A delegation of government housing tenants along with members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) came together to attend the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) board of directors meeting. Their goal was for tenants to voice their complaints directly to the board of directors regarding the deplorable living conditions in government housing. They brought with them a compilation of about fifty reports on the conditions in different tenant’s homes.

Val is a tenant of Toronto Community Housing. Val has lived in government housing for 19 years. Over this period, she says, conditions have steadily gotten worse and worse. This is Val's apartment, where she has baskets and carpets tacked onto the walls to hide the holes and cracks. She describes herself, with a dry sense of humour, as the curator of the 'Tack Art Gallery.'

This is Val's bedroom, where she has a large carpet tacked up to hide the crumbling walls.

The whole building is in terrible condition, there are holes in the ceilings, plaster walls are crumbling, carpets are stained and mouldy, garbage collects in the halls, and the building is infested with vermin. The building is not safe, there have been a number of shootings and recently a woman was raped in the laundry room

M.L (who asked me not to use her real name) is a tenant of the Toronto Community Housing. M.L. is well educated and has a professional background but is now disabled and has arthritis, she is in constant pain despite being on numerous medications and painkillers. As a result, she is unable to find employment and is now completely dependent on community housing for her survival. "As bad as it is here,” she says, “the only other option for me is the street - I’d die."

M.L.'s balcony is completely infested with Pigeons. It is completely covered with feces. There are baby pigeons nesting there and countless eggs, both hatched and unhatched. The TCHC has told her to clean it up herself, but she is not physically able to because of her health problems.

Many of the tenants in this Toronto Community Housing building have taped up the cracks around their doorways to prevent mice and bugs from entering their apartments.

Garbage collects in the halls of this Toronto Community Housing building.

Barbara is another tenant of Toronto Community Housing. After growing up in Jamaica, where she was friends with Bob Marley, Barbara moved to Canada and started a promising career in early childhood development. But Barbara lost the job she loved when Mike Harris’ government cut funding for a wide range of social programs. Barbara managed to find a job working in a big chain grocery store where she injured her back lifting boxes. Because of this injury, and the resulting health problems, she is unable to find employment now and has had to move her entire life and all her belongings into this tiny one room apartment. For years now she has been engaged in ongoing legal battles with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) to secure the injured workers compensation she is entitled to, she was recently given her first official hearing many years after the injury first happened. Barbara has also been fighting with Toronto Community Housing to have her transferred to another apartment where she can actually fit all her belongings, but the waiting list for community housing in Toronto currently stands at an astonishing 70 000 and many people have been waiting for decades.

When the delegation of government housing tenants came together to attend the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) board of directors meeting, their goal was for tenants to voice their complaints directly to the board of directors regarding the deplorable living conditions in government housing. They brought with them a compilation of about fifty reports on the conditions in different tenant’s homes. However, when they arrived at the TCHC building, they were refused access to the board of directors meeting. Board members also refused to come out to meet with the tenants to hear what they had to say. Instead of listening to what their own tenants had to say, the TCHC had several police officers, wearing bullet-proof vests, surround the building to keep people out. After the group refused to disperse the TCHC eventually agreed to send out a spokeswoman to accept the reports compiled by the angry tenants.