in need of housing. The provincial government has withdrawn all financial support for new social housing. Low income households in need of housing can only rely on the private market.

If landlords whose units are more affordable and desirable are permitted to exclude all low income tenants, low income households are either left homeless or are forced to rent the most over-priced and undesirable apartments on the market.

Professor Michael Ornstein of York University has shown with Statistics Canada data that if all landlords were to use the most common "affordability" criterion, requiring that tenants pay no more than 30% of income toward rent, about one third of Ontario's tenants would be disqualified even from the most affordable apartments on the market - resulting in hundreds of thousands of homeless, predominantly women and children.

What is the landlord's justification for such discrimination? They say low income people are more likely to default, but no study has ever shown that this is the case. The landlords did a survey of Bramalea tenants for the recent human rights inquiry to try to verify their prejudice. They were unable to find any significant difference between low income tenants and higher income tenants in terms of likelihood to default. Landlords say default can "ruin" their business. Yet default costs are on average less than one half of one percent of a landlord's average costs. There is less than a 3% chance of any tenant defaulting in a given year. An auditor retained by the landlords found that the cost of default, including arrears, court costs and legal costs, was on average less than one month's rent. Bramalea lost 20 times more on vacancies than on default, and the vacancies were in large part caused by income criteria which disaqualified over half of potential applicants who were already successfully paying rent of an equivalent amount.

Permitting landlords to discriminate on the basis of income costs the public millions of dollars as well as causing personal tragedies in the thousands. Homeless families need shelters, and these cost money. People on social assistance are excluded from the vast majority of apartments and must take whatever they can find - often paying above the average rent for the most decrepid apartments on the market. This means higher shelter allowances - the largest component of social assistance payments. A government which professes to be interested in saving money has no interest in legalizing discrimination against the poor.

The proposed amendment to the Code also refers to credit checks, landlord references and co- signors. The position CERA and the Human Rights Commission took in the recent board of inquiry hearings was that landlords may disqualify applicants on the basis of a bad credit rating without violating the Human Rights Code (though it may not be fair). On the other hand, it is a violation of the Human Rights Code to disqualify young people, refugees or other newcomers simply because they are unable to provide a reference or credit. It is clearly discriminatory to require everyone on social assistance to provide a co-signor. Bill 96 would leave young people, refugees and other first time renters literally out in the cold and completely legitimate the rampant and destructive discrimination against social assistance recipients.

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CERA: Phone: 416-944-0087 Fax: 416-944-1803 e-mail cera@web.net
 

http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/mayor/homelessnesstf.htm

Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force
Thursday, January 14, 1999
Introduction

Dear Mayor Lastman,

When you created the Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force in January, 1998, you asked us to:

* recommend ways to stop the growth of homelessness
* respond to the public's concern about the growing number of homeless people they see on the streets of our city.

We hope that this report will be the basis for action to deal with the problem.

As you know, homelessness in Toronto has reached a level we have never seen in our history. This growing problem shows itself in many ways. More and more people live on the streets or sleep in shelters. The pressure on drop-in centres, food banks, and other emergency services is increasing all the time.

Evictions are on the rise. Waiting lists for social and supportive housing keep getting longer.

Our definition of homeless people includes:

* those who are "visible" on the streets or staying in hostels
* the "hidden" homeless, who live in illegal or temporary accommodation
* those at risk of soon becoming homeless.

Two key themes run through this report. The first theme is that prevention and long-term approaches must replace the reactive, emergency responses to homelessness that we have relied on to date. The second theme is that everyone, including all three levels of government, must take ownership of the problem and responsibility for solving it.

Mayor Lastman, as your Task Force, we found our study of Toronto's homeless people both sobering and enlightening. We believe that there are workable solutions to this deep and complex problem. We were pleased, as a Task Force, that we reached consensus on so many different issues.

Thank you for your support and leadership. We urge you and your Council to endorse and act on this report.

Signed,
The members of the Homelessness Action Task force.

Chair: Anne Golden, President of United Way of Greater Toronto
Bill Currie, Chair of the Addiction and Mental Health Services
Elizabeth Greaves, Executive Director, Dixon Hall
John Latimer, President, Monarch Development Corporation
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Recommendations

There are 105 recommendations in total in this report.
The recommendations in bold are pivotal in the sense that the other recommendations are dependent upon these being implemented.
Chapter 2 - Simplifying and Coordinating the Service System
Chapter 3 - Specific Strategies for High-Risk Sub-Groups
Chapter 4 - Prevention Strategies
Chapter 5 - A Comprehensive Health Strategy for Homeless People
Chapter 6 - Supportive Housing
Chapter 7 - Affordable Housing

Chapter 2

Simplifying and Coordinating the Service System

1. Appoint a Facilitator for Action on Homelessness for a five-year term who will report to the Mayor and Council.

2. The Facilitator's primary mandate should be to ensure implementation of the recommendations of the Report of the Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force.

