How government penny-pinching makes life harder for unhoused Ontarians
Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
In Ontario, if you lose your home, you get less social assistance than someone who has a home. The government cuts your benefits in half. Why punish people when we can help them get back on their feet? If it’s simply about saving money, surely the government can find lots of other ways to do that without ruining people’s lives… Social assistance should help people, not make their lives even harder.
Tags: budget, homelessness, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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The perverse logic of social assistance
Monday, March 4th, 2024
In Ontario, single adults who are unhoused… receive $343 per month for basic needs, and $0 for shelter. That works out to about $11 per day. No one can say with a straight face that $11 per day is a program designed to help people. How is it possible for someone to get by, let alone to get back on their feet, with so little? … It doesn’t function to bolster their well-being, or stop them from falling further into poverty. Instead, it responds to a person who has lost their home by making their life even harder.
Tags: featured, homelessness, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
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The Canada Disability Benefit Act is progress worth celebrating
Monday, July 31st, 2023
First, it is a measure to prevent poverty that is protected by law. It adds to our system of legal protections, which include laws such as the National Housing Strategy Act (2019) and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (2005). These laws are important symbolically, as they codify our society’s commitment to uphold our economic and social rights. They are also important practically, as they require governments to set out rules about how they will put that commitment into action.
Tags: disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Moving from theory to implementation on human rights and poverty
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022
Where and how do we advocate for changes in the way our public systems operate so that people experience their human rights in their everyday lives? What can we learn from the way our community partners serve individuals and families? … the people who live with the consequences of our systems that are built to put and keep people in poverty, must be active participants in shaping the solutions that will impact their lives the most.
Tags: disabilities, Health, homelessness, ideology, multiculturalism, participation, philanthropy, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
When it comes to poverty and single adults, solutions need to be both principled and practical
Friday, September 2nd, 2022
… single adults with no children make up half of people living in deep poverty in Canada. Many of these adults have paid jobs and still live in poverty. Our current labour laws allow employers to pay workers poverty wages without benefits, subject them to unpredictable schedules, or misclassify employees as independent contractors – all of which mean that being employed is no guarantee of a decent income… Our systems collaborate to create poverty in many different ways.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Moving from theory to implementation on human rights and poverty
Wednesday, July 13th, 2022
When we think of “human rights,” many tend to think of large-scale, national-level issues. Cities, though, are where people experience their lives, where their ability to access their rights (or not) becomes a lived reality. Municipal governments are responsible for many of the systems that we need daily, such as zoning for housing, parks and recreation, and public health services… we have been working on articulating what the principles of a human rights approach mean in practice… so that people experience their human rights in their everyday lives
Tags: featured, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Why we need to care about single adults living in poverty
Friday, July 1st, 2022
… single adults made up more than 60 per cent of OW cases and nearly 80 per cent of ODSP cases in 2021. Together, they equal the population of Ontario’s fastest growing city… The social assistance system was intended to be an emergency system – a last resort when all else failed. Well, all else is failing. Our other social systems are not preventing single adults from living in poverty. Rather, these systems are pushing people into poverty and holding them there… our social safety net is a relic of another era, as is our notion of who needs it.
Tags: disabilities, featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
We can’t simply build our way out of our housing crisis
Friday, April 29th, 2022
More new housing will help if it’s the kind of housing that is currently lacking, built for the people who need it most. Various studies indicate that 40 to 50 per cent of people in Canada are living paycheque-to-paycheque. That is, nearly half the population of this prosperous country are income insecure. Plans for new housing must prioritize these people.
Tags: budget, featured, homelessness, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Shaking up the systems: Fighting poverty in post-pandemic Canada
Saturday, July 24th, 2021
At the core of the questions raised by the NACP was the idea that we need structural change to reduce poverty in Canada… we offer a number of policy ideas that can help systematically reduce poverty… rooted in what the evidence tells us… the idea that everyone across Canada has the fundamental human right to live in dignity and participate fully in society, and it is the duty of all levels of government to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
The City must work with people living in encampments – not evict them
Tuesday, June 29th, 2021
Leaving people out of the decisions that affect their lives so profoundly is part of the wrong-headed decision-making process that led us to encampments in the first place. All paths forward on encampments must involve the meaningful participation of the people who are living in them.
Tags: crime prevention, homelessness, housing, ideology, mental Health, participation, poverty, rights
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
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