[URBAN NOTE] "Longing for ‘the crack days’ at a Parliament Street rooming house"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Betsy Powell reports on a grim Toronto Community Housing rooming house on Parliament Street, in the heart of Cabbagetown.

Rick Keegan uses dark humour to describe life in and outside his Cabbagetown rooming house, a fetid, bug-infested three-storey Victorian that attracts a roster of transients who gain entry by kicking in the front door.

“It went from crack to meth, and if you can believe it, I miss the crack days,” says Keegan describing the current drug of choice for visitors.

“Crack users are a little paranoid, you can get them out of the house, you just go and tell them to get lost and they go, but you try and tell that to the meth heads and they want to fight.”

Keegan, 61, says this while sitting inside a busy Tim Hortons across the street from part of a row of tall, narrow Parliament St. homes listed on the city’s Heritage Registry and owned and operated by Toronto Community Housing (TCH).

Rooming houses across the city — and what to do about them — is on the fall agenda at city hall. This month, city staff will report to executive committee on new zoning and licensing regulations for rooming houses, including 27 rooming houses operated by TCH.

Toronto has 433 licensed rooming houses. Hundreds more are unlicensed.