The Facilitator should establish priorities, define action plans, and track progress on implementation. The Facilitator should proceed by way of projects to create systems change; second staff as required; seek incentive funding to leverage cooperative action; and make recommendations to improve planning and service delivery where appropriate.

3. The Facilitator for Action on Homelessness should report regularly to City Council on progress in preventing and reducing homelessness and communicate in a clear and timely way with various stakeholder groups.

The Facilitator should produce an annual report card that would gauge the performance of the City and all its partners in preventing and reducing homelessness and in dealing with the needs of people who become homeless.

4. Establish a 24-hour Homeless Services Information System comprising a database and a Homeless Services Information Telephone Line that would include the existing Street Helpline. All staff in agencies that serve the homeless population (including hostels, drop-ins, and hospitals) should have access to the database through computers housed in each agency.

5. Community Information Toronto, in collaboration with hostel operators, should establish a central hostels bed registry to provide up-to-date information on hostel bed availability on a 24-hour basis.

6. Resources should be redirected from providing hostel spaces to helping people find and maintain permanent housing, on condition that a sufficient new supply of supportive and low-cost housing is created. This shift should be phased in by reducing the number of hostel spaces by 10 percent each year until the total is reduced to half the base number.

7. Provincial cost-sharing for hostels should reflect the actual costs in Toronto. A percentage of all hostels' budgets should be allocated to purchasing services from community agencies to provide additional specialized supports for those who are preparing to leave and those who need follow-up after leaving the hostel.

8. The City should upgrade hostels to ensure that they all provide a safe, clean environment with single beds (no dormitory bunks), lockers, and sufficient showers and toilets. Standards in temporary shelters should also be upgraded. All emergency hostels should implement a clear appeals process for people who have been "barred."

9. The City should require hostels to establish a written "community partners policy" within six months to formalize links with agencies and institutions that currently or potentially provide services to their users to prepare them to move out of hostels. The City's Shelter, Housing, and Support Division should provide clear guidance in developing these policy statements.

10. The drop-in sector should be rationalized. All drop-ins should provide core services (basic needs, crisis intervention, information and referral, personal supports, and basic recreation). Vital ancillary services (health care, financial and legal counselling, and community economic development) should be provided across the sector. Drop-ins need stable, core funding and key funders (the City of Toronto, the Province of Ontario, and United Way) need to collaborate. The City of Toronto should take the lead in implementing this initiative.

11. The health and safety standards of drop-ins should be improved to include ventilated smoking rooms. City by-laws, which enable City staff to regularly inspect and maintain standards of hygiene, nutrition, and sanitation, should be applied to drop-ins to improve the health and safety standards for users and staff. Funders should also determine appropriate staff-to-client ratios for drop-ins. Capital costs to bring these facilities up to standard should be covered by the City.

12. The principle of self-help should be promoted throughout the hostel and drop-in system by having service users assist in service operations on both a paid and unpaid basis.

13. The City of Toronto and voluntary sector funders like United Way should provide supplementary funds for drop-ins to purchase and/or prepare nutritious food. They should also create a small pool of funds for physical upgrading of kitchens and equipment.

Chapter 3

Specific Strategies for High-Risk Sub-Groups

14. As a long-term strategy, family hostels should be equitably distributed throughout the City. 15. Reception and support programs should be established in Scarborough schools that serve the children of homeless families to enable these children to get the support they need with minimal disruption to the rest of the student body.

16. Treatment programs should be available specifically for young parents with substance abuse problems. Such programs should include outreach services and childcare support.

17. Dedicated supportive housing with appropriate supports should be established for young homeless mothers.

18. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health should partner with the new Satellite youth shelter in North York to develop and implement a harm reduction approach to serve youth with drug and alcohol addictions.

19. The City should establish partnerships between youth shelters and landlords (including the City Housing Company) to create additional housing units for youth. The youth shelters would place their clients in designated units and provide transitional support services so that the youth can maintain stable housing and then remain in the units after they no longer need services.

20. The Province should provide capital renovation funds for the Extended Youth Shelter Project at 11 Ordnance Street.

21. The Ministry of Community and Social Services should reinstate funding for transitional housing supports for abused women and their children.

22. Community-based agencies should be provided with sufficient resources to provide supports to abused women and children staying in the general hostel system. Hostels should make connections with these agencies through the new community partners policy.

23. Additional supportive housing units, with special safety features, should be designated for abused women and their children.

