A city hall report made public Wednesday recommends a complete overhaul of the boards overseeing both the London Housing Corp. (HDC) and London and Middlesex Community Housing (LMCH), suggesting politicians or city staff be appointed to govern the organizations instead.

“There is absolutely consensus around the table that we are in an immediate crisis and we need to take immediate action,” said Coun. Maureen Cassidy, who chairs the community and protective services committee.

The recommendation from staff to have a city hall bureaucrat replace both boards will be debated at a special committee meeting of all members of council on Monday.

Other options include appointing all 15 members of council, or a portion of council, to act as the HDC and LMCH boards.

“We’re saying, as an interim measure, to have the city take over the leadership,” city hall’s director of housing Sandra Datars Bere said.

“The organizations aren’t going anywhere, they’re staying in place. They have work to do.”

Taking over those boards — which are now made up of community leaders and other volunteers — will “keep some stability” while moving ahead with the necessary changes to improve public housing and generate more affordable units, she said.

The hope is that having city hall or council oversee and direct operations at the public housing provider — the region’s largest landlord — and the affordable housing developer will mean better co-ordination of housing and homelessness efforts in London, Datars Bere said.

“People are always telling us they don’t understand what’s going on, who does what. Despite all these organizations and all this work, we have a huge housing problem.”

A recent review by KMPG criticized the way rent-geared-to-income units and other affordable housing are managed and built in London, suggesting the HDC, an arms-length agency created three years ago to develop affordable units, should be dissolved.

The report also highlighted a severe problem filling vacant public units through LMCH, which has about 128 rent-geared-to-income units sitting empty across the region. It’s taking hundreds of days, in the most severe cases, to repair rent-geared-to-income units before the next tenants can move in, despite a burgeoning waiting list nearing 5,000 families. KPMG’s audit said the board is not the right fit to oversee the organization’s work.

The head of LMCH, Josh Browne, said the organization has sent a report in response and will speak at Monday’s meeting, but won’t be answering media questions before that.

“The role of the board is generally to oversee and guide those operations, and create the policies that guide those operations. It sounds to me, from the KPMG report, that everything seems to have fallen apart, and we have to get everything back on track,” Cassidy said.

There’s been little talk about the future of HDC, but Cassidy said the vacancy problem is the most urgent issue to be resolved.

“We can’t sit and wait and talk and study that for another second. We have to get those units repaired, fixed if they need it, and then filled,” she said.

“We’ve been talking for longer than I can remember about the waiting list, the number of families and people that are waiting for social housing in London. To me, it’s unconscionable.”

The staff report also outlines an immediate action plan, including:

   * Accelerate repairs so empty rent-geared-to-income units can be filled within 30 days.
   * Use 90 per cent of the affordable housing funds available from city hall and senior governments by 2021.
   * Improve LMCH tenant satisfaction by 10 per cent, based on annual surveys.
   * Expand use of rent supplements that top up struggling Londoners by about $300.