In Defense of Gene Jones
The City of Toronto ombudsman Fiona Crean has released two reports in two months that are highly critical of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC — the second-largest social housing provider in North America after New York) and especially critical of the President and CEO, Gene Jones. Jones is an American, known as the social housing Mr. Fix-It and was offered the job after several scandals within TCHC. Some of these included the willy-nilly eviction of vulnerable seniors (at least one of whome died as a result), a $700 million backlog of repairs, horrible conditions for many tenants, while staff were engaging in kickbacks and holding $40,000 Christmas parties . The place had to be fixed and Gene Jones was chosen to be the man to clean it out. The new Ombudsman reports focus on implementation of recommendations to protect vulnerable seniors and one released this week focuses on human resource issues . It speaks o f 80+ management staff being fired/retiring/quitting, ho