With residents in fear, TCH to review security at troubled 200 Wellesley Street

Broken doors, squatters living in stairwells and sleepy security guards are commonplace at 200 Wellesley St. E., residents say. One year ago, a man was stabbed to death in his second-floor unit. 

While Toronto Community Housing (TCH) recently made some security improvements at the 719-unit building, many residents still don't feel safe.

So TCH has announced it plans a full review of third-party security at the building, and will poll residents on safety issues.

More security changes could come in 2017, based on the findings of those studies.

In the meantime, residents like Alfred Kubesch say security at the building is lacking.

'I can't go on like this'

Kubesch, a slight but tall man wearing a sport coat and a kufi, pointed to a large steel security door leading to the parking garage. It's broken.  

"They use something, a crow bar or something, and slam it on the door to move the door over so it won't lock," he told CBC Toronto earlier this week.

The door has been repaired countless times, he said. TCH said it replaces or repairs about 4,000 doors every month.

"I know this isn't even Toronto housing's fault," Kubesch sighed, but added that perhaps with more security, the doors wouldn't be repeatedly broken.

Kubesch's red pickup truck has also been repeatedly broken into. The back window remains broken because he doesn't have the money to fix it.

"The police told us to leave the car unlocked," he said of the first time his truck was targeted. "Then I started finding syringes all over the place."
    
This past spring, Kubesch went on a hunger strike over issues in his building. He lost more than 30 pounds, and took up smoking again to curb his appetite. Security was his biggest concern.

"I shouldn't be doing this," Kubesch said, looking at the ground. "I shouldn't put my head on the chopping block but somebody's gotta do it. I can't go on like this."

Since his hunger strike, the number of security guards on duty has gone from one to two overnight, and one during the day. Still, he said, people are getting past the guards.

"I mean, this building probably on average has 2,000 people in it per day and we have 1,200 registered tenants," he said.

Kubesch also pointed to a stairwell coated in excrement from a pigeon that he said is the pet of a squatter. Squatters come in via a side door, sneaking in behind residents, he said.

"We routinely find evidence of living, like blankets, even magazines and stuff like that."

Kubesch said messes do get cleaned up. 

"I'm just saying the way it's set up, we're asking for these problems," he said.

'Happiness is getting in an elevator alone'

The building houses many people living with mental health challenges and addiction issues. At times, riding the elevator can be frightening.

"It's terrible when you have a fist fight in an elevator," he said. "You get sprayed with blood, and pushing the buttons to see if you can stop the thing and get off."

That was a while ago, he said, and incidents like that have decreased in frequency.

Between September 2015 and September 2016, there were 222 calls to the TCH Community Safety Unit for disputes, down from 403 the year earlier.

There were 12 calls for assault over the same period, compared to 17 the previous year.

Still, he sighed, "happiness is getting in an elevator alone."

Taking it to TCH  

David Quigley, TCH's district manager of community safety, said security at the building is improving.

"We've seen a decrease of 91 per cent in false fire alarms in our property," he said. "False fire alarms can be an indicator of other criminal activity occurring in the building ... or a person's using the fire alarm as a first alarm to alert others to know that there may be security folks or police in the building."

Things have drastically improved over the past year, thanks to a greater partnership with Toronto police through the Neighbourhood Safety Officer Program, he said.

Community Safety Officers did 159 patrols of the property in the past year, 30 of which were with TPS officers.

"From what we can tell statistically and anecdotally ... the new model is being successful and it is definitely an improvement over what may have been occurring at the building 12 months ago," Quigley said.

Next month, Quigley will hold a meeting with residents. He'll hand out a survey to determine if they are seeing the improvements that TCH believes are reflected in its statistics.

"We want to make sure that what we do with the security model in the future takes into account the needs and the safety concerns of the people who are in and out of the building," Quigley said.

Security review

Meanwhile, TCH is upgrading all security cameras at the building from analog to high resolution digital, and is doubling the number of cameras in the community.

That work should be completed by the end of the year.

But, those cameras are not intended to be monitored 24/7, Quigley said.
    
"When we become aware of issues of broken doors, mischief to doors, vandalism, our teams will go through and they will review the CCTV to try to identify and hopefully hold the offenders responsible," he said.

It's up to the two night security guards to stop those offenders from getting into the building.

A concerned resident sent the above photo to CBC Toronto.

Quigley said he will follow up.

"This particular issue, obviously on it's face, from a snapshot in time, would be a concern for a performance issue," he said.

TCH is reviewing third-party security at the building, Quigley said, work that should be done by the middle of 2017.

The tenant survey will be analyzed in January or February, and TCH will use those results to figure out if further security measures are needed, Quigley said.

"I am optimistic that given the increases and the benefits that we've seen in the last 12 months ... that the tenants will be happy with the outcome."