Rob Ford and Ana Bailão set to work together to save nearly 600 TCHC homes

Following nasty council debates on the budget and transit, it looks like Rob Ford has been wrestled into submission on another big issue: public housing. We already noted that Ford might be willing to pull back from his original plan to sell off hundreds of TCHC properties, and it looks like he’ll make it official today, opting instead to pursue a compromise proposal with Councillor Ana Bailão. Ford is expected to announce that the city will sell 56 vacant TCHC homes rather than the 600 that were originally slated for a fire sale (the Toronto Star calls this a “major concession by members of council’s left wing”), and that Bailão will chair a working group tasked with exploring other options for the public homes, as well as how to address the housing corporation’s repair backlog and its financial structure. Apparently, as recently as yesterday Ford had said the deal was off—but we suspect that when confronted with the political reality of another embarrassing defeat at council the mayor finally decided to acquiesce. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »