Tail Wags: Toronto and Cash Crunch

tail wags: Read more Article Continued Below Cash crunch means TCH could board up a unit a day in 2018NDP pledges to pay a third of Toronto's community housing repair bill Toronto Community Housing units set to close despite residents' pleas react-empty 165 In brief, the problem with the city budget is that the tail wags the dog, according to Toronto Star. The budget discussion doesn't start by determining the city we want to build, and how much that will cost. Richard Lautens / Toronto Star By Feroza Mohammed Lee Soda Wed., May 10, 2017 How did it get to the point where our city is closing down Toronto Community Housing units even when more than 100,000 families are on wait lists for those very units How is it that our city cannot afford to ensure safe housing for city residents but it can afford to spend billions of dollars rebuilding a short stretch of the Gardiner Expressway Why can our city's leaders not even begin to reduce the long wait lists for affordable housing, child care, and recreation programs, or deal with overcrowded and unlivable shelters, but they can afford to keep residential property taxes at the lowest level in the Greater Toronto region As city councillors launch discussion of the 2018 budget this week, community leaders are suggesting that the flawed process by which the city develops and decides on its budget each year is contributing to the city's failure to address persistent and rising inequality in our city. It starts with a predetermined tax rate, which rules out from the very start, any consideration for making significant progress on our shared challenges. Council passed the budget direction and asked all city departments regardless of their relative impact on people's lives to cut 2.6 per cent from their spending. For the 2017 budget, without public consultation, council adopted a budget direction that took the tax rate as the top objective for our city, not building housing, or reducing poverty, or relieving congestion. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.