Paul Paolatto outlines social housing plan to wrap up ‘London Live’ mayoral front-runner series

Mayoral contender Paul Paolatto was the last of the four front-runners to appear on London Live this week and he used the time to outline his plan to address the social housing crisis.

“We have a $400-million problem in my estimation, and how are we going to finance that without unduly impacting the taxpayer?” he told 980 CFPL’s Mike Stubbs.

The plan itself was unveiled Thursday morning. Paolatto says currently roughly 3,500 units are in dire need of repair while an additional 3,000 units need to be created.

“I’ve come up with a plan to try and partner with pension funds. This is an opportunity to generate returns for pension funds who invest in their local community instead of railroads and pipelines and some of the other things they might do normally,” he began.

“I’ve had chances to talk with trustees at some of the larger Ontario-based pension funds and they make investments all over the world. They expect a return and they would get a return on this particular deal. The difference would be that the returns would be longer, they might be a little lower, but they would also be much more secure.”

Paolatto, who is against the current bus rapid transit plan, says he wants to focus on the railway tracks. He believes there is still a deal to be made with CP.

“I do not accept the current feedback that the council has received on the first iteration because they did not have an elected official in the room and they did not have a business person in the room.”

He says failing that, he’d like to see either overpasses or underpasses to deal with rail crossings impacting traffic in addition to synchronized traffic lights among other ideas.

The three other front-runners in the race for mayor appeared on London Live earlier in the week, with Paul Cheng on Monday, Ed Holder on Tuesday, and Tanya Park on Wednesday.

London votes on Oct. 22.