George Hallam lived and died alone in a one bedroom apartment in a building owned by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, otherwise known as TCHC. Hallam suffered from serious mental health issues and, unable to take care of himself, he was basically left to rot in a pile of human filth in an apartment infested with cockroaches and bed bugs. When Hallam died in January, 2009, his body lay, undiscovered for days.
Weeks later, Hallam's close friend, Annie, took W-FIVE's Victor Malarek into the apartment to show us the deplorable conditions where he lived and died.
"You don't see it because there's not enough people that really care and want to show you anything," said Annie, complaining that tenants of Toronto Community Housing, like Hallam are ignored and forgotten. She charges that TCHC hides the truth of how people are living.
"Please God, forgive me, but they don't care. (Toronto Community) Housing does not care," she said.
TCHC estimates that as many as 10 per cent of the 164,000 tenants living in its buildings suffer from mental health problems like Hallam. There is also a large population of elderly and physically disabled people who must fend for themselves.
As TCHC is required to conduct annual inspections of all its apartments, inspectors should have known just how dire Hallam's situation was - but it appears no red flags were raised.
Pointing out the cobwebs, the holes in the walls and floors that were rotting under her feet, Annie wonders, "How in God's name do you not notice this?"
It's an all too familiar situation for Toronto lawyer Sarah Shartal. She's been helping TCHC tenants with disabilities and mental health issues for years.
"They present themselves as if they are an ordinary landlord and they're not," said Shartal. "The problem in public housing is that we have stripped social housing of its social component."
Long-term neglect
The man in charge of Toronto Community Housing, CEO Derek Ballantyne, agreed to an interview with W-FIVE. Questioned about the death of George Hallam and the condition of his apartment, Ballantyne claimed TCHC had intervened -- six months prior to the tenant's death they had made repairs to his apartment to bring it back to a pristine condition.
But when W-FIVE visited Hallam's former apartment there was no evidence of recent repairs. There were signs of long-term neglect everywhere -- torn up floors, peeling paint, rotten kitchen cupboards and mould. The fridge, which was apparently new, stood out like a beacon in the crumbling surroundings.
Ballantyne conceded that the apartment was no longer pristine and, apparently blaming TCHC's tenants for some of the disrepair, insisted: "That's the kind of degradation you get in an apartment like that in less than six months after they've been brought back to a good standard."
While Toronto Community Housing is landlord to some of Toronto's most impoverished and needy citizens, Ballantyne claims it is unreasonable to expect TCHC to do the work of Public Health authorities and social workers, hospitals or family members.
According to Ballantyne, TCHC's role is only to "put resources at their disposal to make sure they have access to those services" -- assuming they ask for help.
"If they self-identify, (and) a large number of people self-identify, we will make sure they are connected," said Ballantyne.
But what happens to those without the mental capacity to "self-identify"? Does TCHC have the moral responsibility to look after the health and safety of all its tenants?
Cash-strapped
Shartal argues that the taxpayer-owned landlord does. She claims that it is not hard to identify which clients they should be helping.
"It's not that they can't do it; it's that they don't do it," said Shartal, who believes the cash-strapped public company is failing to do its job. "They actually get special money for what are called special needs clients but they don't provide the service."
Documents obtained by W-FIVE indicate that as early as 2003, TCHC was aware of the problem. Minutes from board meetings in 2007 show that Toronto Community Housing budgeted $200,000 to develop a mental health framework for tenants. Two years later it has yet to be implemented.
Pest problems
At 200 Wellesley Street, the apartment where George Hallam lived and died, TCHC has spent over $9-million on improvements to the building. But for other tenants, like John Ploeg, that money doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. Ploeg tries to keep his apartment clean, but is still over run with bed bugs. His arms and legs have been bitten extensively and he's even had to go to the doctor to have a bug removed from his ear.
Cockroaches were a problem for Stan Brodzinski, a legally-blind tenant who lives on a meager disability pension. W-FIVE featured his plight in its first investigation of conditions at TCHC apartments, broadcast in 2008. Cockroaches and bugs ran free around the apartment, crawling out of cupboards and over countertops.
Within days of the broadcast of W-FIVE's program, staff from Toronto Housing paid Brodzinski a visit. They ordered him to clean his apartment so that they could spray it to kill the pests. After spraying, TCHC also replaced his bathroom and caulked around some of the places where the cockroaches were entering his apartment. Brodzinski was ordered to throw out his furniture and to keep it clean -- and charged $300 by TCHC for the clean-up -- money he can ill afford.
During a return visit from W-FIVE a year later, Brodzinski reported that while the "critters" -- as he calls the insects -- were fewer, they were beginning to reappear from places that hadn't been sealed properly, like electrical outlets and light switches which are natural entry points for the pests.
W-FIVE had also reported on the state of Connie Harrison's TCHC apartment - and found it infested with bed bugs and cockroaches. On a return visit, Harrison said that TCHC has sprayed and replaced the cupboards in her kitchen. But she, too, is finding that the bugs are "starting to trickle back in because there's other unsealed spots."
When W-FIVE asked TCHC CEO Ballantyne about the problems of cockroaches, mice and bed bugs, he acknowledged there were still issues but insisted that things are getting better.
"We do feel proud that we have really in a sense, been able to break the back of the biggest part of the problem."
During the past year, Toronto Community Housing has received money from both the City of Toronto, which owns the Corporation, the Ontario provincial government, and has been promised money from the federal government, but it's a drop in the bucket when compared to the estimated $200-million just to bring TCHC buildings up to standard.
Those buildings dot the Toronto skyline -- $6-billion worth of real estate, which consists of high-rises, townhouses and even single-family homes. A survey of TCHC properties by W-FIVE found many easily visible problems: gaping holes, exposed wiring, ceilings that are collapsing, black mould and furniture and trash that continue to pile up. Some of the buildings are in such a state of disrepair that TCHC has admitted it no longer makes financial sense to keep repairing them. It is trying to sell three of the multi-story apartment buildings and 45 houses.
