Toronto Community Housing Corp. wants to ban evicted tenants for two years, have the power to kick out unwanted guests on its properties and exchange more information with police about suspected illegal activity.

The aim of the recommendations, contained in an interim report from Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard)’s housing task force, is to increase the safety and security of TCHC’s 164,000 tenants, some of whom feel “intimidated and fearful in their own homes,” the report said. “Drug dealing and other illegal and anti-social behavior cause much of this.”

“TCHC needs to step up its game on security generally,” a spokesman for the task force wrote in an email.

The task force, led by Sen. Art Eggleton, has endorsed the proposed amendments to the province’s Housing Services Act, Trespass to Property Act and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It is now up to the province to make the following changes.

Allow the agency to ban former tenants evicted for “serious illegal activity” or dangerous conduct from returning to any social housing unit in Ontario for two years. The way the law is written now, anyone evicted can immediately apply to return.

Give TCHC’s community patrol officers the authority to kick out problem interlopers. Currently, a tenant can decide if unwanted guests stay or go.

Where there is suspected illegal activity, allow TCHC and Toronto police to work more closely and exchange more information. And the task force is also calling on TCHC to beef up it its Community Safety Unit, which currently has 81 officers compared to 153 officers on the ground prior to funding cuts in 2004, and accelerate a plan to install or upgrade 571 high-resolution security cameras in complexes across the city.

The proposals come from the social housing agency, which presented them to members of the task force as part of a consultation process. TCHC executives will provide a “status” update on implementation at Tuesday’s board meeting.

The legislative “changes would improve greatly TCHC’s ability to first remove people involved in serious illegal activity from TCHC property and then keep them out,” said TCHC spokeswoman Lisa Murray.

TCHC currently applies for an eviction to the Landlord and Tenant Board, which holds a hearing to decide whether or not to grant an eviction order. The housing agency is Canada’s largest landlord, managing more than 2,200 properties.

“These amendments would not only benefit TCHC, but all municipal social housing agencies across Ontario,” Murray said.

Murray added that TCHC is also taking measures to help stop criminal and gang activity, such as running a youth jobs program and a baseball day camp with the Toronto Blue Jays/Jays Care Foundation.

Crime has been a persistent problem at some TCHC buildings. Just two weeks ago, 14-year-old Lecent Ross died after being shot with an illegal handgun at a Jamestown public-housing complex in Rexdale. Police are still investigating the circumstances of her death.

The mayor admitted the task force goal of eliminating drug dealing on TCHC properties by the end of the year is likely impossible. Nonetheless Tory described it as “an ultimate goal that you would have.”

“If we don’t do anything and we don’t get some legislative changes, and we don’t have the will to decide to make it better, then you can be quite certain that drug dealing will not be reduced,” Tory said when the report was released.

Social housing activist Susan Gapka said she’s disappointed the city appears set on taking a “dumb on drugs” approach.

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“We seem to find money for security, for more enforcement or more police or more cameras so easily. So every dollar that goes into enforcement and cameras, is money not spent on prevention and promotion of mental health and addiction supports.”

But Gapka, a longtime TCHC resident, also knows first hand what it’s like living close to a unit where illegal drugs are sold.

She used to live in a building with a drug-addicted tenant whose dealer set up shop. Customers, some of them obnoxious and loud, came and went at all hours, disrupting life for other residents.

That tenant was arrested, but returned and still lives there, and “that is a little mind-boggling. On the other hand, this person probably wouldn’t be alive if she was evicted. Where do they go?” Gapka said.

“I don’t know what the answer is.”

One place the task force looked for answers was Manitoba.

Kevin Gamble, Manitoba Housing’s director of security from 2009-2013, said when he took over, he hired 22 new security officers and spread the word about “what the expectations are, what is acceptable behaviour and what is not.

“We explained to them that they are responsible for their guests while they’re on the property, and if there’s any criminal activity, they will be held accountable as well as the individuals.”

But the new security operation also engaged the community, sponsored youth soccer days and barbeques, and eventually that led to “getting more information about who is in the community, and they started telling us where people committing criminal offences were.”

The housing agency also had more powers to evict drug dealers once they’ve been arrested. If they’re shown to be a “safety impairment,” Gamble says, “they can be removed immediately.”

Still, Gamble stresses there must be “buy-in” from the community.

“You just can’t do a blanket fix-all. It doesn’t work that way.”