This is an edited excerpt of a letter from former mayors David Crombie, John Sewell and Art Eggleton to Mayor Rob Ford, Toronto City Council and Municipal Affairs Minister Kathleen Wynne:

We are writing to express our concerns about the possible sale of scattered housing units now owned by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.

We are all mayors of the former City of Toronto, and as such we introduced and/or endorsed policies which increased the amount of affordable housing in the city. Our goals were two-fold: to both increase the amount of affordable housing available to low income households, but also to integrate it into the community. We had learned that segregating low-income housing, as occurred with the public housing program in the 1950s and 60s, did not create a healthy city: everyone was better off when different income households lived in ways in which their lives could intersect on a daily basis.

Some scattered units purchased by the former city of Toronto had been bought for a non-housing purpose which was then abandoned (such as a park expansion or a proposed roadway) and rather than putting these units on the market, we supported policies which made this housing available to low income families. Some were purchased in conjunction with a large piece of land then redeveloped into new housing, and in these cases the houses were retained because they were part of the neighbourhood and because they could be used to integrate different income groups into the neighbourhood.

TCHC owns more than 850 scattered units, and is proposing at the current time to sell just over 700. . . . Most of these units are occupied by low-income households: rent subsidies bring in about 55 per cent of the revenue from those homes, and rents pay only 45 per cent. The net rental income is positive at $1.5 million, although TCHC argues that the annual capital repair cost is four times that amount. The reason given for selling these units is to both reduce operating and administrative costs (although these units seem to produce net revenue), and to generate capital to repair other units owned by TCHC, namely public housing units. Thus the scattered units which promote healthy income mix are being sold off to repair the very structures which segregate low-income families.

We think this is a strategy which should not be pursued. Clearly, it will not lead to an increase in affordable housing; it will not lead to more income integration; and it does not provide the long-term financial solution needed to address the repair crisis facing Toronto Community Housing.

The proposed sale of the homes now puts into focus an important issue: Toronto needs a new federal-provincial social housing funding arrangement that addresses the need for ongoing repair of the city’s aging housing stock. We also believe it is critically important that Toronto re-engage the federal and provincial governments in funding a financially sustainable solution to the growing problem of repairing Toronto Community Housing.