Reforming Institutional Design for Fairness: Evictions from Toronto Community Housing, 2002–2014

Abstract This article examines institutional safeguards for fairness in rent-arrears evictions from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). It reconstructs the reform sequence that led to the adoption of a novel—possibly unique—institutional mechanism: the Office of the Commissioner for Housing Equity (OCHE), an independent accountability mechanism for procedural fairness in evictions. It was a contingent institutional response to tragic administrative failings, not a response to judges’ or legislatures’ external oversight. Several individuals shaped the reform, subject to political and economic constraints. The history is interesting in its own right. It is a tragic vignette. But it also has broader relevance for administrative law scholars, and for others who are interested in the relationship between law and public policy. Institutional structures like the OCHE are one version of “internal administrative law.” Reforms to that kind of law are often invisible to legal scholars. This article makes one such story visible.