`Poor' residents on `rich' street?
Toronto Community Housing Corp. CEO Derek Ballantyne's comment – that by selling off its real estate assets and reinvesting that money in housing stock, the housing authority is letting the province and Ottawa off the hook for their responsibilities – reveals TCHC's true pervasive modus operandi: Do not do anything to actually improve our own wretched financial state that would allow our senior governments to even think about not giving us more money.
It would appear that Ballantyne cares little that by properly managing its balance sheet, TCHC may get one or two more families off the huge list of folks waiting for affordable housing.
I also suspect that Ottawa and Queen's Park are on to this overused ploy and are looking for signs of life in TCHC's ability to help itself out of this quagmire.
I suggest that Ballantyne stop using low-income families as political pawns to leverage the federal and provincial governments, and get on with truly managing TCHC's vast $6 billion worth of assets.
Howard Bortenstein, Toronto
Councillor Case Ootes's plan reads something like this: Let's remove three families from their homes, and relocate them to a highrise building in a troubled and isolated neighbourhood so we can keep social-housing residents together.
His logic reads like this: Poor people do not deserve to live in $500,000 homes in nice neighbourhoods, where they are taking up wasted space that could be better utilized to make substantial profits from wealthy homebuyers.
This sort of mindset reinforces the notion that the poor are undeserving and a burden on taxpayers. The class and income discrimination clearly evident in Ootes's proposal has no place in this city at a time when we should be developing innovative strategies that have in mind, first and foremost, the needs and best interests of the poor and low-income families.
Deanna Campbell, Toronto
Does Councillor Case Ootes not understand that the residents of these homes can vote? Are they not constituents in his area? Does he think their votes are less significant than those of their neighbours?
Do the children who live in these homes rate somewhere below children who live in neighbouring homes and deserve to be stigmatized?
Michael Sullivan, Toronto
Canada's poverty capital
Nov. 26
It is not only families and single parents who live at or below the poverty line. Many pensioners are in that same predicament. My and my wife's pensions (CPP and OAS) amount to about half of the $40,000-plus that our premier got as a raise. We wouldn't be able to survive on that if it weren't for our modest retirement savings.
I hope our politicians will think of solutions to this growing problem. It would be too much to hope that they will also hang their heads in shame for their own selfishness and greed.
Augusto Ribeiro, Toronto
Elderly women and men living on fixed incomes are among the poorest people in Toronto. They just don't happen to show up hungry at school, nor are they able to walk far enough to shop at Goodwill. They're likely not cashing cheques at those payday loan joints either.
They're more likely to be stuck unnoticed in rental apartments, often unable to get out and buy food. They are socially isolated and often have no voice to speak for them.
I didn't notice anything about them among all of the alarming news on poverty.
Janet L. Seabrook, Mississauga
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