When public housing was paradise
The headline in the Saturday Globe was disturbing enough: Residents of Toronto public housing four times more likely to be murder victims.
But I found myself equally rattled by the 285 on-line comments that followed. There were vitriolic references to “welfare bums,” the “psychiatrically deranged,” “gang-bangers, drug dealers, crack whores and other miscreants.” But if I looked past the mean-spiritedness, I could see a consensus opinion that even progressives might share: that social housing is simply unworkable, and that low-income neighbourhoods – especially those with black majorities — will inevitably be breeding grounds for crime.
Earlier this year, I read a book that challenged this view. It is the tantalizingly-entitled When Public Housing was Paradise, J.S. Fuerst’s compilation of 79 first-person accounts from people who lived or worked in Chicago’s public housing in the 1940s to 1970s. Read more…
Getting the best from TCHC’s houses
The debate that has swirled around Toronto Community Housing’s sale of 22 houses has proved one thing: scattered units really are a valuable commodity.
Thanks to the foresight of governments in the 1960s and 70s, who snapped up these houses for an average $39,000 apiece, we have the luxury of choices. We can continue to provide affordable downtown homes for large families. We can leverage new investment. Or we can sell the properties — now or in the future — to raise cash for capital repairs in other buildings.
The only debate is, “how can we get the best value from each property?”
Why scattereds matter
When City Council’s Executive Committee approved the sale of 22 houses owned by Toronto Community Housing today, I wasn’t surprised. I knew that TCHC had planned the sale of those houses for years – part of a Real Estate Asset Investment Strategy designed to reinvest funds in other TCHC communities.
Does that mean TCHC should briskly sell off the rest of its scattered unit portfolio? Absolutely not! Properly managed, scattered units can be the gift that keeps on giving. Here’s why.
Why can’t TCHC be more supportive?
In her last entry, Rosemary Gray-Snelgrove showed us the power of supportive housing, where compassionate staff help create a safe and caring community.
Why can’t Toronto Community Housing be more like that? Why can’t staff forge the trusting relationships that can make all the difference in tenants’ lives? These are the questions that lurk behind much of TCHC’s media coverage. The answer?
It all comes down to numbers. Read more…
Supportive housing — who benefits?
We all do! The benefits of helping someone move from intractable poverty to feeling some hope about being able to support her/himself spread through the society. It’s not just that that person might actually cost the public purse less and even contribute taxes. It’s that hospital costs, jail costs, social services costs can dip. AND for those subject to that darned compassion, they can sleep a little better knowing that some others are less miserable.
Thoughts on procurement — in real life
Last month, Toronto Community Housing’s procurement practices came under scrutiny by the Auditor General, City Council, the media and the public. For many fair-minded people, the failure to follow the rules was a stumbling block. They believe that, no matter what, there has to be a transparent and fair process in obtaining sub-contractors to do jobs, even small ones.
"Grayed in" no more
My dad was born in 1923 in an industrial slum in Manchester, England.
If you’ve read Angela’s Ashes, you’ll know the scene: drunken dads, outdoor plumbing, freezing flats and windows caked with coal soot every morning.
But my dad’s stories of his boyhood were not tales of deprivation. In fact, I did not realize my dad was poor until I went to university, and heard his childhood home described in a class on slum housing. But then, I don’t think my dad thought he was poor either.
Being the problem others must solve
I think many of us are familiar with these “poor but happy” stories. But have you noticed how many of these stories are about the past? Or take place in other countries?
Why is that? It could simply be that we see our past through rosy lenses. But I’m not so sure. I think that the lives of today’s low-income Canadians are filled with petty humiliations that were entirely unknown to my dad.
To be poor in Canada is to be seen as a problem that needs to be solved – and solved by other people. You are dependent on others and their good opinion to get cash or services you need. If you try to strike out on your own you lose your place in the system; if you try to set aside a little cash, you disqualify yourself from services.
Most of all, you are seen to be marginal in a way that would have been totally foreign to my dad. He and his neighbours saw themselves as the salt of the earth and the heart of the nation. For them, it was the rich who were useless, invisible and expendable.
Grayed in, and gray.
When I started working in social housing 30 years ago, I had grand ideas about justice and equity, and decent, affordable housing for all. But now I wonder just how much I may have unwittingly – and with the best intentions – contributed to the life described in Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, Kitchenette Building: “We are things of dry hours, and the involuntary plan. Grayed in, and gray.”
It doesn’t have to be that way.
I can think of half a dozen changes that would cost little — and might even save money — that would turn “gray housing” into places of opportunity.
- We could start by transforming the social housing waiting list. No other housing in Ontario requires its residents to queue up. I can think of no other public service where wait times exceed 3, 5 even 10 years.
- Then re-think the rules that restrict transfers within social housing. Why should social housing tenants have to prove they are over-housed, under-housed, abused or ill before they can move? Why can’t they move when they want to, just like everyone else?
- And what about rent geared-to-income subsidies – that bulwark against disaster, but also the trap that discourages people from earning a little extra, or moving up in the world.
- And then there are the petty rules that discourage initiative and prevent tenants from enjoying their homes: no home businesses; no home improvements; no decorations to your unit door; no doing your own repairs – even when you know what you’re doing, and scheduled maintenance is months away.
I think about all the ways social housing residents are segregated from the rest of the city. I think of the word “housing” – a phrase that only social housing tenants use to describe their own homes.
I started this blog because I believe in social housing. But I also believe it needs a fresh vision.
I am looking for ideas that will revitalize social housing, and free tenants to enjoy the things my dad valued: ingenuity, camaraderie, adventure, and a certain joyfulness and vitality that is rarely associated with social housing these days – although I know it is there, waiting to be set loose.
Join me in my search!
Opening the Window 