As costs rose from $5.5 million to $11.5 million, the Peter Street homeless shelter project was like a big rolling ball no one could stop, some City of Toronto councillors concluded Monday, July 5.
Trying to learn from what chair Doug Holyday called an expensive lesson, members of the city's audit committee approved 14 recommendations from Auditor General Jeffrey Griffiths, which will require city staff on similar projects to share more information with councillors and each other.But the committee also asked for performance reviews of all employees involved with the 129 Peter Street Assessment and Referral Centre and Homeless Shelter, expected to open next month, a full three years after work began.The project started as a "very modest repair and renovation" job the city aimed to finish within months to take advantage of federal funding in 2007, said Bruce Bowes, the city's chief corporate officer.Unexpected circumstances pushed costs higher and policies passed by council led to expensive changes for the shelter, so it could not realistically be opened by the May 2008 target date, said Bowes, who argued the building will be worth the money anyway, "a world-class facility."Phil Brown, general manager of shelter, support and housing, said 129 Peter is much better for all the changes - leased solar panels, a green roof, an elevator and an outdoor smoking area among them - and every change made was cleared by council and its budget committee, he said.Don Valley West Councillor John Parker, however, said those added costs were buried in budget numbers. Council took the original cost on faith, he said, and the resulting project is now a symbol of a system that must change.Another committee member, Mike Del Grande of Scarborough-Agincourt, suggested the performance reviews after noting no one can pin down just who is responsible for the cost overruns. Del Grande insisted it isn't him."I never approved the (green) roof; I never approved any of this other stuff," he said.Etobicoke North Councillor Rob Ford called the shelter plan "a complete disaster from Day 1." He argued the private sector would not tolerate such failures of management but at city hall "nobody pays the price."Some members, Holyday included, said they thought the city launched Peter Street ultimately because it was embarrassed by people sleeping in Nathan Phillips Square.The city rented a decommissioned long-term care home at 110 Edward Street as a shelter and referral centre, but that building will be demolished for affordable housing. For the past three years, the city has run an overnight referral centre at 67 Adelaide St. E. and kept 30 temporary downtown shelter beds elsewhere. It's a wonder homeless people don't protest the amount of money spent at 129 Peter, Holyday said, because the city could have used it to build two such facilities somewhere else.Brown said opening the 40-bed shelter and service referring the homeless to be housed would eventually save the city millions in police and health-care costs. Yes, people still sleep in the square - perhaps five to 12 on an average night - but in 2004 there were 95, he told the committee."That's the progress we've made."The city, despite rushing to build with federal funds in what Brown called "very much a use-it-or-lose-it situation" managed to get more support from a new federal housing program. In the end, $7.7 million for the project came from Ottawa, not the original $5 million.City management accepted 13 of 14 recommendations from Griffiths, but giving only partial agreement to one asking for a protocol to advise councillors "of the financial implications" of motions they consider, if not during a debate then at a subsequent meeting. A response to the report said this would take up extensive staff time and could be impractical.