The case against change

Hmmm.

When I wrote what I thought was a provocative call to de-amalgamate TCHC last week, I expected a deluge of counter-arguments (at least in my email box) from my housing colleagues.

But except for Gordon Mack Scott, whom I have enjoyed meeting via the comments section of my blog, the counter-case didn’t materialize.

It looks like I’ll just have to write it myself. Here are the difficulties I see in de-amalgamating TCHC.

Change is awful

Toronto Community Housing is just 14 years old. Yet it has already withstood the amalgamation of three very different organizational cultures, at least two major departmental re-organizations, a trashing, a purge, a turnaround, another re-organization, more trashings, and now me.

How much “turning around” can one organization stand? The staff must feel like contestants in that old game Blind Man’s Bluff, twirled around so many times they lose all sense of direction and begin walking into walls.

Perhaps it would be better to simply leave TCHC alone so staff can get on with their jobs.

The goodbyes and hellos

De-amalgamation would create literally hundreds of new jobs in the field: property managers, social workers, mental health workers, security staff, and so on. But they are unlikely to be filled with TCHC’s head office staff.

That means some of the smartest, most hardworking people at TCHC – the ones my heart ached for as I wrote my last entry – will lose their jobs, and the housing sector will lose some of its brightest lights.

It also means a scramble to find the right people to fill those hundreds of new jobs. Personally, I can think of few jobs more satisfying than joining a team of like-minded people to create a great community. My first real job after grad school was managing a co-op. I couldn’t have asked for a more exciting role: buying and renovating houses, supporting a community, and testing out new ideas.

Housing management wasn’t just a starter job for graduates either. I’m thinking today of artist and development consultant Adam Czerechowicz, who culminated his career by becoming a property manager of a small Parkdale non-profit, and led its Green Phoenix transformation until his untimely death.

But I also know few people see the these jobs the way I do, and many small co-ops and non-profits are finding it difficult to recruit on-site staff. The TCHC jobs will avoid two challenges the small non-profits face: they will pay union salaries and they will involve staff teams rather than one-person offices. Nonetheless, I think finding the right talent to fill these jobs might be the single greatest obstacle to de-amalgamation.

Conflicted leaders

The conundrum of decentralizing TCHC is that the people in a position to do something are the very people who don’t want to.

TCHC’s senior staff are the best positioned to recommend organizational changes to the TCHC board. But how can they be expected to eliminate their own jobs? It might be different if most senior staff were close to retirement. But one of TCHC’s successes in the last decade has been the recruitment of young, bright employees into policy positions. They are not ready to move on.

It’s not just a matter of self-interest either. Most head office staff I have met are devoted to TCHC’s well-being. They see how hard they and their colleagues are working – in some cases harder than the front line – and no doubt would like to see more resources, not fewer, at the centre.

The TCHC Board has the authority to determine its internal organization. But it is also responsible, legally and in the public eye, for everything that happens at TCHC. It’s a big leap to reduce the board’s control and give power to local operating units. And would the board be satisfied with leading a public land trust – rich in assets but with far fewer staff — instead of North America’s second largest social landlord? Possibly. The current board actually has more directors with real estate experience than housing management experience. But it would be a brave move.

If TCHC doesn’t lead, then who can?

The City of Toronto is the natural choice. It is TCHC’s sole shareholder, its chief funder (next to tenants) and its regulator.

But if City Councillors and City staff want to make real change they too will have to resist the lure of control. Many regulators – not just the City – chafe at independent agencies, boards, and commissions of any type, and would rather regulate one big corporation than many small ones.

In yesterday’s Globe I saw Doug Ford musing about bringing TCHC, TTC and Hydro into a single City real estate division. l’ve heard others muse about making TCHC a city department. There may be merits in these proposals. But it takes a rare detachment to cooly evaluate the pros and cons when the results affect your control over every decision that comes afterwards.

As for the federal or provincial governments, I can’t imagine them wading in. “Get involved,” they will think, “and the next thing you know people will be expecting us to fund the darn thing.”

Returning to where I was

In my last entry I called on us to “put on our thinking caps” and begin to explore the pros and cons of de-amalgamating TCHC. Today, I’m making the same call.

Almost everyone I know – from the housing sector’s most respected veterans to friends who just know what they read in the paper – think TCHC needs fundamental change. Many think TCHC is too big. But I have not yet heard a serious proposal for what that change might look like.

Isn’t it time to stop muttering about change, and actually start talking and thinking in earnest? And if our government leaders are conflicted or reluctant, are there civic leaders ready to come forward?

I believe there are few initiatives that could have as great a city-wide impact – or do more to help Toronto’s lowest income neighbourhoods – than making TCHC work.

Who will lead?