jconnelly's blog

I was born in 1955. For most of us, the 1950s conjure up an image of shiny faces in shiny new suburban homes. Mom is in the kitchen, dad is at work, and kids play happily on the front lawn. 

It seems odd that an era so beloved of conservatives could be affordable housing heaven. Yet I believe it was a time when the modest requests of today’s housing activists — re-invest housing savings to preserve our housing stock; create new homes for the next generation – would not receive the chilly response they do today. They would have been seen as simple common sense. 

Housing stability. Rapid re-housing. Prevention. Diversion.

These were the words that guided discussion at the first of four service provider consultations hosted by the City of Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration Division last week. The consultations are a welcome opportunity to inform the City’s Five-Year Housing Stability Plan and the public’s annual $650 Million investment in housing and homelessness.

The headline in the Saturday Globe was disturbing enough: Residents of Toronto public housing four times more likely to be murder victims.