By: Jahnelle Simpson
Raven Findleter, a resident of Toronto housing neighbourhood Joe Shuster Way, has lived in her area for approximately 17 years and has seen it crumble before her eyes.
The Board of Directors of Toronto Community Housing approved a 2018 budget of $1.04 billion which consists of a $585 million operating budget.
“The board has again played an active and constructive role in shaping this year’s budget. Through their diligent efforts, board members and staff have developed a prudent and responsible budget that will keep TCHC focused on providing better housing and delivering better service to tenants,” said N.W. Bud Purves, Chair, Board of Directors in a press release.
The 2018 budget will go towards repairing and improving housing areas.
While this may be a step in the right direction, the work is nowhere near done.
“There is so much that we still need to do in terms of housing in the city of Toronto,” said Toronto city councillor of Parkdale, one of Toronto’s infamous housing neighbourhoods, Gord Perks.
The approved budget funding will prevent as many as 7,500 deteriorating social housing units from being boarded up and closed down by 2022.
Toronto Community Housing has come up with a plan to ensure no more units close. It’s going to involve a lot of $ https://t.co/WKmdTrGdj0
— Jennifer Pagliaro (@jpags) September 28, 2017
Toronto will be responsible for committing $160-million every year for the next decade.
Coun. Joe Cressy, a member of the TCH board, told CBC that in order to keep these buildings open it is important that they get funds from all levels of governments.
The 2018 operating budget will go to improving tenant safety and cleanliness of the units but housing residents say that this is still not enough.
“I have lived in housing pretty much all of my life and year after year they say there will be a difference but still everything looks the same and it has been 17 years,” said Findleter.
Perks also agrees that the funding is good and fixes some problems but the city needs a stronger commitment to make sure their residents are not homeless.
“Theres more people looking for housing rather than people actually living in housing and it’s ridiculous,” said Perks.
So far THC has secured $1 billion from the city while the province and federal governments have not yet invested.