The Citizens Panel
In my last post I asked where was everyone and many of you answered. I am deeply grateful for this. Some of you asked where you can show up and help and I have a suggestion for you that I hope and pray you’ll take me up on. I’m involved with some amazing people, Rev. Kevin Dixon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sue Wilson of the Sisters of St. Joseph, James Shelley, co-ordinator of the City Symposium, and Eric Shepperd, and Glen Pearson, on a citizens panel trying to make some concrete suggestions for the thousands of people who are on Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Payments (ODSP). Our province, Ontario, is in the middle of a review of these services (called SARC for Social Assistance Review Committee) and as a part of this you have an opportunity here in London to speak to some very specific points in order improve the lives of the most vulnerable in the places where we live.
In London a review was held with agencies and people with lived experience currently using the OW/ODSP system. Some of the thoughts that came out of this were: “Londoners expressed interest in simplified social assistance rules. While they want consistency, they also want workers to be able to respond to their individual needs. They want a program that better provides enough income to meet the cost of living particularly for food and shelter and they want a program that includes transportation as a basic benefit. They want a program that allows people to keep more of the income they earn from working and want a program that does not require that assets virtually be depleted as a condition of eligibility. Having access to adequate housing is fundamental.”Click here to read the entire report form the London meeting.
Let me give a little background so you have something to go on. Currently if you are on Ontario Works you get about $582.00/month to live on. In London the Low Income Cut off measure ( the poverty line) is a little more than $1500/month. So if you’re making a little more than $1500/month you have enough to pay your rent, get groceries, buy your clothing, ride the bus, and generally squeak by. But remember if you’re on OW you’re only getting about 582/month. That’s a difference of more than $800/month.
(Graph supplied by James Shelly)
)Low income cut of vs OW vs ODSP
Also if you’re on OW or ODSP and you make a little extra cash, say you get a part-time job or 10 hours of work from a temporary employment agency, that gets clawed back from what you receive every month. So if you make an extra $100 that month 50.00 will be taken off of your OW cheque. So if I get paid $10.50/hr. for 10 hrs. that equals $105.00. But half of that, 52.50, will be deducted from my 582/month. So we end up with 529.00 for your OW cheque . So really I get paid $5.25 for every hour that I work while on Ontario Works.
I don’t know many people who would work for $5.25/hr. If I wanted to make 10 hours’ worth of pay I would have to work for 20 hrs on OW. Now some of you may think that this is a good deal, that we’re giving them money anyways so they should be grateful for what they get. But think about this for a second:
- The economy is really bad right now
- Part time work is becoming the norm
- 1 in 5 children live in poverty in London
- Would you work for 5.25/hr.?
Add to this, and I have seen this first hand, that you’re OW benefits may get cut off until OW verifies your income and we have a serious disincentive for anyone to try to make a little extra money.
At the City Symposium event on Dec. 13th we are going to be talking about the income gap that is growing ever wider in our country. We’re going to use this talk to then gather people around and offer recommendations to the City of London on this Social Assistance Review Process. The City will then take these recommendations and adopt them and send them on to the Provincial Government as well as the Federal Government. We will meet twice in January to do this.
So in my last post I asked you where you all were. In this post I am asking you all to show up on Dec.13th at the Wolf Performance Hall at the Central Library in Downtown London and to make a difference. You will hear about the growing income gap and then WE NEED YOU TO SHOW UP IN JANUARY to input on improving the lives of our cities most vulnerable in a tangible, practical way. I am begging you to make a difference. So tell your church leaders, your service clubs, your neighbours, your friends, your boss and coworkers, to show up, to make a difference, to be a part of something important. I don’t think I’m asking too much. I just want you to change the world. Who’s in?
Cageratler 
It appears that OW and ODSP are just a form of golden hancuffs, more like bronze. They do not uplift they hold back.
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I have been saying the exact same thing for a very long time. I am currently on OW because I have PTSD from being abused not only as a child, but by also ow ex husband. Not being able to work is devastating to me. But not being able to work because of a medical condition that causes severe panic and anxiety, and trying to live off of 580 a month is just causing the same amount of stress and panic as being abused all over again. But what I really worry about most are the single parents trying to make ends meet. If trying to pay rent and groceries for me is stressful, I can only imagine what they are going through. OW & ODSP NEED to be looked at, and amended to match our current economy. They are ment to assist people in moving forward with their lives; a way to start over for some as well. By stripping them of their right to have a home and the ability to feel like a human, you are simply making them feel worthless and causing more harm. You can’t raise rent, utilities, price for food and medication, without making sure that you give those trying to get back on their feet a means to do so. With a one bedroom apartment costing, on minimum, 600+ a month in London, how are people to survive off of 580.00 a month? The stigma of those on OW has to be dropped. The “they’re on it because they’re too lazy to work”, HAS to go! Not everyone on the program is there by choice. Some have lost their jobs, or have become ill. So why take the rest of their dignity? Something needs to be done.