In 2020, Ontario began to introduce a host of changes to the administration of social assistance, including rolling out a new Centralized Intake model with the purpose of modernizing access to social assistance. With this new administrative service model, the province promised a faster, more streamlined system that “focuses on people.” As a key pillar of social assistance reform, the model’s stated aim is to improve consistency, reduce administrative burden, and deliver timely support to those in need. Centralized Intake has now been fully implemented across the province to process Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) applications and to make initial eligibility decisions, except in areas where OW is currently being delivered by First Nations.
While this process was being rolled out across the province, ISAC and community legal clinics raised concerns. In particular, our concerns focused on the additional barriers created for some social assistance recipients through the implementation of new digital tools, despite their potential to increase access and communication for others.
Ontario’s increasing reliance on online systems risks excluding people with disabilities, limited internet access, low digital literacy, or language barriers. For example, applicants are encouraged to self-complete the online social assistance digital application and often directed by default into using MyBenefits, an online portal used to receive notices, submit documents, and communicate with caseworkers. In many cases, all communication, including receipt of time-sensitive decisions, takes place through this platform. Many potential recipients are not aware that they must regularly monitor their accounts to avoid missing critical information. This issue is compounded by the fact that many individuals onboarding onto MyBenefits are unable to manage this platform without the assistance of family or community support.
Several years into the implementation of this new administrative system, it has been made clear that in practice, the system often prioritizes administrative efficiency over accessibility and responsiveness. For vulnerable applicants, particularly those with complex needs, it can introduce new layers of confusion, delay, and risk. Administrating benefits in this way is fundamentally at odds with the purposes of the OW and ODSP legislation, which is intended to effectively serve any Ontarian who needs assistance.
Frontline workers, legal clinics, and applicants themselves report a system that often requires workarounds, creates new barriers, and leaves vulnerable people without income while waiting for the system and caseworkers to catch up. While there are many kinks in the system that are concerning, these top four concerns remain the most pressing:
1. Delay and Confusion with Joint OW and ODSP Applications
While ODSP provides higher income benefits, many people living with a disability applies for OW and ODSP at the same time because they need money from Ontario Works right away to pay for food and housing. This is because it can take months for a person with a disability to get ODSP, as eligibility requirements include both a medical component and a financial component.
Centralized Intake introduced a new option to make a joint OW and ODSP application, but it often results in significant delays, confusion, and incomplete assessments for applicants navigating the process.
When a joint application is made, the system processes the OW application first. It takes no action to process the ODSP application until an OW decision is made. If the person qualifies for OW, the system proceeds with the ODSP application by automatically issuing the Disability Determination Package (DDP).
Problems arise when an applicant is found ineligible for OW. After an OW denial, the ODSP application is “unlocked” for processing by the Social Assistance Intake Unit, which then assesses eligibility under ODSP’s higher asset thresholds.
However, in some cases, the ODSP application is not unlocked for processing. This may occur where an applicant is found ineligible for OW because they failed to provide required information, could not be contacted, or were determined not to be an Ontario resident. In these situations, it is unclear who is responsible for deciding whether the ODSP application should be unlocked and routed to the Social Assistance Intake Unit for processing, and what, if any, communication is provided to applicants awaiting a decision on their ODSP application.
In practice, joint applications under Centralized Intake often leave applicants facing long delays and confusion. While the service standards are four days to process an OW application and fifteen days to process an ODSP application, community legal clinic workers are seeing that applicants who do not qualify for OW wait months before ODSP reviews their file and issues the DDP, which is still only the beginning of the eligibility assessment process. ISAC has received reports of delays of up to eight months in some Northern regions. Applicants receive no information about the status of their application and when they attempt to follow-up, they are bounced back and forth between OW and ODSP offices without clear answers. In some cases, the system closes applications without completing a full assessment. This lack of coordination is deeply concerning, particularly where applicants are in desperate need of income. Any delay in the Ministry issuing the DDP affects the amount of income assistance that a person receives, as the start date for ODSP benefits depends on when the Disability Adjudication Unit receives the DDP.
One worrisome trend reported by community legal clinics is that Centralized Intake is wrongly denying OW to people also applying for ODSP, by not giving them the benefit of the higher ODSP asset limit, as permitted under the regulations. Under ODSP, a single recipient is allowed to have up to $40,000 in savings, but under OW, a single recipient is allowed only to have up to $10,000 in savings. Allowing OW recipients who are in the process of applying for ODSP to receive the benefit of the higher ODSP asset limit while they wait is particularly important for applicants who were able to save some assets while working prior to becoming disabled. They need to be able to maintain those savings to plan for future health related expenses. When this rule is misapplied, ODSP applicants may be left with no choice but to spend down savings they were counting on as a cushion for future expenses.
