Security cameras won’t help community housing, says CEO

Toronto Community Housing CEO Eugene Jones speaks to CTV Toronto on Wednesday, July 25, 2012.

Adding security cameras won’t necessarily reduce crime in city-owned housing complexes, including the one which was the site of a deadly shooting 10 days ago, says the CEO of Toronto Community Housing.

Speaking outside a Toronto Community Housing board meeting Wednesday, Eugene Jones told CTV Toronto that roving special constables and building a good relationship with residents are more effective than cameras.

“You can have cameras, but it’s still not going to deter any crime,” Jones said. “It enhances and it helps when it comes to an investigation.”

Jones questioned exactly what would be achieved by installing cameras, adding that the expensive process doesn’t mean things will get safer.

“It’s a false sense of security because sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t,” he said. “Sometimes the residents break them, purposely, and then we’re trying to go back and fix them and there’s a cost.”

Jones’ comments come after a deadly public shooting near a community housing-owned complex on Danzig Street, in the city’s east end.

During the July 16 shooting, two bystanders were killed and 19 others were injured at a community barbecue after at least one gunman opened fire.

In the days after the Danzig Street shooting, CTV Toronto’s Tamara Cherry reported that the police investigation was made more difficult because there were no surveillance cameras installed at the Toronto Community Housing building where the shooting took place.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Jones agreed to study the idea of putting 24-hour security guards at all Toronto Community Housing buildings, something select buildings already have.

Though, he questioned where the organization would get the money to pay for extra security.

Jones said Toronto Community Housing plans to sit down with Mayor Rob Ford and Police Chief Bill Blair to come up with a strategy to increase safety.

Some councillors already have their own ideas about what they would like to see happen next to make Toronto Community Housing safer.

For Coun. Frances Nunziata, convicted criminals need to be evicted from city-owned property.

“I don’t care where they go. I just want them out,” said Nunziata, who also sits on the Toronto Community Housing board. “They keep getting arrested, five, six times, they keep going back into Toronto housing. Tenants know who they are, everybody knows who they are -- you get evicted.”

With files from CTV Toronto's Natalie Johnson