A Canadian senator who once held Toronto's top job will be leading a new task force aimed at improving housing affordability in the city.
Toronto Mayor John Tory made the announcement Friday.
Sen. Art Eggleton, who served as the mayor of Toronto from 1980 to 1991, will join five others in the search for solutions to high housing costs.
"We have so many people who can't afford to live in the City of Toronto, who have to commute for long distances to their jobs," Eggleton said at a news conference with Mayor John Tory.
As a member of the Senate, Eggleton led a study into the housing crisis in Canada, which urged the county to find a safe, affordable housing solution.
The report contained 74 recommendations designed to alleviate poverty across Canada.
As part of the task force, Eggleton will look at rates of owning and renting residences in the city.
"Affordable housing has clearly got to be a priority in this city, so that people of different income levels can live in Toronto," Eggleton said.
Tory said the group's first priority will be to examine the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, which owns approximately 2,300 buildings with 58,000 units in the city.
"Toronto Community Housing is Canada's largest landlord," Tory said Friday.
"I want it to be a housing provider that we can be proud of."
TCHC and its staff has been the subject of audits and reports, Tory said.
An ombudsman's report into the company last April said that senior executives ignored conflicts of interest when hiring, giving raises and firing staff recklessly.
The report, written by Toronto Ombudsman Fiona Crean, said human resources policies weren't being followed. Several executives stepped down as a result of the TCHC review.
"There's still a lot to be done."
Calling TCHC the "cornerstone" of social housing, Eggleton said he'd be looking at the buildings themselves and the communities in which the buildings are located. He said the buildings need to be safe, secure and socially inclusive.
The task force will be speaking with community members, residents, stakeholders and TCHC representatives. Eggleton said the task force will release an interim report by July, and a final report by the end of the year.
"At the end of the day, I want people who live in Toronto community housing now and in the future to feel that it is their home, to feel comfortable in their home."
The other members of the task force are:
- Janet Mason, University of Toronto public policy professor
- Ed Clark, former CEO of TD Canada Trust
- Bryan F.C. Smith, former president of Woodgreen Community Services
- Blake Hutcheson, CEO of Oxford Property Group
- Muna Mohamed, TCHC tenant representative
City to rent motel rooms as extra shelter space
A Toronto city councillor said that the city will make an additional 90 beds available for the city's homeless community as part of a short-term solution to a shortage of shelter space.
Coun. Joe Mihevc told reporters Thursday that the city will rent rooms that can be used when shelters fill up. The motel rooms will be given to longer-term shelter residents who have been placed on a lengthy waiting list for permanent social housing.
Moving shelter users to motels will free up some of the city's 4,400 shelter beds to those who need short-term housing.
The motel rooms are expected to be made available by Monday, Mihevc said.
According to Toronto's daily shelter census, 93 per cent of the city's shelter beds were occupied on Thursday night, the average occupancy rate on most nights.
In April 2013, the city voted to cut the occupancy rate down to 90 per cent, but the number has yet to drop.