24. Establish a new Aboriginal shelter by expanding and strengthening Council Fire's operations so that it can operate its shelter year round.

25. The federal government should carry responsibility for funding housing and supports to the Aboriginal homeless population in partnership with the provincial government.

26. A supportive housing pilot project should be established in a suburban area of the City specifically for the Aboriginal population in Toronto. The capital costs should be covered by the federal government. Support services should be attached to appropriate Aboriginal-specific service providers. This project should establish formal linkages to the healing lodge recommended below.

27. The Li'l Beavers/Eagles prevention program for Aboriginal children and youth, operated by Native Friendship Centres, should be reinstated by the Province.

28. The federal government should establish an Urban Multi-Purpose Aboriginal Youth Centre in Toronto in cooperation with the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Council Fire, and other Aboriginal agencies.

29. The Facilitator for Action on Homelessness should, as one of his or her special projects, create an Aboriginal Steering Committee to provide ongoing advice on an implementation plan to prevent and reduce Aboriginal homelessness and monitor and evaluate the results.

30. An Aboriginal clinical detox centre, funded by the Ministry of Health, should be established, building upon the efforts of Anishnawbe Health and Pedahbun Lodge.

31. Establish a rural-based healing lodge near Toronto to provide opportunities for healing and self-development of the Aboriginal homeless population in Toronto. This model should be similar to existing Aboriginal healing lodges in Ontario but with a focus on the homeless population.

32. A focused strategy should be established for increasing training and job opportunities for Aboriginal youth based on a transitional housing model in which residents work to upgrade their skills and prepare for independent living. It should be led by Native Child and Family Services in collaboration with Nishnawbe Homes and the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and other youth service providers.

33. Expand the Biindgd Breakfast Club model.

34. The federal government should provide the same orientation to refugee claimants on arrival to Canada as to government-sponsored refugees. Refugee claimants should be able to access settlement services including language orientation and help in finding housing.

35. The federal government should provide the capital costs for an additional shelter for refugees. This shelter should have on-site settlement staff. Regular operating funds for this hostel should come from the provincial government and the municipality on an 80:20 basis.

36. The federal government should work directly with the City of Toronto to address immigration and refugee policy and program issues faced by the municipality. The federal government should make arrangements with municipalities outside of Toronto to provide emergency shelter for some of the immigrants and refugees (including refugee claimants) to reduce the pressure on Toronto's hostel system.

Chapter 4

Prevention Strategies

37. The shelter component maximum for social assistance should equal 85 percent of median market rent for each local housing market, based on annual surveys. In Greater Toronto, this would represent, on average, an increase of just over 20 percent on the current maximum shelter benefit.

38. A new shelter allowance program should be created, targeted to working poor families as a first priority, and to working adults if feasible. The aim of this program, which would require annual re-application, is to reduce the risk of homelessness and to ensure that the transition from welfare to employment does not increase the risk of homelessness. The shelter allowance program should reduce the share of income that low-income people spend on housing to between 35 and 40 percent of income.

39. The shelter allowance program should be paid by the Province, consistent with the articulated goals of the provincial government.

40. The City of Toronto should fund and administer a City-wide rent bank with a $500,000 annual budget, to help individuals and families deal with short-term rent arrears. Access to the rent bank should be through designated multi-service agencies.

41. Housing help programs should be more systematic, adequately resourced, and linked to other services. Provincial funding for housing help should be maintained.

42. Housing help to social assistance recipients should be provided by purchase-of- service contracts between welfare offices and housing help services.

43. The Provincial legal aid plan and its successor should ensure adequate funding for community legal clinics for tenant assistance, and maintain its funding for tenant duty counsels.

44. The City should ensure sufficient funding for the Federation of Metro Tenants' Association Tenant Hot Line to ensure that callers can get through to receive information.

45. To ensure that social assistance recipients can rent affordable apartments, rapid payment of first and last months' rent should be provided by the City when requested, and Proof of Address procedures should be expedited.

46. The use of outreach workers should be expanded to move chronic hostel users into stable housing. This can be done by either expanding the Hostel Outreach Program (HOP) or through specific projects similar to the Housing Match Maker Project.

47. Institutions should establish and implement discharge protocols for all persons with no fixed address. No one should be discharged from an institution to the street. If a person is discharged to a hostel, it must be one with 24-hour access. When a homeless person is discharged from an institution to a hostel or unstable situation, arrangements for follow-up by hospital staff or an agency contracted by the hospital (such as Community Care Access Centres or Public Health) must occur within 24 hours after discharge.

48. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Canadian Mental Health Association of Toronto should take responsibility for defining discharge protocols for homeless people with mental health problems and/or addictions. These two organizations should meet within the next 90 days to define discharge protocols in consultation with other key organizations.

