An Investigation into Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s Tenant Human Rights Complaints Process

The Issue

We heard from several TCHC tenants who had complaints that involved their human rights and were concerned that TCHC did not have a system in place to address them. Human rights are fundamental rights and TCHC has legal obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code to respect those rights.

Our Investigation

Our investigation looked at TCHC’s process for handling tenants’ human rights complaints. We assessed whether its human rights policies and procedures were clear, current, accessible, fair, and applied consistently. We also considered whether TCHC staff have the proper expertise to address human rights complaints.

What We Found

Our investigation found that tenants’ human rights and dignity have not been a priority for TCHC. This is unacceptable.

• TCHC shared incorrect and misleading information with its tenants about its human rights complaint process, including referring them to a human rights office that had not been active for several years.

• It had wildly out of date policies and procedures that disregarded major changes to the Ontario’s human rights system that happened in 2008.

• It did not properly train or resource its staff responsible for dealing with tenants’ human rights.

• As a result, TCHC tenants did not know where they should take their concerns about human rights and staff were unequipped to address them once they were identified.

Our Recommendations

We have made 14 recommendations to ensure that TCHC maintains a housing environment where tenants’ human rights are respected and protected. We will monitor TCHC’s actions until we are satisfied that our recommendations have been successfully implemented.