Taking action due to COVID-19 to protect tenants and staff

Fully 95 per cent of Toronto Community Housing's workforce remains on the job during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are in our buildings, offices and communities, delivering essential services and supports to tenants, or working from home to keep business operations running and support the public health efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Guided by public health directives and advice, we have put a wide range of prevention and control measures in place to protect our tenants and employees. For example, any employee who has had close contact with a person confirmed or presumed to be COVID-19 positive, or who has respiratory symptoms such as cough, fever and difficulty breathing. must stay home and self-isolate for 14 days.

Other prevention and control measures include:

Cleaning and disinfecting high-contact areas in all our buildings three times a day, seven days a week.

Contacting seniors and vulnerable tenants through phone calls and wellness checks to connect tenants with needed supports, such as food and medication.

• Deferring all non-essential maintenance and repairs.
• Requiring staff and vendors conducting essential work to wear personal protective equipment such as gloves and a surgical mask.
• Closing all our offices to walk-in visits.
• Closing all indoor and outdoor recreation facilities and amenity spaces, except for food banks run by agencies.
• Suspending all public meetings and tenant engagement activities.
• Installing hand sanitizer stations in the lobby of our 83 seniors buildings. As we acquire supply, all our buildings will have hand sanitizer stations.
• Using a range of communications to encourage all tenants to practise physical distancing, good hand hygiene, cough etiquette and self-isolation.

As well, we are offering rent flexibility to rent-geared-to-income (RGI) and market rent tenants who have lost employment income because of COVID-19. RGI households can apply to have their rent recalculated based on their reduced income. Market households can choose from three options to defer a portion of their rent for up to three months.