49. The Facilitator for Action on Homelessness should set up an inter-agency/hospital information network to monitor the effectiveness of the protocols for homeless people who are discharged from institutions.

50. The City of Toronto should invest an additional $300,000 in community economic development over the next three years through the newly established Productive Enterprises Fund.
 

Chapter 5

A Comprehensive Health Strategy for Homeless People

51. The Ministry of Health should establish a permanent OHIP kiosk in an appropriate location in downtown Toronto on a full-time basis to enable homeless people to register for health cards. In addition, governments, social service agencies, and banks should accept legally certified, notarized copies of identification documents, held by approved community agencies, as identification when homeless people apply for social assistance, shelter, or bank accounts.

52. The Ministry of Health should continue to fund Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) to provide Home Care for people with mental illness.

53. Toronto Public Health should continue to invest in programs which address the overall health needs of the homeless population.

54. A staff person skilled in working with homeless people should be available to hospital emergency rooms, as required.

55. The Ministry of Health should establish a pharmacy pilot project where homeless people can obtain prescription drugs free of charge. The effectiveness of this project should be monitored and evaluated.

56. Toronto Public Health, in collaboration with the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto, George Brown College School of Dental Hygiene, and selected Community Health Centres across the City of Toronto should establish a three-year pilot project to improve the oral health needs of Toronto's homeless population.

57. The Ministry of Health should declare Toronto an "Underserviced Area" for homeless people to enable new doctors to work with the homeless population at the full OHIP rate. In addition, the Ministry of Health should make additional sessional dollars available for physicians to work with homeless people in hostels and drop-ins.

58. The Ministry of Health should fund infirmary beds in appropriate locations for homeless people recovering from illness or surgery. These beds should be coordinated by hospitals in collaboration with the Community Care Access Centres and appropriate community agencies.

59. Long-term care funding should be allocated by the Ministry of Health to designated facilities equipped to address the long-term care needs of elderly chronic hostel users.

60. The Ministry of Health should combine its current community mental health and community health funding for homeless people into one single Homelessness Health Fund which would be administered by the City of Toronto.

61. Fifty psychiatric beds should be added to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Queen Street Division.

62. A harm-reduction facility should be established on a pilot basis to accommodate up to 30 homeless people who cannot participate in programs that require total abstinence. The facility should be staffed by health care professionals, supported by peer counsellors, who would ensure that the harm of alcohol and substance use is minimized and that the person is linked to other health and social supports.

63. An addictions and mental health outreach team should be established, coordinated by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in collaboration with Toronto Public Health, Community Health Centres, Shared Care teams, and other community agencies, to connect homeless people who have severe addictions or concurrent disorders to the harm-reduction facility. This team would use its expertise to provide consultation and training to other outreach and community support initiatives.

Chapter 6

Supportive Housing

64. At least 5,000 additional supportive housing units should be built in the City of Toronto over the next five years at the rate of 1,000 units per year. Although the high-need districts of the City should receive new units corresponding to their population profile, the majority of new units should be built in all areas of the City.

65. New supportive housing units should be built throughout the province to ensure that people can be served in their own communities.

66. New supportive housing units should provide a range of housing types and management approaches to meet the different needs of different homeless groups. The range should include new construction and acquisition and conversion of existing residential and non-residential buildings.

67. The Province should continue to expand the Habitat program for boarding houses and extend the program to other types of accommodation such as rooming houses.

68. A high-support residential program for people with severe mental illness should be established on site at a hospital. An unused ward of the Queen Street Division of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) could be immediately converted to supportive housing for people with serious mental illness who would find it extremely difficult to find and maintain housing elsewhere.

69. The Ministry of Health, the Ontario Realty Corporation, and the City of Toronto should pursue an agreement with CAMH to make land within the Queen Street Division of CAMH and the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital immediately available for the development of supportive housing for persons with serious mental illness or concurrent disorders. At least half the units should be dedicated for persons with concurrent disorders.

70. The Province should fund 100 percent of supportive housing and reassume the costs of any supportive housing devolved to municipalities. It should fund all capital costs, rents supplements, and support services of supportive housing.

71. An overall provincial policy on supportive housing should ensure that definitions of special need and eligibility for supportive housing are broad enough to include "hard to house" homeless people.

72. The Ministry of Health should interpret its criteria for support flexibly to include chronically homeless people who may not have a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Priority should, however, still be given to the seriously mentally ill.

73. The City should contribute developing supportive housing through advocacy, policy development, coordination, strategic top-up funding, and facilitating new supply.

