A month has passed since a catastrophic storm led to days without power or hot water, plus significant material losses, for tenants in a low-income apartment tower in Toronto. But tenants have received next to nothing in compensation, or even basic human kindness, from the building owner.
The extraordinary summer storm that pounded downtown Toronto July 16 left 170,000 households without electricity city-wide. While most had power restored within hours, the 800-plus residents of 77 Howard St., a 24-storey apartment building in the impoverished St. James Town neighborhood, were left in the dark and sweltering heat, with rotting food in their fridges, for days. A burst pipe produced flooding, which in turn triggered a small electrical fire, leading to a “catastrophic” loss of power.
Residents of 77 Howard continue to endure an aftermath that illustrates the urgent need for policy-makers to prioritize climate resilience, particularly in housing and food.
Many in St. James Town are working hard to extricate their community from an ongoing legacy of being “underserved and unrecognized,” with efforts including participation in the Green Resilience Project. But it is an uphill battle.
Trouble and Mistrust
This is hardly the first time St. James Town residents have suffered significant loss and distress from some kind of building failure. A massive electrical fire at another tower in the neighbourhood, 650 Parliament St., in August 2018, kept 1,500 tenants out of their homes for more than a year. And flooding at 260 Wellesley St. E. in January 2019 left residents there without power for more than a week.
All three buildings—650 Parliament, 260 Wellesley, and 77 Howard—are owned by property management company Wellesley Parliament Square.
Residents of 77 Howard have documented years of unaddressed electrical and leakage issues, said former Ward 13 city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, now the provincial MPP for Toronto Centre.
In the second of two letters written to Wellesley Parliament Square top brass urging them to properly compensate tenants and assure them that tenant well-being is top priority, Wong-Tam testified to “ongoing maintenance concerns” long before July 16.
“Despite your assertion that the property has undergone recent maintenance, tenants continue to report long-standing issues. One resident has documented leak complaints that date back over 10 years,” they wrote. “This suggests a pattern of inadequate response to maintenance requests which predates the recent incident. If the catastrophic failures happened because of your negligence, you owe tenants reimbursement through your insurance.”
Cris Digan, who lives on the 18th floor with his partner, Ashley Aldridge, said workers involved in repairing the electrical system in the building told him the burst pipe widely reported as being the point source for the flooding was a drainage pipe connected to the roof.
Digan told The Energy Mix that, according to the workers, the pipe became blocked during the July 16 downpour when building debris negligently left behind by contractors working to repair the (leaking) roof three years ago got swept down into it.
“Let’s just be honest here. They’ve been neglecting the roof for 10-plus years. There are people in the penthouse that have had leaky ceilings for 10 years!” Digan added.
Joyce Cole, 71, who has lived at 77 Howard for 40 years and whose eighth floor apartment was flooded during the storm, told the Toronto Star that she “heard water running down the inside of the walls of her bathroom” a week before the flooding. She immediately told building management, but they did not respond, Cole said.
Wellesley Parliament Square spokesperson Danny Roth dismissed Cole’s story as hearsay.
“Typically, if it’s coming from anybody other than the building management, it’s either supposition, rumour or third-hand (information),” Roth said. “If it’s coming from a tenant, take that for what it’s worth.”
Profound Housing and Food Insecurity
The one-two punch of flooding and fire, followed by the building-wide electrical failure, at 77 Howard illustrates the fundamental, multiple insecurities that haunt many people across Canada, which are deepening as climate impacts worsen.
MPP Wong-Tam’s recent correspondence with Wellesley Parliament Square lays bare the extent of that vulnerability. Wong-Tam’s demands to redress the considerable distress and loss experienced by residents as a result of the flood and fire include:
• Rent abatements “to reflect the hardships endured by tenants”;
• Reimbursements for expenses incurred (hotel stays, food spoilage, laundry);
• Rent freezes for 2025;
• High priority for repair and renovation of damaged units;
• “The honouring of all existing leases, including for those who had to relocate temporarily.”
Asked to elaborate on this last demand, Wong-Tam told The Mix that many tenants are afraid the owner will rent out their units to someone else at a higher price in their absence, in a move widely known as “renoviction”.
“Many tenants have old leases protected by rent control. They are afraid of moving out for any period of time because the landlord can make more money by renting out their unit to a new tenant for a higher price,” Wong-Tam wrote in an email.
