Posts Tagged ‘housing’
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Poverty costs us all
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Dec. 16, 2011
“… most people don’t recognize what poverty costs us… Over the last 30 years, even when the economy has been at it best, we still had 10% of the population living in poverty. With the recent recession, the numbers are higher… one in three people living in poverty have jobs and an education… Politicians need to hear from constituents that poverty is an issue and something needs to be done”… Kleinsmith has shared the petition with a number of her contacts and hopes others can do the same. Bridges has a copy of it online — www.bridgeschc.ca — that can be printed.
Tags: budget, Health, housing, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Third World conditions — First World ignorance
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Nov 30 2011
When emergency situations occur, First Nations like Attawapiskat must either use the money provided for their basic needs or they must call upon the federal and provincial governments to provide financial assistance. Often they end up using their existing funding to address crisis situations in their communities, with no reimbursement from any level of government. As a result, they go into deficit… It’s not the time for finger pointing or attempting to convince the Canadian public that loads of money has already been spent on aboriginal peoples in Canada, and that accountability and transparency are the answer.
Tags: budget, housing, Indigenous, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Queen’s Park offers crumbs to Ontario’s poor
Sunday, November 27th, 2011
Nov 24 2011
On Dec. 1, the province’s 475,000 neediest people get a 1 per cent raise. For an individual, that amounts to an extra $7 a month. For a single parent raising two children, it is $9 more. Keep in mind that consumer prices are rising by 3 per cent, so the modest increase will be gobbled up by inflation… The poor won’t complain… Social activists won’t raise their voices. They now consider this a lost cause… This is not the scenario Ontarians envisaged when they elected McGuinty in 2003. They wanted relief from the slash-and-burn policies of former premier Mike Harris… The old Ontario — with its sturdy social conscience — is gone.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, housing, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
New tactics in an old fight [child poverty]
Sunday, November 27th, 2011
Nov 26 2011
The child poverty rate has gone down — from 11.9 per cent in 1989 when Parliament passed an all-party resolution pledging to eliminate child poverty by the turn of the millennium, to 9.5 per cent in 2009. But most of the drop is due to economic growth… Policy improvements reinforced these gains. The National Child Benefit, the federal working income tax credit and Ontario’s child benefit helped to ease the plight of low-income parents. What’s still missing are the two things that struggling parents need most: Affordable housing… Affordable child care
Tags: child care, housing, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Graphic: Taking measure of Canada’s provinces
Sunday, November 13th, 2011
Nov 12, 2011
Statistics Canada released new data this week about how the economies of Canadian provinces and territories grew and shrank in 2010. The National Post’s graphics team takes a look. [see graphic]
Tags: economy, housing, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Affordable housing deal between Ottawa and Queen’s Park finally signed
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
Nov 08 2011
A new $481 million program to bring new or renovated affordable housing units to about 7,000 Ontario families will only put a dent in the problem, but is nonetheless welcome, a Toronto city councillor said Tuesday… Housing advocates say about 152,000 Ontario households are on waiting lists for affordable housing and an estimated 20 per cent of tenants are paying more than 50 per cent of their income on shelter.
Tags: homelessness, housing, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Middle class is key to economic recovery, Rae says
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Nov 09 2011
“The Occupy movement is a powerful reflection of what happens when trust breaks down. But it’s more,” Rae says in his speech. “While it’s often seen as just a protest movement of the marginalized, it’s also speaking to a clear sense among the middle-class people around the world that the government is not in their corner; that it has stopped fighting for them.”
Tags: economy, housing, ideology, participation, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Landlords face no punishment for discrimination in online ads
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
Oct 6, 2011
Only Muslims need apply. It’s the exact kind of specifications the Ontario Human Rights Commission recently warned landlords against putting in their online classified ads —any denial of a prospective tenant due to race, ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability, among other things, is grounds for discrimination according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s housing policy and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Tags: housing, multiculturalism, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Poor go to the back of the line for housing
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
Sep 27 2011
Families living in poverty are being bumped down on the first-come-first-served municipal lists by families escaping domestic abuse, who leapfrog to the front of the line because of a provincial policy that gives them priority. Overall, the system is so broken that, according to a new study, up to 70 per cent of applicants just give up when they can’t find housing within four years and drop off the list… fewer than half of the subsidized units in the GTA go to the low-income residents who have signed on to social housing wait lists in good faith. On average, their names will languish there for a minimum of five years before getting a unit.
Tags: budget, homelessness, housing, poverty, tax
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
We need to move away from public housing
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
September 24, 2011
Even those willing to trust the poor with a welfare cheque for other basics do not think it wise to hand them the down payment on a house, or even the monthly rent on a decent apartment. Hence the impulse to furnish housing more directly… if someone else owns your home you gain little from looking after it. Trash it and the state will find you another one; take care of it and you gain nothing… Living on the public dime teaches only helplessness, resentment and anger.
Tags: budget, economy, homelessness, housing, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
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