74. There should be a coordinated access system for

supportive housing linked to the proposed Homeless Services Information System and to Toronto Social Housing Connections. The coordinated access system should have a "user friendly" centralized database of information on all supportive housing providers, including waiting lists and related programs like housing help. The system should be centrally administered but accessible through multiple entry points.

75. Regular monitoring and evaluation should be done to determine what supportive housing programs are most effective at meeting the diverse needs of the homeless population.

Chapter 7

Affordable Housing

76. The City should develop a "housing first" policy for municipal lands to make suitable sites available for affordable housing, while retaining long-term City interest in the sites.

77. The City should convert the Social Housing Reserve Fund into a Homelessness Community Fund for affordable housing. The annual allocation to the Fund should be $10 million derived in part from the City capital budget and in part from cash-in-lieu receipts from bonusing agreements.

78. The City should implement a tax rate for the new multi-residential property tax class at a level comparable to that for single family dwellings.

79. The City and its agencies, boards, and commissions should waive development charges, land use application fees, parks levies, hook-up fees, and other charges for housing developments that meet affordability criteria.

80. The City should create a private sector roundtable to work with the Facilitator for Action on Homelessness to advise on strategies to create affordable housing.

81. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) should provide direct mortgage loans for new affordable rental projects. CMHC should develop rules and norms for mortgage insurance on not-for-profit projects using more favourable criteria than currently apply to private-sector projects.

82. The federal and provincial governments should develop policies to make suitable government sites available for affordable housing, while retaining long-term public interest in such sites.

83. The federal and provincial governments should rebate fully GST and PST respectively to the developers or builders of affordable housing projects.

84. The federal government should provide up to $300 million in capital support for new low-income housing. The federal government should also reinvest in housing each year the savings to be realized following devolution to the provinces.

85. The federal government should channel federal capital to new affordable housing by way of an Infrastructure program for housing, local foundations for affordable housing, and/or a tax incentive for contributions to eligible foundations or projects.

86. The Province should assume responsibility for building supportive housing either by funding capital subsidies and/or rent supplement, or by guaranteeing an income stream that private and non-profit developers can use to get financing to build or renovate the housing.

87. Upon signing a housing devolution agreement with CMHC, the Province should ensure that the annual federal housing funds that are not required for existing projects (estimated at $60 million annually) be used as a capital and rent supplement fund to support new projects.

88. The current pooling of resources for social housing (about $350 million annually) should be extended to include resources for new affordable housing. In accordance with the principle of "pay for say," the GTSB (rather than the Province) should allocate rent supplement funds for new affordable housing across the GTA.

89. The City should implement the Main Streets Intensification program and explore other strategies for promoting the supply of affordable rental housing such as conversion of non-residential buildings and the purchase of condominiums.

90. As part of its affordable housing strategy, the City of Toronto should pursue the Single Room Occupancy (SRO) option for housing with supports to house homeless singles. The City and the Province should make zoning and regulatory changes to facilitate renovation and new construction of SROs. These would include density maximums, unit sizes, parking requirements and building and fire code regulations. The City should initiate at least three SRO pilots. These should vary according to acquisition or new construction, location, number and sizes of units, financing, and management techniques.

91. The Official Plan should incorporate the goal of preventing homelessness and support the use of planning tools that contribute to the preservation of existing housing and the construction of new affordable housing.

92. Contributions toward the provision of low-income housing should be a high priority among the public benefits secured by the City in exchange for increases in height and density. These should be realized under existing policies and under the policy framework in the new Official Plan.

93. The City of Toronto should request and the Province of Ontario should approve amendments to the City of Toronto Act to permit the City to require the inclusion of affordable housing in new residential developments.

94. The City should reduce the time it takes to grant development approvals or building permits by streamlining the operation of all relevant departments.

95. Federal Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (RRAP) funding for the City of Toronto should be expanded to $7 million a year to include rental apartment buildings, rooming houses, and second suites.

96. Council should harmonize condominium conversion policies across the new City of Toronto. The new policy should attach conditions to approval of plans of condominium to ensure the replacement of lost low-cost rental units, consistent with the City "no net loss" policy.

97. The Province should grant appropriate authority to the City of Toronto to control demolition of affordable rental properties.

98. The City's housing development strategy should give priority to non-profit acquisition and rehabilitation of existing private apartments, as well as new construction.

99. All three levels of government should commit to the regeneration and redevelopment of public housing where appropriate.

100. The City of Toronto should permit, as-of-right, second suites wherever large- scale new residential developments are being approved. The City of Toronto shoud permit, as-of-right, second suites in areas in which multi-unit residential buildings (including semi-detached houses, duplexes, and triplexes) already exist, as well as in any residential zones that directly abut arterial roads that are well served by public transit.