“I wanted the landlord to know that tenants need commitment from them and reassurance, if they have to move out for repairs, they won’t lose a unit they can afford. This reflects how acute and painful the housing crisis has become, and how tenants feel they have little recourse when their landlord gives away their unit,” they added.
In their letter to the company, Wong-Tam also addressed Wellesley Parliament Square’s repeated assertions that tenants should look to their own insurance for compensation.
“Please do not deflect from your financial obligations, saying that tenants should use their tenant insurance when you do not provide them with the documentation that they need to do this,” they wrote.
Adding to insurance woes—and throwing into sharp relief the need for maximum heat bylaws—are reports from some tenants that their insurance will not cover hotel stays or spoiled food costs because “the building was deemed ‘safe to stay’ despite internal temperatures reaching 30°C with 70% humidity.”
“It was chaotic. I have two cats, so I had to take them to a hotel because it was boiling hot in there. The AC didn’t work. It was over 30° in the apartment and so we just had to leave,” Hana Shafi told CBC News. Shafi has been told that her renter’s insurance will not cover her costs.
Digan and Aldridge are similarly out of pocket after fleeing their apartment to protect their elderly dog from suffocating heat. And “there are additional expenses when you take a pet to a hotel,” Aldridge told The Mix. “It’s an $85 charge per dog per night, and then a $75 deep-clean fee on top of that.”
The landlord’s limited engagement with the immediate issue of how to feed 800-plus people suddenly left without the means to cook food or store it safely, illustrates another insecurity most residents face daily.
Food insecurity, particularly during emergencies, is an ever-present worry, wrote the St. James Town Co-op in its summary report for the Green Resilience Project. “It’s hard to keep food in reserve for emergencies when you’re managing a low income,” a reality that grows only more intense as extreme weather damages crops, leading to rising food prices.
A high rise neighbourhood faces “unique and increased food insecurity in extreme weather,” added the St. James Town Co-op report. “Food and water access is reduced, especially for those with mobility issues, when the elevators are out of service. Food storage is shortened without electric refrigeration, and food preparation may not be safe without electricity to produce heat or pump water to upper floors.”
“For many people here, the food they are able to get discounted or free is typically on the verge of being stale or expired, so having no power for a few days guarantees food waste,” co-op co-founder Josephine Grey told The Mix.
Grey is also project lead for the OASIS Food Hub, the co-op’s ongoing effort to address food insecurity in the community.
All of these grim realities swung into sharp focus for the residents of 77 Howard last month.
A Community Fights Back
The latest disaster visited on St. James Town arrives even as a number of its residents continue to work hard to build community resilience while holding down poorly paid jobs and raising children. In a May interview with The Mix, several members of the St. James Town Climate Action Crew (affiliated with CREW: Community Resilience to Extreme Weather) spoke of their efforts to build community in the face of escalating climate impacts, including extreme heat.
“For the past three years. I’ve been helping with emergency preparedness, pathways, making sure everyone has emergency kits, and also just helping push forward environmental issues in our community and also our country, as well,” said volunteer Zouahl Kayoumi. At the time, 77 Howard was a particular focus, after being chosen as the focus for a CREW pilot of a “neighbour-helping-neighbour” approach to building resilience.
Fast forward two months, and 77 Howard continues to struggle to make itself heard in a long (and bitterly familiar) moment of crisis.
Wellesley Parliament Square “haven’t offered us a damn thing, you know, and they still expect us to pay rent on time. No compensation whatsoever, nothing. Not even a letter saying ‘sorry for the inconvenience,’” Aldridge told The Mix.
Digan and Aldridge are pushing back hard against reports that tenants are more or less content with Wellesley Parliament Square’s response to the crisis.
Aldridge said she knocked on the doors of 30 units, and of the 22 residents who answered, 100% have demanded the building’s owners do more to help.
“I got 22 signatures out of 30 units from people saying that they’re not happy and they want compensation.”
For both Digan and Aldridge, it all comes down to doing what is right. Digan describes Wellesley Parliament Square’s response to date as “shameful,” adding: “So, yeah, we shouldn’t live under the fear of people trying to evict us and then, you know, be the ones that incur the costs for their negligence. That’s not fair.”
