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Tenant Action Group in Belleville: Hunger Clinic VII A Success!
Submitted by ocap on Sat, 11/12/2005 - 02:13.
Coming on the heals of Pupatello's announcement that she has cut the provincial "special diet" allowance, TAG held its seventh "Hunger Clinic" assessing 123 people for the "special diet" allowance.
In a race to beat the Liberal imposed cut-off date, TAG forged ahead reaching over 904 deperate people in total since we started our OCAP inspired "Hunger Clinic".
A single mom with three kids now gets an extra $1,000 from the benefit above and beyond her normal welfare cheque!
Our Doctor rocks!
Anyways, the supposed deadline is the 19th of November to get 'em signed!
The Ontario Common Front met recently and we are co-ordinating and supporting province wide actions to forstall the threatened axe.
Next...
All out! for November the 26th Mass Action against the “special diet" cuts in Toronto. We want to fill two buses for this. Let us know if you want to join us, and other OCF comrades in bringing dignity to all Ontarians through a massive show of force.
In solidarity,
TAG Collective
For updates visit our website at:
Previous Update about Hunger Clinic VII
Hunger Clinic VII A Go!
Despite Pupatello's (Ontario's failure Minister of Social Services) announced gutting of the "special diet" allowance we still have a chance of winning people on welfare and disability big bucks to pay the rent and feed the kids.
The announced changes to the "special diet" program gives us only until November 16th to get our people assessed before the government cracks the whip.
The best evidence from the reams of government documents released last Friday leads us to believe that anyone who has the old forms and gets assessed tomorrow will get approximately three month's worth of the special diet allowance.
Example:
Single mom with three kids stands to get $1,000 for Christmas ($1,000 when you apply, $1,000 on December 1st and, maybe, $1,000 for January - depending on how fast the bureaucrats can act).
This is all contingent upon many factors out of our control; specifically how the County interprets the provincial changes and how fast the province acts to axe the program. TAG has contacted Hastings County and all we can say is that we were not discouraged by the discussion...
TAG and our Ontario Common Front allies will not stand for the gutting of the "special diet" allowance and we plan to attack the government forthwith with a big action planned in Toronto on November 26th. Local actions are also in the works. Last Tuesday TAG dispatched a militant delegation which shut down the Ministry in Toronto for four hours. One of our comrades sustained multiple fractures thanks to the cops in Toronto!
We need bodies to ride our bus(ses) to Toronto on the 26th to make our stand!
TAG had two choices with regards to holding Hunger Clinic VII this Saturday: CANCEL or carry on; The consensus of the group was that if we can squeeze ANY extra money from the government then we are duty bound to fight for the hungry despite the possibility that the County or the provice may not accept our forms.
That said, the best evidence is that we CAN get more money!
If you have the old forms c'mon out to 41 Octavia in Belleville at 1:00 pm Saturday, November 12th. "Bridging the Gap" (a local community agency) has agreed to allow us to utilize their space for the clinic.
Our doctor will be there...
Pass this message on to anyone with the forms who is on welfare or Ontario Disability.
Help us to fight to win!
TAG Collective
AGAIN: You must have the forms to get assessed!
