A year after city launches strategy to reduce poverty, what's been done?

The residents of Parkdale's West Lodge apartments can reel off the problems with the buildings: broken elevators, no heat, cockroaches, the stench of urine.

We call them the Harlem of Parkdale.- Tina Ouellette

"We call them the Harlem of Parkdale," Tina Ouellette said of the 19-storey towers.

She pays $900 for a unit in 105 West Lodge, near Queen Street West and Jameson Avenue. She shares her place with a roommate andsaid they've had problems with the heat for three years.

"I've got the city on it. I've got court orders. Still waiting." she said. "They told us they'd be by this week. Still waiting. Told us they'd be by last week. Still waiting."

Toronto adopted its poverty reduction strategy a year ago, with one of the main objectives being to improve the quality of affordable housing in the city.

While Toronto Community Housing (TCH) has partnered with private companies to perform regular maintenance on its publicly-owned buildings, many who live inprivate housing say they have, quite literally, been left out in the cold when it comes to maintenance.

But city council's tenantsissues committee met Wednesday and proposed changes to address those issues.

Coun.Janet Davis, who represents Ward31, Beaches-East York and sits on the committee, said the current bylaws aren't tough enough on landlords with poor housing conditions.

"You needa business licence to operate a hairdressing shop and you can operate an apartment buildingwith hundreds of units and run it badly, and the city has very few tools to press landlords to improve living conditions," Davis said.

The committee is considering changes like larger finesand a review of problematic buildings to force repairs by "not allowing them to take new tenants until building repairs are completed," she said.

The city has the power to step in and make repairs to private buildings and the cost to owners' property tax bills, but Davis says it should make use of that power much more frequently.

City council is expected to decide in December whether or not to proceed with a licensing system for landlords of buildingsthree storeysor higher and with 10 units or more.

In the case of West Lodge,CBC Torontoarchives show the same west-end high rises in 1994 when residents complained for a reason all-too-familiar toOuellettelack of heat.

Just three years after that in anotherCBC Torontoreport, long-time resident AnnaThackercalled the buildings"a war zone. It's like we live in a third-world country. The elevators never work. You see cockroaches and mice dancing all over the place."

Today, outside those same buildings at 103-105 West Lodge, owned by the Wynn Group,Ouellettesaid she lost faith that repair people will ever come.

"Have they come to places like this? Cuz I really don't think so. I've seen them at 245Dunn,"Ouelettesaid referring to an apartment building not far away.

Thatbuilding just south of Queen West nearJamesonis owned byTCH.

'Creative approach'

Since the city's strategy started, the housing corporation received 80 per cent fewer reports about issues involving water, heat and elevators, in the corporation's 58,000 units, said spokeswoman Lisa Murray.

"On any given day there are 700 capital repairs in the city," she said.

TCHspent$250 million this year as part of itscapital repairs program.The corporation has replaced "32 football fields worth of roofing" over the last four years,Murray said.

The corporation is the mainlandlordproviding rent that'sgeared to income inToronto. Its spokesperson estimated there are still 95,000 households on waiting list forTCH and the 240 other social housing providers in the city.

She saidpartnerships with private developers have helped with maintenance in recent years. Condo developersTridel,DanielsCorp., Context andMetropiabought parcelsofTCHproperties and agreed to share in some capital repair costs and fund social development through scholarships and pre-apprenticeship training.

It's a "creative approach," Murray said. .

It stinks in there. It smells like pee. There's cockroaches everywhere.- Toni Hoffman

In the meantime, single mom, Toni Hoffman said her rent is $1,100 for one-bedroom at 105 West Lodge where she lives with her two-year-old daughter.

"It stinks in there. It smells like pee. There's cockroaches everywhere. I make complaints all the time and they don't do anything. My heat doesn't work. Door is broken. I submit requests and it's a black hole," she said.

CBC Newscalled the Wynn Group, which owns more than 4,500 units in the city,for a status report on repairs but didn't receive a response.