101. In conjunction with legalization of second suites, a "fast-track" eviction procedure should be established at the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, applying to tenants renting suites in owner-occupied properties with only one rented unit.

102. Regardless of current zoning, existing second suites in single family homes that comply with health and safety standards should be legalized. There needs to be an appropriate public hearing and appeal process for neighbours who object. The onus should be on the owner to come forward with an application for relief from the zoning by-law.

103. Council should permit rooming houses as-of-right in commercial zones and multiple-unit residential zones on arterial roads throughout the City. Existing rooming houses that comply with health and safety standards should be legalized.

104. CMHC should assist rooming house owners to access mortgage financing.

105. The City should explore ways to reduce or mitigate the impact of the new property tax burden on rooming houses.

© City of Toronto 1998
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Notes on the Golden Report on Homelessness
By Gary Morton
 

   At the City Hall press release they were commenting on the $600,000 dollar price tag of the report. “Her poop must be made of gold,” said a Toronto Sun reporter, and John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty nodded in agreement…………….. whoops, sorry about the dishonesty here. I wasn’t actually there as I’m one of those rare people in this city who have to work on weekdays. So rather than comment on the event I’ll give notes as to what it is about.
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The full copy of the City of Toronto's Report of the Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force (14 January 1999) is available at the City's web site:
TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOMELESSNESS: AN ACTION PLAN FOR TORONTO

David Hulchanski sent out a post saying the full report will also by up next week at

   Before I go any further on my notes I’d like to make three recommendations of my own.

   --- First I think someone should put up a calendar on the web listing all of the recent proposals on homelessness and housing, and then track the days till something is actually done and whether it lines up with the report’s recommendations.

   There are other recent items in the same area to be watched.

1. The Federal Announcement - Dec/18/98 – that programs to fight homelessness will get a $50 million boost from the federal government. Aid that could grow to up to $100 million if provinces match the new funding. The money will pay to fix up housing to provide more permanent accommodation for the homeless. Liberal cabinet minister Alfonso Gagliano, who is responsible for social housing has won approval from cabinet for money to upgrade unsafe homes for use by the homeless and low-income Canadians.

2. Federal Government to Spend More on Homeless Youth and Aboriginals -  Human Resources Minister Pierre Pettigrew offers a program called Youth At Risk, which in 1998-99 offered $50 million worth of training and counselling programs to under-25 youth who had not graduated from high school. Now discussions are under way about refocusing part of the program on youth who are currently homeless. As the program grows to $75 million in 1999-2000 and $100 million in 2000-2001, Liberals want to use more of that extra cash to help young people who leave their home towns and end up living on the streets of Toronto and other major cities.

3.Ottawa is also preparing a new program to help aboriginal people who are homeless, officials say.

4. The Megacity budget committee will consider a proposal Jan/99 for a new $10 million capital revolving fund for affordable housing.  The fund would help non-profit groups develop housing projects for affordable housing.

   --- My second recommendation involves the groups that lobby levels of government. It appears that the only reason the government is acting on the issue at all is because nearly all of the citizens groups in the poverty area formed an alliance and swayed public opinion. Some of the recommendations to correct the homeless problem involve tenant rights. Those in the tenant rights field share mostly the same policy goals yet at the same they want to fight and argue with one another. If tenant groups and their members don’t show solidarity, tenants in Ontario are going to end up with less than the nothing they already have.

   --- My third recommendation regards the idea of a rent bank. The city could start this already with payments to tenants who are having difficulty paying rent due to loss of income created by big snowstorms in Toronto. There should also be a winter freeze on evictions.
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Note on the cost of the Golden report

     Some people feel the money spent on the report would have been better spent on the front lines in the fight against the suffering already going on. I think costly reports are really part of our flawed system of democracy. The city needs a credible report done by a high profile official or else Mike Harris will come out with another of his own that isn’t all that credible. Another problem of our society is that there isn’t any distribution of wealth for the people who work the hardest to build a better society. A few celebrity officials at the top get paid all of the money while those who work hard in the streets and in writing other reports get nothing. It is similar to other fields like the fiction writing field where a few overrated name writers get everything and the rest get peanuts. The problem of the improper distribution of wealth runs through nearly the whole of society. It is a social disease.
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The Corporate media has already run stories on the report.

   The Toronto Star and other papers note that some people expressed frustration and disappointment as the report called for a lot less action than many homeless activists and shelter workers wanted.

   The entire report was too little too late, said John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty in the Star article.
“When there's a snow emergency they call in the army; when there's a homeless emergency, they call for a report,” he said.

