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As the residents resorted to sleeping in coats and boiling water in order to bathe, bylaw officers didn’t visit the property until more than two weeks after tenants submitted a request, according to the report. When they did arrive, they failed to collect evidence or use their authority to restore the utilities.

Chow said Wednesday it was “hard to believe” that the city employed people who had “heard the pleas of tenants” and did nothing to help.Ìý

“What kind of culture do we have in this city, in our public service, that ignored the essential need of the public?” said Chow, who described the rooming house incident as “a failure of caring or giving a damn.”

Chow said there shouldn’t be anyone on city staff with that kind of “uncaring attitude.” But even as council passed a raft of motions designed to improve enforcement, Chow said she was “not confident at this point that we have fixed this kind of culture” in the civil service.

“I don’t know, but I will not stand by, I will not allow this kind of behaviour to happen.”

Under questions from council,ÌýCarleton Grant, executive director of municipal licensing and standards, conceded that members of his division “failed miserably” in the rooming house case.

“It is very egregious,” he said. Employees at all levels “did not follow the processes that we have in place, they made excuses, they did not provide reasons, and I do not agree with that behaviour, and we are making changes.”

City staff have agreed with the 27 recommendations in Addo’s report, which calls for the licensing division to review how it enforces rental housing standards and to improve bylaw officer training, among other measures.

found that while the 11 tenants in the two-storey rooming house in northwest º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøwere unharmed by the September 2023 fire, in accordance with standard safety procedures utility providers shut off natural gas and some of the electricity to the building after the incident. The companies issued notices directing the landlord to have the building inspected and repaired before turning the services back on, but that never happened.

All residents were left without heat and hot water and those on the second floor had no power. Tenants told the ombudsman that their food spoiled, mildew ruined their belongings, and one had to go to the washroom in plastic bags. Ten of the tenants left the building, most of them into accommodations that had higher rent or weaker tenant protections, Addo reported.

The ombudsman found bylaw officers were biased in favour of the landlord, at the expense of tenants the watchdog noted were among Toronto’s most marginalized; all were Black residents on low incomes, and most were newcomers. One was seven months pregnant at the time of the fire.Ìý

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, tenant advocates, including one of the rooming house occupants, told reporters the investigation was just the tip of the iceberg, and a lack of property standards enforcement is widespread across Toronto.Ìý

Lerry Richardson, who said he stayed in the rooming house through the winter after the utilities were shut off, stressed that the repairs required to restore the building utilities would have cost only a few thousand dollars and taken a few days to complete. But instead of compelling the landlord to do the work, the city allowed the situation to drag on for six months “forcing me and my neighbours to live in inhuman conditions,” Richardson said.Ìý

He said he deserved an apology, but “most importantly, tenants all over º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍødeserve action.”Ìý

“The city must enforce the bylaws that make housing safe and when the landlords don’t meet the standards they should be fined,” he said.

In addition to approving the ombudsman’s recommendations, council passed motions directing staff to report back on policies that would allow the city to undertake vital building repairs when landlords fail to do so, and on how to better support rooming house tenants if their homes become unlivable.Ìý

Coun. Paula Fletcher (Ward 14, Toronto-Danforth) told the meeting she normally thanks city staff at the end of a debate, but she couldn’t in this case.Ìý

“Every single staff handling this file went home to heat, went home to water, and went home to power while these folks were living in these conditions,” she said.Ìý

“It is shameful, and I believe everybody is ashamed that this happened in this city.”