All 114 families who used to live at the Swansea Mews complex in the west end of Toronto have been forced from their homes because they have been deemed structurally unsafe. A ceiling panel in one home fell in late May, seriously injuring a local Mom. Now, for the foreseeable future, these 114 families face incredible uncertainty, frustration, overwhelm, and unexpected expenses, as they find themselves without secure housing, not knowing when (if ever) they might be able to return to Swansea Mews.
Throughout our campaign’s 8-year history, Fix Our Schools has periodically followed the issue of disrepair in Toronto Community Housing (TCH) buildings. The dynamic of chronic and gross underfunding is similar to the dynamic faced by school boards. A long history of downloading responsibility for important social goods like schools, education and social housing while higher levels of government fail to provide the adequate, stable funding required has not lead to positive outcomes, as is evidenced in the recent case of Swansea Mews.
Frustratingly, we have read in several news reports that the Swansea Mews complex was operating at only around 75% capacity when the ceiling tile file in late May. In a city where affordable housing is so desperately needed, this seems unacceptable and short-sighted. Fix Our Schools has been trying to ascertain why 25% of this affordable housing stock remained empty, and to find out the occupancy rate of TCH properties overall. Our suspicion is that the 25% of units not in use at Swansea Mews had been in such a state of disrepair that they were deemed uninhabitable, and our suspicion is also that this situation is not unique to this one TCH property. As of July 18, 2022, we have not received confirmation of these suspicions but will update this blog accordingly once we have the information we are seeking.
If our suspicions are confirmed, then this is an issue that rests on the shoulders of all 3 levels of government, and is a fairly straight forward issue of simply providing sufficient money for TCH to be able to reasonably take care of its buildings. If we, as a society agree that affordable housing is an important social good, then there is no excuse for failing to provide the stable, adequate funding required to ensure that these homes are safe, healthy and well-maintained.