Tripping up OCRAP
Some 50 members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) marched from Rosedale Station to the Toronto Community Housing Corporation's Yonge Street offices last Wednesday (August 1) armed with a dossier of complaints from tenants about shoddy conditions in TCHC-run buildings, only to find the doors closed and cops at the ready.
OCAP spokesperson John Clarke says the anti-poverty group was notified by TCHC by mail that OCAP would be allowed to attend the meeting of the board of directors but not to make a submission.
When OCAP showed up, they found that the board had already completed the public portion of the meeting and gone in-camera, leaving OCAP members stranded in the lobby. Clarke says the board "rushed through" before OCAP got there.
However, TCHC CEO Derek Ballantyne says the group arrived about two hours late for the 9:30 am meeting, and that OCAP wasn't allowed to make a deputation to the board regarding residents' complaints because the issue wasn't on the agenda.
Ballantyne blames the provincial and federal governments for the general state of disrepair of TCHC buildings. The corporation plans to spend $100 million on repairs next year, but says it needs three times that amount.
"Tenants recognize that it's not issues of daily maintenance or the quality of maintenance we're delivering. It's just that these buildings are very old and that there are insufficient funds at this point."
OCAP says the city shouldn't abandon tenants while waiting for more funding from other levels of government.
Clarke was able to hand letters containing tenants' complaints to a member of TCHC's corporate planning staff; they'll be responded to in a couple of weeks, says Ballantyne.
As for the presence of five police officers from 53 Division, Staff Sergeant Tony Riviere says it was to ensure that vehicle and pedestrian traffic wasn't impeded during OCAP's jaunt to TCHC.
3 comments:
hah hah they really get yer goat don't they heh.
No! The majority of people who live in subsidized housing are hard working families who make a contribution to the economy and society and this is just a brief stop for them until they can raise enough money to buy their own housing. I am sure you have seen this trend over the many years you have lived in subsidized housing.......
Here is an excerpt from this page on Sean Meagher and Toronto Community Housing at and how the NDP profit off of the poor
Save Our Structures and Toronto Public Housing
Toronto Community Housing Corporation, (TCHC,) the public housing company owned by the City of Toronto, encourages tenants who are unhappy with the unlivable conditions in many of the buildings to join a group called Save Our Structures.
TCHC, the public housing landlord says joining SOS is the way to protest against them. But then TCHC is the one who funds this group that they falsely claim is a grassroots organization.
Why would the landlord encourage tenants to join a group to fight them? Of course because it is a sham they created themselves!
It was TCHC who paid local politco Sean Meagher, former longtime executive assistant to Toronto city councillor Pam McConnell to run the "tenant association".
Sean Meagher is known as a local politico who at election times tries to exercise his influence by creating political action groups like the Scarborough Civic Action Network whose email is ScarboroughCAN@publicinterest.ca.
Another groups that Meagher runs are Action for Neighbourhood Change Scarborough Village
Meagher's income comes from his for profit business named Public Interest Strategy & Communications Incorporated, publicinterest.ca, whose income comes from nonprofit groups especially the ones he helps create.
His company was paid by the City of Toronto's, Economic Development department, to write a report called, "Regent Park Employment, Skills & Economic Development Study" so you know he doesn't want to upset the city and risk not getting any more big contracts like that one...
Post a Comment