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Ten Demands For Action On Poverty
Submitted by ocap on Fri, 03/05/2004 - 19:15.
TEN DEMANDS FOR ACTION ON POVERTY
Welfare Policies to Keep People Housed
1. Toronto City Council must set an example by refusing to clawback the child tax credit from Ontario Works participants.
2. Stop handing over information to the Police for 'welfare fraud' prosecutions and establish a 2% maximum recovery rate in overpayment situations.
The City of Toronto administers the Ontario Works component of the social assistance system. This City-run system is one in which power is used to ensure a harsh form of implementation of the policy that exists. It denies and interrupts income and causes people to face eviction. If the present Mayor and City Council are serious about moving in progressive social directions, they would use their power to be as liberal and generous as possible and ensure policies that kept people housed.
These two demands are areas where this could be easily done and would at least be a damned good start. Demand 1 calls for the City to refuse to continue to claw back the child tax credit from families on welfare. When the federal government established this credit, the Harris Tories chose to take it back from families on welfare. The Liberals have not undone this despicable measure.
While the City has no direct legal power to refuse to claw back the tax credit, it is our contention that the Liberals would not dare to move against the most major municipality in the province if it declared the claw back immoral and refused to collect it. On the contrary, it would force the claw back to be abolished throughout Ontario. If Miller had the integrity and courage to take this action, he would succeed.
The second demand deals with the way in which the poor are persecuted for so called 'fraud' and overpayments. People on assistance take amounts they are not entitled to because they are receiving incomes that they can't feed themselves or their families on. Prosecute Bay Street swindlers and leave poor people alone. We call on the City to refuse to give information to the cops that will enable them to criminalize people trying to feed their kids. We also say that, where an administrative overpayment is being collected from someone who has received income they were not entitled to under the harsh rules of the system, it should be City policy to keep those payments down to a maximum level of 2%. People on sub-poverty income should not have that pittance further reduced to any major degree by a City that is supposed to have a social reformer as its mayor.
Housing as a Right not an Empty Promise
3. Ensure that enough social, supportive and accessible housing is built to eliminate the waiting list.
This is as basic as it comes so let's lay down the facts. 71,000 families and individuals are on a 13-year waiting list in Toronto for social housing. Those thousands of people are working multiple jobs, going hungry, and living in rotten conditions while they wait. Thousands of homeless people pack into shelters every night because no supportive housing is open. Accessible housing is needed dearly for those with disabilities. HOUSING NOW.
4. Freeze all condo development in neighbourhoods where low income housing stock is threatened with displacement.
An Anti-Condo By-Law would work like this: in any community in the city where the vacancy rate was less than 3% - as it is in all poor communities in Toronto - development of condos would be outlawed. Similar laws have been passed in many cities in Quebec and have helped to stop poor neighbourhoods from being overrun by expensive rental housing for yuppies and the rich. In downtown neighbourhoods like Regent Park and Parkdale, we see condos being built everywhere. They cause rents to go up and bars, restaurants, and supermarkets to raise their prices. This is forcing poor people out of their neighbourhoods and into the periphery of the city, where there is less access to community centres and other services. An Anti-Condo By-Law could slow this process down and give us time to organize to stop the destruction of our neighbourhoods.
5. Launch a campaign to retrofit empty buildings, starting with municipally owned 'surplus housing', and ensure the impending rental unit inspection and repair by-law before City Council is implemented effectively and immediately.
Miller says he's launched a program to retrofit abandoned buildings already, but it's not like we've never seen a politician take 3 years to fuck up a job that we could've done in a matter of weeks. At OCAP squats we've had labour unions and local contractors ready to go on bringing buildings up to livable standards. We've occupied buildings with major support and appreciation from the poor communities they stand in. Homes have been opened where those living there are the ones who call the shots; cause they call them the best. In any case, if Miller's program does really work, I think it's fair to say that had it not been for the hundreds of us who have marched, squatted, and defended occupations over the last 6 years, no politician would've had the mental capacity to conceive of such a project in the first place.
6. Inject money into shelters immediately, including shelters for abused women and children. End all seasonal closing of shelter space. Bring the spaces up to decent, livable standards.
Shelters are not a solution to the housing crisis or homelessness, in fact they're a barrier. Rather than provide housing for all, our government maintains a policy of keeping the poor divided. Not only is it good enough to divide the poor by race and colour, but they've divided us between those that have housing and those that don't. By keeping thousands on the streets and packed into shelters they make it harder for us to find common ground even though this is an illusion. And then the City tries to act like shelters don't need money because the politicians are about to build housing and solve the whole problem. Bullshit. We need housing but we also need people to live in safety and dignity today. As it stands the shelters in this city are a total disgrace - they are run like prisons, maintained like dumps, and the people who live in them are crammed in tight and treated like rejects. Due to cutbacks to shelters for abused women and children, there is now a 4-month wait to get into one of these places. What are women wanting to escape abuse supposed to do for 4 months? The City is allowing this violence to continue and to grow.
