Councillor Doug Ford’s controversial comments that a home for disabled youth in his Etobicoke ward has “ruined the community” spread to the campaign trail Sunday as he continued to defend his remarks.

“It’s turned into an absolute nightmare,” Ford told CP24 on Sunday, referring to the west-end facility. “If someone told me this was going to happen I wouldn’t OK it.

“It’s not about kids with autism,” he continued. “It’s about kids that have violent behaviour, and I want to care for those folks, too.” He suggested screaming can be heard in pre-dawn hours, cars are being broken into and emergency services are frequently called.

Ford was referring to a home run by the Griffin Centre, a non-profit multi-service mental health agency. He suggested the Liberal government and Premier Kathleen Wynne are to blame for shutting down Thistletown Regional Centre.

“It was a beautiful centre, had 43 acres that allowed families to have their children with challenges there. Since she has closed that down they have dispersed these folks throughout the west-end.”

Wynne, who was campaigning for the June 12 Ontario election on Sunday, did not respond directly to Ford’s comments.

But she said her government had set aside $810 million in her last budget for services for children and adults with developmental difficulties. She blamed the opposition for rejecting the budget which triggered the election.

“There has not been a government that has put as much focus and as much effort into children with autism and adults with autism,” Wynne told reporters.

The controversy ignited after the Etobicoke Guardian reported on a meeting Ford attended last week with staff from the home and a group of “angry, anxious” residents. Many said they want it moved to another part of Toronto.

“Something is very, very wrong with your facility that the police come so often,” one man told the meeting.

The centre recently purchased and renovated the house on Jeffcoat Dr. near Kipling Ave. and Westhumber Blvd.

Some neighbours living near the Etobicoke home told the Star Sunday that they agreed Ford. “I think they should go,” said Gord Ardron, 69, who claims to hear screaming coming from the house after dark. “I think they should be in a place by themselves.”

Others think the situation is being blown out of proportion. “I don’t think (three) kids can take over a street,” said Kevan Vaughan, 49, who lives on the adjacent Ixworth Rd. “How can they influence possibly 300 people in this neighbourhood?”

The home has capacity for five teens, but currently cares for three, Deanna Dannell, Griffin Centre’s director of youth and family support services, told the Star on Saturday.

“Typically, we don’t have emergency services come as much as they have in the last few weeks,” Dannell told the Guardian.

“We can’t have fire trucks and police cars and EMS there all the time and eight cars parked on the street. You’ve ruined the community,” Ford said Thursday addressing Griffin Centre staff.

“You can’t destroy a community like this. People have worked 30 years for their home . . . My heart goes out to kids with autism. But no one told me they’d be leaving the house. If it comes down to it, I’ll buy the house myself and resell it.”

Mayoralty candidate John Tory condemned Ford’s comments as “deeply regrettable and from another age.”

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“For Doug Ford to express surprise that kids with autism would ‘be leaving the house’ is incredibly out of touch and insensitive,” the statement said. It added Ford’s “outrage would be better directed at those injustices which are causing a lot of heartache and ‘ruin’ in our community, to use his word.”

Dannell said she was caught off guard by the heated opposition to the home’s presence “We certainly didn’t anticipate it,” she told the Star.

“It was disappointing to hear that kind of reaction from (Ford). Certainly we had hoped for something different.”

Toronto police Sgt. Colleen Bowker told the Star police from 23 Division have been called to the address, but that she didn’t know how many times or for what purpose.

Ford says he’d be happy to take the address of anyone criticizing him for his comments and “we’ll put the house right next door to them and see how they like it.”

He lashed out at former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who tweeted Saturday that Ford should be ashamed of himself for “hurting — not helping.”

“This is the opposite of leadership on mental health,” wrote Rae, who has retired from politics after serving as a Liberal MP.

Rae “doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in that neighbourhood,” Ford told CP24. “Maybe he should go there and get his little, you know, elitist, pompous self over there and maybe we should put a house right beside his house because I know he lives in an absolutely gorgeous area.”

At Thursday’s meeting, the Guardian quoted Ford predicting he was going “to get the you-know-what kicked out of me. Tomorrow, I’ll be inundated by every media in the country saying I don’t like kids with autism,” he said.

On Sunday, the voicemail on Ford’s cellphone was full and he did not reply to an email from the Star. The councillor is running his brother’s re-election campaign, while Mayor Rob Ford is seeking treatment for substance abuse north of the city.

Speculation persists that the councillor may himself run for mayor.

With files from Alex Ballingall, Torstar News Service and The Canadian Press

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