Olivia Chow focuses on housing during transition meeting

Chow meets with stakeholders on key priorities Mayor-elect Olivia Chow met with major stakeholders on Wednesday to discuss solutions to create affordable housing in Toronto.

Toronto Mayor Elect Olivia Chow is hosting transition meetings ahead of being sworn in next week.

"I can't wait because there's a lot of work to do," Chow told reporters.

The meeting held Thursday included both community and private members to discuss affordable housing, an issue Chow has said is a key priority for her as mayor.

"We made a commitment to work together, to look at the tools the City of Toronto have, and how we could use those tools to build more affordable housing," she said.

The meeting was held in the Golden Mile, which is the neighbourhood at the centre of a United Way initiative that helps to train residents and find them employment cost to home.

"This is an existing made-in-Toronto solution that we can scale," said Daniele Zanotti, President and CEO of United Way Greater Toronto. "As we speak today we have 20 residents from the greater Golden Mile who are working in construction, in the trades."

Chow said she wants to see this model used across the city, which includes the affordable housing piece.

"The missing link is the affordability of the housing being built. We haven't done it before, we need to do it now and there's no time to waste," she said. "What the city needs to do now is to get the approval done quickly... I've already beginning to talk to our senior staff, city manager and team, and yes it will be faster."

Along with this project, the city is facing a homeless crisis and shelters are full.

Chow said part of the blame is on the federal government.

"A third of the 10,000 people that are in shelters are refugees," she said. "The federal government is not paying a cent right now for refugees housing. Period."

She did say she feels "hopeful" after speaking with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"He understands the importance of welcoming refugees or immigrants coming to this country, there's a commitment," she said.

The meeting also fell on the same day as the Toronto Board of Trade released a report card rating the city's transit system as the least reliable in the GTA.

"One of the challenges I think this report poses is that comparing Toronto with anywhere else is a bit fraught with problems, " said Stuart Green, spokesperson for the TTC.

"Really I think what's at the core of this report is better public transit period. And that means better service integration, better fare integration, it means making transit a really attractive option for people rather than driving."

While the overall letter grade Toronto received was a B, tied with Mississauga, topping the list, Toronto's reliability score was only 58 percent of trips being on time. Other municipalities scored over 70 percent on reliability.

"We measure that, we're very very focused on that because when we measure it we can fix it," said Green. "Since the information in that report which is 2022, we've started doing a number of things."

Chow added it's also the oldest transit system and needs some costly upgrades.

"Since the provincial Mike Harris government downloaded TTC completely to city of Toronto, TTC have had difficulties," she said, "if I manage to have conversation with our Premier

I will seek more support on how we can support the TTC. I will tackle that issue soon enough."

She vowed to improve the transit system and reverse the TTC service cuts.

Chow will be sworn in on July 12.