The following is a letter from CUPE Local 79 President Tim Maguire, sent to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford recommending strategies to make the Toronto Community Housing Corporation more accountable and responsive to the needs of its stakeholders.

Dear Mayor Ford,

RE: Audit Report Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC)

The recent Audit Report at TCHC has brought to light the concerns that Local 79 has raised in the past about the corporation, its governance and accountability.

Local 79 was pleased to see in the Audit Reports brought forward at the TCHC Board meeting on February 23, 2012 recommendations calling for closer co-ordination and integration between TCHC, its subsidiaries and the City in the areas of information technology, human resources, policy development, fleet management, compliance and ethics, procurement, and financial management.

Since amalgamation and the devolution of social housing by the province to municipalities, Local 79 has been calling on the City to co-ordinate and integrate governance at the TCHC and its subsidiaries to ensure quality services and accountability:

• In the 2011 and 2012 Budget processes Local 79 recommended that there were ‘efficiencies’ to be found by eliminating duplicate layers of management bureaucracy if TCHC was directly managed by the City.
• In our letter of March 4, 2011, Local 79 stated its objections to the creation of the subsidiaries at TCHC and questioned their purpose.
• Since the establishment of TCHC as an arms-length corporation, Local 79 has repeatedly stated that there would be greater control, accountability and transparency if it was directly managed by the City.
• Year after year far too many Board meetings at TCHC and its subsidiaries were conducted ‘in camera’, providing no opportunity for any external oversight. Local 79 questioned the ability of TCHC to operate in a transparent fashion while conducting business in three separate and independent Boards (TCHC, Housing Solutions Inc., and Housing Connections) and sought out the justification for this extreme cloaking and censoring of public information.

Social housing exists to meet a specific social need – to provide housing for people of limited incomes who otherwise would not be able to afford it. The City of Toronto has a responsibility to ensure that its social housing is responsive and accountable to the people it serves. That goal would be more likely achieved if there was further integration, accountability and transparency within the TCHC, and between the TCHC and the City.

Local 79 would like to meet with the City to elaborate on the opportunities available to the City to improve the administration of social housing.

Yours truly,

Tim Maguire
President