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Newsstand: September 11, 2015
While a controversial opinion among Torontoist staffers, this particular writer is happy to welcome fall and the attending glorious days of sweaters and falling leaves. Sweet, sweet pants weather. In the news today, the TCHC is trying to make life better for its residents, a Toronto Olympic bid has even fewer fans than before, and a controversial police unit may be on the way out.
The Toronto Community Housing Corporation, long under fire for its multi-billion-dollar repair backlog and the subject of its residents’ frustrations, has released 71 measures it plans to undertake to improve life for people living in TCHC housing. TCHC told media these measures would be implemented this year and next. Among the 71 points, all of which can be read in the full report, are rebates to subsidized housing residents who currently pay for their own electricity; improved after-hours access for contractors working on elevators, and efforts made to have elevators reset more quickly after fire alarms; resident consultations and the development of a Resident Charter; and changes to community policing.
The rumoured plans to launch a Toronto bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics have hit yet another snag: Mississauga is uninterested in participating. The city council there voted unanimously against participating in a hypothetical Toronto bid for the Olympics, with mayor Bonnie Crombie citing “lasting implicaitons… long after the Games have concluded.” The deadline to submit an expression of interest is Tuesday, and Toronto mayor John Tory has yet to say whether or not the city will submit one, but if he does on behalf of the city it will be against the counsel of many people in Toronto. From Crombie to former mayor Rob Ford, support for another global sporting event in the city so soon is scattershot at best, and the Olympics are increasingly mired in controversy.
Pointing to a potential shift in how the province approaches crime-fighting, Ontario will cut the budget of the controversial Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy police unit from $5 million this year to $2.63 million in 2016. The end goal is to shut the unit down entirely. TAVIS has a reputation for straining relations between police and over-policed, marginalized populations in Toronto, and for its high rate of carding (the two often go hand in hand). Moving away from TAVIS and the police tactics associated with it may mean the province, at least, is interested in focusing more on preventing violent crimes than on hunting down perps after the fact.