On Ontario Works or ODSP in the City of Toronto? Do you know about the new Housing Stabilization Fund?

**Download the HSF info flyer here and help us distribute in OW and ODSP offices

At the start of 2013, the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) was cut by the Ontario Liberals. This was a vital benefit that thousands of people on OW and ODSP used to secure a place to live, pay first and last months’ rent, stave off eviction, get furniture and household items, pay utilities,. This is just another attack on poor people who depend on social assistance, making it harder and harder to get by.

When the Liberal Government cut the Community Start Up, the City of Toronto created a new fund to replace it, the Housing Stabilization Fund (HSF). This fund is set to run out by the end of 2013 and you may be eligible for it!

2013-2014 Ontario Provincial Budget Breakdown by OCAP

OCAP had no great expectations that the 'Social Justice Premier's' first Budget would give poor communities in Ontario much reason to celebrate. We are surprised, however, at just how shamelessly she has continued to push people into deeper poverty. Wynne, like McGuinty before her, is obsessed with ‘eliminating the deficit’ at all costs. It is clear from the government’s own figures that corporate greed created this deficit, but the people of Ontario will be expected to pay for it. In the 2013 budget, they boast of reducing corporate taxes by $8.5 billion per year since 2009 and proudly announce that Ontarians now get less per capita funding from their government than people in any other province.

The vital question was whether social assistance rates would be raised in a way that began to repair the incredible loss of real income that has taken place since 1993. The measures taken in this budget leave no room for doubt. The great majority of people on social assistance will get a 1% increase, which is, of course, a cut when you consider the rate of inflation. To put this in real terms, consider that in 2013, landlords can raise rent by 2.5%, but social assistance rates are only going up by 1%. Single people on Ontario Works, whose income has declined by 56% since the 90s, will receive $14 a month over and above this. Their income will increase by perhaps 3%, which means they will pretty well stay where they are against inflation. This comes shockingly below the $100 raise recommendation of their own commission.

RAISE the RATES!

A Raise the Rates Campaign strategy meeting was held in Toronto on
March 16 and one of its decisions was to call for a week of action in
the lead up to the 2013 Provincial Budget which is set to come down
mid-April. We are calling on community organizations and unions to
hold actions at Liberal MPP's offices and events during the week of
April 8 to challenge Liberal austerity and to demand real action on
poverty.

> No cut to the Special Diet.
> Restore the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit
> No downloading of ODSP or forcing people with disabilities into poverty jobs
> Restore OW and ODSP rates to where they were in 1995 - A 56% increase is needed now
> End the freeze on the minimum wage. Set it at $14 and index it to inflation.

A message from the Raise the Rates Campaign
February, 2013

Once again the Ontario Liberals are playing political games with poor people’s lives. New Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne is trying to make people forget McGuinty’s legacy of brutal cuts by toying with offering small scraps of relief for people on social assistance - an additional $100/month for ‘single employables on Ontario Works’ (individuals on welfare) and the right to keep up to $200/month of income for everyone else. There will be attempts to spin this as a gain for poor people in Ontario, but the Liberals have again failed to meet the demands that poor people have been making for the last decade.

Wynne and the Liberals have seen poor and working people building resistance to Liberal austerity. This past December, we forced $42 million out of the government in money that they had intended to cut as part of the elimination of the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit - money that they said did not exist. Our fightback has the Liberals worried and they are betting that these small increases will slow the momentum of this movement. Once again, this government has underestimated poor people in Ontario - we will not accept concessions and we will never back down on our demand to Raise the Rates!

The Raise the Rates Campaign represents a broad and growing consensus amongst community groups, unions and anti-poverty activists about social assistance in this province. Together we reject attempts to divide poor people on assistance between those on Ontario Works and those on Ontario Disability Support Program.  We are united in this fight and building alliances with all those living in poverty, people working low-wage precarious jobs, and unionized workers.
WE DEMAND:

1) Reverse the Cuts, Raise the Rates!
In 1995 the Tory government cut welfare rates by 21.6 % and froze disability. Since the Liberals came to power in 2003, they have not only failed to reverse the Harris cuts, but have actually perpetuated a further decline in rates. As a result of that initial 21.6% cut coupled with inflation for the last 16 years, welfare rates are approximately 55% below where they should be. If benefit levels were restored to the same level of spending power as we had in 1994, a single person on Ontario Works would receive an immediate $936/month instead of the miserable $606 now being issued. No one can survive on these poverty rates; $606 cannot afford someone a place to live let alone food and basic needs.
The Liberal government has frozen the minimum wage for last three years. Workers trying to survive on minimum wage are already making poverty wages that continue to lose their spending power as a result of inflation. Currently there are approximately 1 in 6 workers or working at or close to minimum wage in Ontario, and the gap between minimum wage and welfare is greater now than it ever has been.
WE DEMAND an immediate increase in OW and ODSP rates to bring them back to pre- Harris levels. 55% NOW– raise the rates to where people can live with health and dignity!
WE DEMAND the minimum wage freeze be lifted immediately and that minimum wage be increased to $14 for everyone in Ontario.

2) Restore Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit and the Special Diet Allowance!
The Liberals have cut two vital benefits that poor people need to survive. The Special Diet put healthy food on the table and the CSUMB kept a roof over people’s heads. We demand that these benefits be restored immediately.
In the 2012 Provincial budget, the Liberal government targeted the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) for elimination by January 2013 and downloaded the responsibility of a housing fund to municipalities. This vital benefit allows people to get housed (first and last months rent, moving costs etc), pay for the basic essentials to set up a home (furniture, pots and pans), or recover from an emergency or crisis (the need to move for ones personal safety, or to pay for lost items due to a fire or bed bugs outbreak).
The Special Diet Allowance has been another vital benefit that has put money in the pockets of communities forced to live in poverty on social assistance rates that are entirely inadequate. The Liberals have been slowly chipping away at the Special Diet Allowance for the past 7 years making it harder and harder for people to qualify. The most recent proposal would see this benefit gone once and for all to ‘offset the cost’ of raising the base level of Ontario Works for singles by $100. The estimated cost of this cut in money would be: $240 million.
The loss of the full Special Diet Allowance and the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit alongside declining social assistance rates will drive communities deeper into poverty, poor health and will increase homelessness.
WE DEMAND the full restoration of the Special Diet to a benefit of up to $250 for food and complete reversal of all intrusive measures AND the full restoration of the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit as a provincially run program.

The Movement is growing: Join the Raise the Rates Campaign!
To get involved and to endorse the Raise the Rates Campaign, please visit: www.ocap.ca/rtr
CUPE Ontario Raise the Rates Campaign: www.cupe.on.ca/raisetherates
On Facebook, join the Raise the Rates page: https://www.facebook.com/RaiseTheRates

Or contact us at: Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
157 Carlton St, Unit 206, Toronto, ON M5A 2K3
Phone: 416-925-6939
Email: ocap@tao.ca
Twitter: @OCAPtoronto #RaisetheRates
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