To make matters worse, thousands of beds get closed ever spring and summer pushing people into the parks and under the bridges where the cops go after them. We want the shelters open all year and with conditions that are decent. People should not be forced to sleep on floors, in bug-infested rooms, and crowded into tiny spaces. People deserve to live with dignity now.
The Needs of Communities vs Law and Order
7. Freeze the Police budget, eliminate Community Action Policing and put the freed up resources into meeting the real needs of communities.
Mayor Miller has already given the cops a fat pay raise. This year they again asked for more than just about anybody else, a whopping $50 million to top up the $650 million they got last year. Just like every other kowtowing politician, Miller has been unable to resist calls from the police for funding, who constantly use scare tactics to keep the population fearful. But while the demand for housing and social services has gone up over the past years, the demand for police has gone down. Here's a good example of what's going on. A friend just found out she is being fired from her city-funded job at a service for women who are victims of domestic abuse. So while domestic assault is the most common call the police get, the city cuts funding to services who work to prevent these assaults from happening and gives more money to the pigs who more often than not blame the victim and can't stop assaults from happening.
When Fantino says, "If we don't get this budget raise, there will be less officers on the street" we say, "Good." For us that means fewer officers to harass and ticket us, beat us up, and arrest us on trumped up charges. If the cops want to cut their budget, they can do away with Community Action Policing, where cops are dumped into poor communities to profile the poor and people of colour. They could ditch their new $50 million shooting range. And they could toss their Chief and his $250,000/year salary.
A "Don't Ask" policy for Toronto would mean that no person regardless of their immigration status would have to fear being reported to the immigration authorities and deported for accessing basic services for themselves and their families anymore. As it stands, families are often unable to register their children for school, apply for subsidized housing, call the police in an emergency situation, or even visit a doctor for fear that their information will be passed on to immigration authorities. The current situation makes it extremely difficult for families to settle and integrate and vastly contributes to making immigrant and refugee communities prone to increased levels of homelessness, unemployment, and poverty. Large American cities such as New York have already legislated this exact policy. We're demanding one in Toronto to ensure equal treatment for all.
9. Repeal all municipal by-laws that are used for 'social cleansing' of neighbourhoods and the persecution of homeless people, such as 'camp in park without a permit'.
Homeless people, especially in the downtown core, face a relentless drive to push them out. Low income housing stock is blocked or destroyed, hostels and drop-ins are closed or prevented from opening, and the police and private security companies commonly harass and terrorize those on the streets to move them out of tourist districts and downtown.
One of the ways that the cops intimidate and target the homeless is by issuing massive quantities of tickets. Many of the laws that they use for this purpose are provincial such as the infamous Safe Streets Act. However, there are a number of municipal ordinances that are employed against people. Those who try to take refuge in the parks at night are hit with "camp in park without a permit". People who erect shelters under places like the Gardiner Expressway are persecuted on the basis of by-laws relating to the safety of structures (as if sleeping on a sidewalk would be safer!). The Miller Regime must act immediately to strike down the municipal component of this edifice of harassment and social cleansing and ensure that the drive to force out homeless people is limited insofar as it is in the power of the City to do so.
Community Needs and Access
10. Abolish user fees and restore cuts in services in all municipal community centres and settlement agencies.
Strong communities need a place where people of all ages can gather for a variety of activities free of charge. If this city wants to be healthy it must fund community centres and settlement agencies for immigrants so that people can feel part of a community network and can access the wide variety of services that people need. More services for youth, programs for families and community events to bring neighbourhoods together - not more cops!
SIGN ON TO TEN DEMANDS FOR MUNICIPAL ACTION ON POVERTY
The City of Toronto government is currently contemplating its budget options, with powerful forces weighing in on where the money should best be spent. The poor and working people of this City must silence the usual chorus of business and police interests, starting now and ending only when we get what has long been so badly needed to make our lives decent.
We know that our welfare cheques are our cheques are being put on hold or denied by the municipality, we know that our children and friends are still being beaten and harassed by the cops, we know that condos are still rising up next to our homes. We do not need further discussion, task forces, or consultations.
Therefore, we have begun to band together around clear and simple demands for action on poverty in Toronto (listed below). We have met and presented our demands to City Councillors and to Mayor David Miller. These demands cover basic issues poor people face in Toronto and focus on the measures that Miller and the municipal government he heads have the power and ability to act upon. We have not seen enough concrete commitment by Miller and his councillors to act on the real needs and rights of our communities.
The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, community groups and organizations from various neighbourhoods are calling on all poor and working people living in this City to join us in the fight to see these demands met. We call on people and organizations to ENDORSE the Ten Demands for Action on Poverty and to bring them into your homes, community centres, and coffee shops. We call on you to ORGANIZE PUBLIC MEETINGS in your area to discuss the demands and the ways to make them a reality.
To endorse and find out more,
email ocap@tao.ca or call (416) 925-6939
ENDORSING GROUPS
