Toronto's public housing agency should establish an independent "housing equity" office to prevent evictions like the one that preceded the death of 82-year-old Al Gosling, a new report recommends.
"This office must be independent of [Toronto Community Housing Corporation] management structure and must have adequate staffing and resources to carry out this very important function ... without change we risk a recurrence of the circumstances that gave rise to the eviction and subsequent death of Al Gosling," Justice Patrick LeSage wrote in the executive summary of his review, released Friday.
TCHC retained Justice LeSage, the former chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court, to investigate the circumstances of Mr. Gosling's eviction and to recommend improvements to the housing agency's policies.
Mr. Gosling died in October 2009 of an infection picked up in a shelter. He had been homeless for five months following TCHC's decision to kick him out of 11 Arleta Avenue, the North York building where he had lived for 21 years.
When Mr. Gosling failed to fill out the paperwork to renew his subsidized rent, TCHC reset his monthly payment at market rates. As his arrears piled up, Mr. Gosling failed to answer the stream of letters that TCHC mailed him warning of his pending eviction. He was just shy of his 82nd birthday when he was padlocked out of his apartment in May 2009.
Justice LeSage recommended that, in future, TCHC make "every effort" to contact tenants by phone or in person before starting the eviction process.
"The current strategy of sending to tenants a constant stream of letters, some of which use threatening language, needs to change," he wrote. "Staff must make every effort to contact tenants in order to understand the root of the arrears problem and where possible rectify it at the earliest opportunity. This will not be accomplished solely by letter writing."
More to come
Kelly Grant