Get on the bus from Toronto to Kitchener - Confront Milloy!
Inviting ourselves to Minister Milloy’s Holiday Open House

BUSES FROM TORONTO:

*Please Reserve a Seat to make sure you get a spot, Call: 416-925-6939

EAST-END: 10am, Allan Gardens Park (Carlton/Sherbourne side)
WEST-END: 9:30am: Sistering, 962 Bloor St. West AND 10am: PARC, 1499
Queen St. West

IN KITCHENER:
Rally @ 12:30 pm
Address: 1770 King St. E, Unit 6C

Minister of Community and Social Services (a.k.a Misery), John Milloy,is planning to host a ‘holiday open house’ on Friday, December 7th at his constituency office in Kitchener. But this is the same Minister that is cutting the only benefit for people on social assistance (OW or ODSP), that lets them get housing or stay housed. As of January 1st, 2013, the CSUMB is slated to be cut by the Provincial Liberal Government. Minister Milloy thinks that he can host a holiday open house while thousands in this province are homeless or at risk of being homeless as a result of this vicious cut.

Join Poverty Makes Us Sick and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty as we invite ourselves along to Minister Milloy’s holiday shindig, and make sure the message is heard loud and clear: STOP THE CUT TO THE CSUMB, RAISE THE RATES NOW!

**This event is launching a Week of Action across Ontario to Save CSUMB**

16,000 people a month turn to the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB).

It is one of the only ways that people on OW or ODSP can get housing, cover the costs of moving, stave off eviction and obtain the basic items to maintain a home. It is a defense against homelessness and a means by which many women and children are able to leave situations of domestic violence.

Cutting CSUMB is designed to hurt people as much as possible when they are at the most vulnerable point in their lives. It will increase homelessness and hardship.

Speakers include John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).

Bag Lunches will be available.

Organized by:

Mamaweswen, the North-Shore Tribal Council
Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty

For more Information contact S-CAP at 249-878-7227 or sudburyCAP@gmail.com

OCAP Statement on the Report of the Commission for the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario

“Brighter Prospects” is the spin doctored title of the long anticipated report on social assistance prepared for the Liberal Government by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheihk. For some nine years, the Liberals have talked ‘poverty reduction’ while actually making people poorer and the release of this report is the crowning moment of this long process. As the Liberals prepare to intensify their agenda of social cutbacks and attacks on public sector workers, this report offers them three useful forms of assistance.

Firstly, just when their seemingly endless round of ‘consulting stakeholders’ on poverty and social assistance seemed to have run out of credibility, the Government is now handed yet another way to divert attention from the obvious fact that their declarations on alleviating poverty have been a sham. Now, they have yet another ‘bold and innovative blueprint’ that they must study and consider so as to prepare the ‘comprehensive and sweeping’ measures they have been meaning to get around to for nine years.

Secondly, there are some useful tidbits included in the report that offer the illusion that tiny shuffles in the right direction might be possible. There are, for example, recommendations on the amount of assets or earnings people on assistance may receive without having them clawed back. It is proposed that the pursuit of child support by those on assistance should be optional. An advisory group is called for that would look at benefit levels and develop a ‘Basic Measure of Adequacy’. It is suggested that single people on Ontario Works should have their income increased by $100 a month in the interim (although this would be paid for by eliminating the Special Diet and other ‘extras’ as social assistance benefits).

LIBERAL LEGACY OF ATTACKS ON THE POOR:

Of course, there is no reason to suppose that the Liberals are likely to act on the few modest improvements contained in the report. In fact, John Milloy as a response to growing pressure in communities, including in his riding in Kitchener, has already stated that the $100 increase is not an option because ‘the Province cannot afford it’. This year, benefit levels went up by less than the rate of inflation and even this only took place because, as a minority government, they had to abandon a complete rate freeze in order to negotiate the passage of their Budget. This, of course, included brutal cuts for people on social assistance particularly the elimination of the vital Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB). The cut to the CSUMB is perhaps one of the most blatant examples of how dreadful the policies of the Liberal government have been for poor people. It is a benefit that in reality means the difference between housing and homelessness for thousands of people in Ontario. It is often the only way women in poverty are able leave abusive situations and start-up somewhere safer. It is also the only way that people on assistance are able to buy the basic necessities like a bed and pots and pans.

Dear OCAP members, supporters and allies,

Yesterday we heard the news that the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, Dalton McGuinty, has resigned and prorogued government.

McGuinty has resigned, but make no mistake, the Liberal anti-poor policies continue. This recent turn of events does not mean that the cut to Community Start-Up will be stopped - we have to continue our campaign under the assumption that the CSUMB cut will come in to effect this coming January. Which is why we need to keep up the pressure to stop this cut and to raise the rates!

Queen's park is closed down, but the Ministry of Community and Social Services remains open - which is where we are headed tomorrow to deliver our applications for CSUMB, and our demands. Join us tomorrow on the streets, and help spread the message!

Solidarity,

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

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Day for the Eradication of Poverty
Toronto Events
Wednesday October 17

Join Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and Jane-Finch Action
Against Poverty (JFAAP) at events throughout the day...

**To sign on to this letter as a union local or as a community service agency or organization, please email: raisetheratescampaign@gmail.com

October, 2012

Open Letter from Social Service and Front-line Community Workers on the Provincial Cut to the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB)

In January 2013, as part of its austerity budget, the Ontario provincial government will cut 50% of funding to the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB). The other half of CSUMB money will go to municipal housing and homelessness programs that serve an even larger pool of low-income people, and CSUMB as we know it will effectively be eliminated. As social service and frontline community workers, we are opposed to this mean-spirited cost-cutting measure and the adverse impact that it will have on the health and well-being of the individuals and communities that we work with.

The CSUMB has been available to Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) recipients who are facing difficult crisis situations. This benefit has been used to: secure housing by people leaving shelters or hospitals; to pay rent arrears in order to avoid eviction; to pay utility arrears in order to avoid having your water or heat cut off during the freezing winter months; and purchasing basic household items such as a bed or mattress. Currently, some 16,000 people a month across Ontario rely on this vital benefit.

For frontline workers in the Violence Against Women (VAW) sector, the CSUMB has proved decisive in enabling women and their children to flee domestic violence situations and secure safe housing. Without access to this benefit, countless immigrants and refugees—many fleeing war, trauma and economically precarious conditions—would not be able to afford housing in Ontario upon arrival. For those individuals accessing drop-ins and shelters and struggling with extreme poverty, substandard housing and homelessness, mental and physical health disabilities, and addictions, the slashing of the CSUMB will certainly result in increased marginalization, homelessness, misery and hardship.

The provincial government’s slashing of the CSUMB, along with other recent measures like the cut to the Special Diet Allowance, is contributing to increased poverty and inequality in our communities, especially for social assistance recipients.