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With a critical stream of federal funding set to run dry in 2027, Toronto Community Housing has been handed a roadmap to tighten up how it prioritizes and organizes its building repairs going forward.
A new report from the city’s auditor general lays out a long to-do list for the social housing provider to make its repair work more efficient as it faces the potential loss of half of its capital repair budget.
On Monday, the housing agency’s president and CEO Sean Baird confirmed he had accepted all 10 of the recommendations laid out in a new report from Toronto Auditor General Tara Anderson.
Given the looming funding cliff, the auditor general’s report describes the importance of making sure money is “effectively prioritized to meet the most critical needs.”
“The [report] underscores the scale and challenge that TCHC faces in managing a large, ageing portfolio,” Baird said, adding that better planning for repairs of the social housing provider’s 1300 buildings is “essential.”
The 10 recommendations fall into three categories: better tracking and reporting of what needs to be done, a more transparent prioritization process for projects and improved data collection.
The recommendations come just months before a federal funding commitment, which at present makes up more than half of the agency’s annual building capital repair budget, is set to expire.
Between 2026 and 2035, the agency anticipates $4.5 billion in required investments. At present, it has just $1.5 billion in planned funding — which could push as many as 54 per cent of the housing provider’s portfolio into critical condition.
AG recommends shoring up tracking, data
Over the course of a half-hour presentation to the agency’s board of directors on Monday, Anderson and her deputy auditor general, Ina Chan, described a number of examples of disorganized or poorly documented systems for planning out repairs.
“The reasons for reprioritizing or deferring projects are not always well-documented, including why higher priority needs are not always addressed first,” Chan said at one point.
At another point, she described inconsistencies in when staff drew from a funding pot earmarked for emergencies, sometimes using it to pay for planned or non-urgent work.
Baird says the suggestions laid out by the auditor general track well with internal priorities already identified by the agency when it comes to making its repair work more efficient.
He also told the housing provider’s board of directors that TCHC is actively pushing for stable new funding sources from all levels of government.
“Without continued federal support after 2027, the [repair] backlog will grow, and building conditions will deteriorate very quickly,” said Baird.
“We have a comprehensive advocacy plan,” said Baird. “We will marshal every piece of evidence we can find to try and make [our] case.”
The federal and provincial governments did not respond to question about plans to address the 2027 funding gap by publication time.