   Nora McCabe, a board member of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health liked many of the 25 recommendations targeted to the mentally ill homeless. She applauded Golden's call for discharge protocols for people with no fixed address. It's absolutely criminal for institutions to take people and discharge them with a token and a shelter address, McCabe said.

    “As a committee we'll support any initiative that creates affordable housing,'' said Beric German of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee. “But there has to be a major intervention and that pushing didn't happen in this report today.''

   Building another 1,000 low-income housing units a year won't make a dent in the current hostel population, said Michael Shapcott of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. He thought topping up the shelter component of welfare payments was a great idea but he opposes offering a shelter allowance to low-income people. “It's a bottomless pit,'' he said. “With what in effect is no rent regulations, the government will have to keep handing out more and more money year after year as the rents keep going up.”

   Anishnawbe Health Toronto executive director Joe Hester liked the call for shelters and detox facilities for aboriginal people, but he said he was concerned about how it might be implemented. “Our concern is jurisdictional,” he said. “It's the history of native people, we've always been shuffled over to different governments.”

   Mayor Mel Lastman has vowed to speed it through various city departments within 60 days. Then he promised to host a national summit on homelessness March 25/99 to produce answers and action.
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There were 105 recommendations (here are some)

   The province establish a shelter allowance for low-income tenants, adjust the shelter portion of welfare to more accurately reflect Ontario's varying housing markets, and build 5,000 new housing units within the next five years in Toronto  -- with support services to assist those homeless people with mental illness and addictions. Boosting the supply of affordable rental housing by 2,000 units a year.

   The report urged all levels of government to subsidize land costs, waive the GST and PST on building supplies for new low-cost housing units, modify property taxes and create a new system of capital grants.

   Establish a 24-hour Homeless Services Information System comprising a database and a Homeless Services Information Telephone Line that would include the existing Street Helpline. All staff in agencies that serve the homeless population (including hostels, drop-ins, and hospitals) should have access to the database through computers housed in each agency.

   It wants the federal government to renew its funding commitment to social housing and finance projects helping house aboriginal people, immigrants and refugees. The province should fund all supportive housing and treatment programs and the city must take the lead by preserving existing affordable housing and creating new low cost housing.

   The Ministry of Health should fund infirmary beds in appropriate locations for homeless people recovering from illness or surgery. These beds should be coordinated by hospitals in collaboration with the Community Care Access Centres and appropriate community agencies.

   The City should explore ways to reduce or mitigate the impact of the new property tax burden on rooming houses.

   The recommendations also call for an annual $15.3-million contribution from the city, as well as $13.5 million from the rest of the Greater Toronto Area. The feds are asked for $73 million annually to help build low-income housing.

   The Provincial legal aid plan and its successor should ensure adequate funding for community legal clinics for tenant assistance, and maintain its funding for tenant duty counsels.

   The Ministry of Health should establish a pharmacy pilot project where homeless people can obtain prescription drugs free of charge. The effectiveness of this project should be monitored and evaluated.

   Community Information Toronto, in collaboration with hostels operators, should establish a central hostels bed registry to provide up-to-date information on hostel bed availability on a 24-hour basis.

   Dedicated supportive housing with appropriate supports should be established for young homeless mothers.

   The Ministry of Community and Social Services should reinstate funding for transitional housing supports for abused women and their children.

   Hiring a facilitator to coordinate the report's action plan and report directly to the mayor.

   The City should upgrade hostels to ensure that they all provide a safe, clean environment with single beds (no dormitory bunks), lockers, and sufficient showers and toilets. Standards in temporary shelters should also be upgraded. All emergency hostels should implement a clear appeals process for people who have been “barred.”

   The drop-in sector should be rationalized. All drop-ins should provide core services (basic needs, crisis intervention, information and referral, personal supports, and basic recreation). Vital ancillary services (health care, financial and legal counselling, and community economic development) should be provided across the sector. Drop-ins need stable, core funding and key funders (the City of Toronto, the Province of Ontario, and United Way) need to collaborate. The City of Toronto should take the lead in implementing this initiative.

   Building a healing lodge for aboriginals.

   Requiring builders to add low-income housing units to their projects.

   Establish a $500,000 rent bank to help pay one or two months' rent, if it will keep them in their homes and out of hostels.

   Allow more housing for hard-to-house people throughout the city.

   The task force said the city should relax rules to make it easier for people to create basement apartments in most neighbourhoods. More rooming houses should also be allowed in commercial areas on arterial roads.
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Roadblocks and items of interest

   Changes in the structure of the labour market  have put low-wage workers at risk;

   There has been a steady decrease in the number of low-cost rental units and rooming houses;

   The impact of deinstitutionalization and the lack of compensating community support programs for people suffering from mental illness and addictions.

