Toronto’s embattled housing corporation has laid out plans to restructure at the ground level following the termination of its fourth chief executive officer in less than a decade.

Toronto Community Housing announced Friday the corporation will be “decentralizing decision-making away from head office” partly through the creation of three new regional offices and the operation of 134 “service hubs” or sites where staff are trained and ready to get tenants quick access to any special support services they need.

“This is about getting the right people in the right place to make decisions right away,” Kevin Marshman, chief executive of the social housing provider since April, told the Star.

In the past, he said, if a tenant needed help they needed to navigate an “inordinate amount” of bureaucracy. This new model will mean that tenants should be able to walk into one of the hubs where staff can assess and then connect them with the appropriate help, for everything from health issues to rent arrears, he said.

“This is a significant change in how we deal with our tenants,” said Marshman, who said the locations will be chosen based on buildings with the highest need for extra support for tenants.

An internal reorganization aimed at pushing problem-solving powers out of headquarters and down to superintendents and other staff at TCH buildings will merge two divisions and eliminate 13 senior and mid-level manager positions, generating savings of about $1 million.

That money, plus $5 million from internal savings not affecting tenant services, will be invested in front-line services, Marshman said, including a boost in the number of superintendents by about 30 per cent and cleaners by about 15 per cent.

Hours in which tenants have access to on-site staff will be expanded beyond what some have dubbed “bankers’ hours,” Marshman added.

While community services co-ordinators and tenant services co-ordinators will continue moving between buildings, they will start to have defined hours at the buildings.

The restructuring will take six months and result in the development of a new set of service standards to gauge customer service across the corporation.

Each regional office will be overseen by a general manager who will report to longtime senior TCH staffer Sheila Penny, who has been appointed chief operating officer.

The restructuring is the latest apparent effort to break up bureaucracy at the housing corporation.

Earlier this year city council approved the creation of a new Seniors Housing Corporation that will be run by city staff and charged with the oversight and management of some 14,000 units in 83 seniors dedicated buildings.

Because that new company is run by the city, the restructuring plans will not be implemented at those buildings, Marshman confirmed.

Marshman took over TCH from Penny who stepped in to serve as interim leader after former CEO Kathy Milsom was put on administrative leave and then fired in February.

Milsom was terminated over the handling of a $1.3-million contract awarded to consulting firm Orchango under her watch, a tender process TCH’s board described in a statement as “flawed” and that did not follow “existing TCH regulations.”

The ousted CEO called that assessment “deeply troubling” in a written response and wrote that “at all times I acted in the best interest of the organization, its tenants, its employees, and its stakeholders.”

The new restructuring was designed in-house, said Marshman, and while there are no plans to search for a new CEO the current team continues to look for ways to improve how the company operates.

Amanda Coombs, a tenant representative on the TCH board, said the changes should benefit residents like herself by empowering superintendents and other front-line staff in buildings, and come in response to comments from the residents.

“Superintendents have never really had any power to address any of the concerns we had, whether it was about safety or just issues with other residents,” Coombs said, adding now that superintendents “have more control, that should (reduce) wait times we face to get help.”

Susan Gapka, a TCH tenant working with the corporation on tenant engagement, said she was surprised to learn about such a big change from the Star. “I agree it’s too large an organization and needs a breakup but this feels like a top-down solution — tenants should be at the centre of this.”

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In early 2018, the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro reported that law firm Rubin Thomlinson LLP had been retained to investigate human resources practices at a company that former employees said operated under a “culture of fear.”

A draft of that report is in the hand’s of the housing corporation’s lawyers, Marshman confirmed to the Star, and they intend to make the findings public. Marshman said there was not a timeline for the release and whether all of the report could be released was still under review.

Canada’s largest public housing corporation is home to about 110,000 people and each unit is badly needed. Early this year the wait-list for social housing — which includes TCH buildings, co-operatives, private non for provide housing and subsidized rental units — passed 102,000 households.

Decades ago, the provincial and federal governments decided to extract themselves from the responsibility of maintaining public housing buildings and with that the care of the largely vulnerable and low-income tenants who live in them.

Without federal and provincial funding the older buildings began to literally crumble, with parts of entire communities shuttered, and by early 2019 city staff were reported that repair backlog would hit $3.2 billion over the next decade.

In April, the federal government announced that $1.3 billion, a mix of grants and loans, would immediately begin flowing to be put toward the repair and renovation 58,000 existing units over ten years.

Meanwhile the allegations tied to Milsom’s firing, coming from all sides, continue to pile up in Ontario Superior Court.

Milsom has launched a $2.7 million lawsuit against the housing provider and a company employee, based on a statement of claim submitted in March.

Her firing, she alleged, was cover for other board members amidst media coverage that “upset” Mayor John Tory. Tory and Marshman (who was board chair) intended to “throw her under the bus,” she alleged.

The housing corporation, in a statement of defence filed as part of a $4.2 million counter claim against Milsom and Orchango, has alleged that Milsom “manipulated” and “improperly influenced” the bidding process and “worked together” with Orchango to ensure the company was selected.

The bidding took place after Milsom had directly awarded the contract to Orchango, but was then advised by TCH’s building investment, finance and audit committee to open up the process.

Orchango, in response to TCH’s claim, has alleged that “a cabal of senior managers” has effectively held the housing corporation “hostage” and have been “ousting CEOs at will approximately once every two years,” based on a statement of defence and counterclaim — a copy of which is posted on the Orchango website.

The contract was, according to the claim, terminated in bad faith “at the instigation of the cabal” and to provide a scapegoat in the face of media attention.

The claims have not been tested in court.