Toronto's public housing agency should establish an independent "housing equity" office and mandate face-to-face service 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 Corp.]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," retired judge Patrick LeSage wrote in the executive summary of his review, released Friday.
The chair of the TCHC's board said it's too early to determine whether the agency has the resources and latitude to create the new independent office, the most significant of the 81 recommendations in Mr. LeSage's sweeping report.
But David Mitchell and the agency's CEO, Keiko Nakamura, said they're already working on some of the review's other suggestions, including stripping "threatening" language from arrears and eviction notices and visiting more at-risk tenants.
"We take [Mr. Gosling's]death very seriously. It's had a profound impact on the organization," Mr. Mitchell said. "It's been a catalyst for us to look at ourselves and look at how we can improve and serve vulnerable tenants better."
Mr. Gosling died in October, 2009, of an infection picked up in a shelter. He had been homeless for five months after TCHC's decision to kick him out of 11 Arleta Ave., 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 address the stream of letters TCHC mailed him warning of his pending eviction. On May 28, 2009, Mr. Gosling, just shy of his 82nd birthday, was padlocked out of his apartment.
Mr. LeSage, the former chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court, does not assign blame for Mr. Gosling's death, but he decries the often confusing, contradictory and even threatening process that leads to TCHC tenants losing their homes.
For instance, tenants who are three days late paying rent receive a letter that warns: "If you do not pay your rent, you could lose your unit. By law, Toronto Community Housing has the right to evict tenants for not paying rent."
The language grows more alarming with each letter, according to Mr. LeSage. "I heard many accounts as to the consequences of such a letter. I heard from, and of, tenants whose blood pressure increased dramatically, of tenants who withdrew into a cocoon, of tenants who became paralyzed with fear and would not open their mail or answer their phone."
He recommends TCHC tone down and simplify the language in such letters, especially those mailed to tenants who are only a few days late or owe a paltry sum.
"We've already gone back to change the language and the frequency of those letters," Ms. Nakamura said.
Current TCHC policies require the agency to "directly contact" tenants while trying to collect back rent or evict them. But the agency's eviction prevention policy considers a letter direct contact. Mr. LeSage recommended the policy be changed to require, "at the very least one face-to-face meeting, absent exceptional circumstances."
Although the TCHC executes only about 40 evictions a month - less than 1 per cent of the 5,000 eviction notes it issues monthly - the retired jurist said the agency could still do better.