   Youth homelessness is on the rise in all cities. Aboriginals are over-represented.

   Over the nine years from 1988 to 1996, about 170,000 different individuals used hostels.

   The current patchwork of localized services means that some homeless people fall through the cracks and do not get the help they need.

    Inadequate or non-existent discharge planning by psychiatric hospitals and jails; and social factors, notably domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse, and isolation from family and friends. Second, the causes vary by “sub-groups” within the homeless population: severe mental illness or addictions or the two in combination are the predominant cause of homelessness for single adults

   106,000 people in the city are at serious risk of becoming homeless because they spend more than half of their income on rent.

   The report noted the hindrances to any real solution to the problem. They include growing poverty, a diminishing supply of rental housing, lack of supportive housing and other community supports for the mentally ill and people with addictions, as well as inter-government squabbling over who does - and pays for - what for the homeless, the crisis mindset and no co-ordination among support services.

   The bill to carry out all the recommendations could be $300 million. But, the report warned, the cost of not doing everything could be higher.

   The Harris Government is already ducking the report as they don’t want to spend more annually on housing subsidies.

   Councillor Anne Johnston (Midtown) said she's not sure how willing some councillors will be to permit more flexible living arrangements, such as basement apartments.

   The homeless problem worsened because of lower incomes and because the promised shelter subsidy promised by Harris never appeared. The Tories cut welfare benefits by 22 per cent, and the federal Liberals restricted access to unemployment insurance. The Harris tenant act increased evictions and the rents.

   The Tories stopped financing the building of affordable housing, as did the federal Liberals. But the private sector has not filled the void. The private sector is geared toward supplying the middle and upper ends of the housing market, not the bottom.

   The Tories are also trying to download the existing supply of social housing onto the municipalities as part of their downloading scheme. And Tory decontrol has seen many units converted to expensive condos. The federal Liberals, too, are trying to download their responsibilities for the existing stock - to the provinces.

   The Golden report does not recommend a reversal of the provincial downloading of social housing to the municipalities. Nor does the report call for reinstatement of the welfare benefits cut by the province.

More taken from a post by David Huschankski

HOUSING DISCRIMINATION - Human rights issues and housing discrimination have been acknowledged as problems but ignored.  Discrimination is not mentioned in any of the recommendations

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION MEASURES – The Golden report sees these measures as beyond its mandate.

“It is not uncommon for families that are staying in shelters or in motels, families with good credit histories and good references, to be refused an apartment by many different landlords. Discrimination can make the housing market impenetrable for those most in need of housing. “Landlords may use different criteria to select tenants, including income, age, marital or family status, disability, race, or ethnicity. Although this kind of selection contravenes the Human Rights Code, evidence suggests that many landlords do discriminate against people on social assistance.

Golden Report 0n Homelessness – The Media Missed a Hidden Recommendation - Though there was a lot of media coverage on the Golden report last week, all of the commentators seem to have missed a hidden recommendation. After putting together my file compiled from facts posted in other media I read the report and discovered that a number of facts and recommendations could have been combined into a single recommendation.
That recommendation would be this:
Recommendation A – Since the Government of Mike Harris is mostly responsible for the deteriorating situation in homelessness and poverty it is recommended that the citizens of Ontario vote them out of office in the upcoming Ontario Election.

Info condensed from the report
Some reasons for the homeless problem are lower incomes, and the promised shelter subsidy Harris never paid. The Tories cut welfare benefits by 22 per cent, and the federal Liberals restricted access to unemployment insurance. The Harris tenant act increased evictions and rents. The Tories stopped financing the building of affordable housing, as did the federal Liberals. But the private sector has not filled the void as the private sector is geared toward supplying the middle and upper ends of the housing market, not the bottom. The Tories downloaded the existing supply of social housing onto the municipalities as part of their downloading scheme. And Tory decontrol has seen many units converted to expensive condos.
   Growing poverty and a diminishing supply of rental housing are a direct result of Tory policies. As are poorly coordinated services, deinstitutionalization,lack of discharge planning by hospitals and jails,loss of supportive housing for young mothers, lack of transitional housing support for abused women and their children,needed funding for community legal clinics to help tenants, free prescription drugs for the poor and the need for infirmary beds.
   The cuts, drug user fees and the cuts to young mothers and abused women were all things the Tories brought us and we’ll get more of the same if they are re-elected.
   Another big hindrance not noted is that the Harris Government is already ducking the report as they don’t want to spend more annually on housing subsidies or the poor. So wouldn’t be easier to just vote Harris out of office and call it the biggest step forward in implementing the Golden Report.
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