I know a guy who, as a child, tripped and fell against a cast-iron cookstove; as you would expect, he burned himself. He was thereafter nervous in the presence, not just of cookstoves, but of the colour black.

That’s the story with community housing. People are upset, and rightly so, but like the boy in the farmhouse kitchen, they are upset about the wrong thing.

I don’t believe Rob Ford and his brother, and the rest of their so-called nation, are upset that public housing is falling apart — or that the tenants have been neglected — because public housing is underfunded.

I believe the Fords are upset because public housing costs a lot of money and returns no tangible gain, other than the security of the vulnerable.

The Fords, however, are happy to cloak their indignation in a garment of convenience, the auditor general’s report. Except that the auditor general did not file a report; he filed the merest sampling.

Who cares?

This just in:

Councillor Mammoliti: “Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege. I have a question to which we all deserve an answer. Mayor Ford, are you wonderful?”

Mayor Ford: “Wonderful enough.”

Councillor Kelly: “Madam Speaker, there is proof of his wonder. He declines to say just how wonderful he is.”

In case you missed it, that was satire.

Should heads roll at the Toronto Community Housing Corp.? Some already have; the current CEO, Keiko Nakamura, has seen to that, and she’s just getting started.

What other heads should roll? It isn’t clear to some of us. I repeat: the auditor general has not done a full report. I guess due process doesn’t matter around here.

Process? We don’t need no stinking process. We have, instead, a new bullet point: Restore Public Confidence.

The public has lost confidence in TCHC because some people have called the mayor and told him so; if that’s good enough for him, then it ought to be good enough for all of us.

And the board was sacked because the board should have known. What should the board have known? Doesn’t matter.

Anyone remember what Mayor Mel said when the MFP scandal broke? He said he had no idea.

He got a pass.

Okay, wise guy, how do we achieve due process? We let the auditor general complete a full forensic audit, so that we know the full what, how and who.

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Undue process?

We got that when we sacked the brand new board members and appointed the ghost of council past, in the person of Case Ootes.

I say, Mr. Bull, how’d you like to run the china shop while we dust off this old For Sale sign?

Here is why we should be mad, and it has nothing to do with spas or chocolates:

On Christmas Eve, 2009, there was a fire at 200 Wellesley St. E., in the apartment of a hoarder.

I remind you that TCHC is supposed to do annual apartment inspections, and that hoarding is an indication that a tenant might need help.

Okay, so they missed the Christmas hoarder. But after that fire, TCHC ought to have sharpened its inspection process and intervened with other hoarders.

Had it done so, TCHC might have prevented last September’s fire, hereby saving millions in repairs, and saving many more millions if TCHC loses the pending class-action lawsuit filed by tenants.

That is your crime. There is your waste. The mayor is curiously silent about that. Here is another thing he, and we, should be mad about:

TCHC is woefully underfunded. But did the mayor ask for additional funding when he threatened the premier of the province with the wrath of his rabid nation? Nope.

Cookstoves everywhere.

Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca