Archive for the ‘Inclusion’ Category

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With disability benefits, governments cannot get lost in complexity

Friday, May 31st, 2024

The purpose of the CDB is to protect people with disabilities from poverty. The application process should strive to make it easy to identify the people who need this protection… Developing this new benefit will no doubt raise difficult questions about definitions of disability, jurisdiction, and how different programs interact with each other… But they are not impossible. They are not an excuse for doing nothing.

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Here’s how Ontarians on ODSP are trying to make ends meet

Sunday, May 19th, 2024

… the low social-assistance rates in Ontario… are forcing recipients to earn money however they can. Living in what disability activists frequently refer to as “legislated poverty,” these recipients often drain their savings, borrow money from friends and family, or even consider taking their own lives… Programs like the recently unveiled Canada Disability Benefit, or even the Ontario government’s decision to index ODSP to inflation, not only don’t keep pace with the past few years of inflation — they barely address decades of stagnant earnings.

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Debunking myths about community housing: What governments and the public should know

Thursday, May 9th, 2024

Canada’s Housing Plan… includes noteworthy new funding programs and policies to preserve and expand community housing, including social, non-profit and co-operative housing… Canada’s ongoing housing crisis extends beyond affordability and supply challenges. It also involves homelessness, risks to tenancy, shortage of accessible units, financialization and the lack of culturally adequate housing. Community housing is poised to effectively tackle these insidious problems in ways the market cannot.

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Canada disability benefit severely underfunded in Budget 2024 and Canadians with disabilities will pay the price

Thursday, April 25th, 2024

One-in-seven people who access food banks nationally rely on provincial disability income support. In many provinces, that means living more than $800 below the poverty line each month… it was never about seeing just another income support program come into effect. It was about extending the type of tangible support to Canadians with disabilities living in severe poverty, helping them overcome its relentless cycle.

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Here are some dos and don’ts to help tackle ableism

Wednesday, January 31st, 2024

Ableism goes beyond individual fear or prejudice. It influences who we see as having a life worth living and who is seen as a burden. That, in turn, impacts our practices and policies. We all have a role to play in challenging ableism, which may sometimes leave us feeling awkward or unsure if we’re doing and saying the right things. But, to our knowledge being awkward isn’t deadly. Ableism too often is.

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After the apologies: Churches give time and money to redress residential-school wrongs

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024

Although public apologies occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, it wasn’t until 2006 that a class-action lawsuit – the largest in Canadian history – brought about the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which recognized the damage done to Indigenous children placed in these schools… In addition to their responsibility to fulfil the 2006 agreement, churches have made efforts to fundraise for programs that don’t fall within the agreement’s mandates.

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Could this project help address our housing crisis — and put a roof over refugees’ heads?

Wednesday, January 17th, 2024

Refugee Housing Canada’s home-sharing platform connects refugees in need of a safe and welcoming home with Canadian hosts who want to help and also earn some income… “It’s not unprecedented. After the Second World War, there was a big shortage of housing and people took in boarders. I know the world is a very, very different place today but it’s time to do that again.” 

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Ontario has an accessibility crisis. It’s time Queen’s Park acted with urgency

Thursday, January 4th, 2024

First, avoid gathering any data that might indicate the scope of the problem, as well as how to solve it. Second, don’t put anyone in charge of remedying the problem. Finally, avoid employing any enforcement mechanism, so no one’s ever held responsible for failing to do anything. That… is precisely what the province has been doing for the past 17 years. The review, which is mandated by the act, found that more than three quarters of the province’s 2.9 million people with disabilities (PWD) reported negative experiences.

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Toronto is getting a fourth emergency service. That’s vital for helping people in crisis

Wednesday, November 29th, 2023

The service, which offers a non-police, community-based response to people experiencing mental health crises… will soon cover the entire city… Police are, after all, not trained mental health professionals, and police involvement has all too often ended in tragedy. In contrast, 93 per cent of the crisis calls were successfully completed, and 95 per cent of people served by crisis teams said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the service.

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Montréal’s ‘mixed’ police squads don’t help the city’s unhoused people — they cause more harm

Monday, October 9th, 2023

The squads add a layer of surveillance and harassment that leads unhoused people to leave the spaces they know best and distance themselves from their support network in order to avoid police… the report calls for a new approach to homelessness, including abolishing mixed squads and reallocating their funding to two types of interventions.

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