2. Automatic File Closures Following “No Response” Letters
Centralized Intake has introduced a rigid file closure process due to “no contact” that disproportionately harms applicants who are hardest to reach.
Under Centralized Intake, once an applicant applies for OW/ODSP, the Ministry reviews the online application and may contact the applicant for information required to make an eligibility determination. Staff will attempt to contact the applicant by telephone at least twice within four business days using a private (blocked) number. However, staff will not leave messages with family members or other individuals who answer the phone. If the applicant does not respond, the Ministry sends a “No Response” letter, either through the mail or through the MyBenefits platform, and closes the file. This letter explains that the Ministry could not complete the application because they did not hear from the applicant after trying to contact them. After the letter is sent, the file is closed according to OW Directive 2.1. The applicant has up to 10 working days to contact the Ministry if they want to continue or restart their application.
The “No Response” letter should be revised to provider clearer information to applicants. Although the Ministry technically allows applicants to re-open their file, the letter fails to explain that applicants have up to 10 working days to contact the Ministry to continue or restart their application. Instead, it merely provides the Centralized Intake email address for applicants who “would like to talk to someone about this letter.” Moreover, the 10-day period begins on the date the letter is issued rather than the date it is received, which can significantly reduce the time available to respond. It is unclear if there is a pathway to appeal the Ministry’s decision to close the file at this stage, raising concerns that applicants may be deprived of a meaningful opportunity to challenge a government decision affecting their application.
Instead, applicants must often start over from scratch, without access to their original application, and must proactively identify and supply any missing information. Responsibility quickly shifts to applicants to follow up on their application, often without understanding why it was denied or what they need to do next. ISAC has seen cases where clients submit multiple unsuccessful applications because they are not aware of letters sent to them through MyBenefits or did not understand from these standard form letters what information was needed to qualify for OW. Applicants need clear, plain-language guidance, and they are not getting it from the Centralized Intake system.
The entire process, including the “No Response” letter, timelines, and lack of clear information, fails to consider the complex realities faced by hard-to-reach populations, such as youth, seniors, individuals experiencing unstable housing, and those with limited phone or internet access, language barriers, disabilities, or in acute crisis. These individuals may easily miss phone calls within this short contact window, feel unsafe by answering calls from unknown numbers, lack a support person to be present during calls, be unable to access the internet during the short windows of time allowed for response, or be unavailable during standard office hours due to school or other obligations. There is also no option to schedule a call-in advance, to provide contact information to support people or agency workers helping to navigate the application process, or to request clear or simplified information about required documentation.
Calling a person experiencing homelessness or a senior with complex needs only twice within four days will almost inevitably result in the most vulnerable applicants being screened out. This approach creates additional barriers for those seeking last-resort assistance, and results in inequities that do not justify the pursuit of administrative efficiency and workload management.
3. The System is not Designed for At-risk Youth
Centralized Intake struggles to serve some of the most vulnerable OW applicants, particularly 16- and 17-year-olds who have left unsafe or violent home situations. Though they may be presumed to be more tech-savvy, when these young people try to navigate applying for social assistance online, they encounter a system that was not designed with them in mind.
Under the OW legislation, recipients under 18 must have a trustee appointed, and benefits cannot be paid directly to the youth. While the Ministry allows applicants under 18 to complete online social assistance applications, these files are automatically redirected to the local OW office, which then contacts the applicant to begin the eligibility assessment process.
In practice, this file hand-off causes inconsistent outcomes. Municipal approaches vary widely: some struggle to find community agencies willing to act as trustees, others mistakenly treat the trustee requirement as an eligibility barrier, and some waive it informally. Because the Ministry lacks a uniform policy for these cases, vulnerable youth face unnecessary confusion and life-altering delays, exacerbated through no fault of their own by virtue of living in a municipality which may have fewer available supports. Furthermore, anytime there is a hand off between two programs, there is a risk that vulnerable individuals will fall through the cracks and not be successfully connected to services.
A significant digital barrier compounds these problems. At-risk 16 and 17-year-olds cannot create their own MyBenefits accounts, the primary portal through which applicants communicate with workers, submit documents, and track their case. Where a trustee exists, that person may access the account on the young person’s behalf. But youth without a trustee are not permitted digital access at all.
This lack of digital access is particularly problematic because OW typically requires youth recipients to attend school full-time, which means they are in class during the same hours caseworkers are available by phone. Without MyBenefits access, these applicants must mail documents or leave school to make calls, a burden the system does not impose on adult applicants.
4. Limiting the Role for Support Workers
The Centralized Intake system does not reflect the reality that many people who apply for social assistance rely on support workers to complete and manage their applications.
The online application does not provide a clear or simple way to identify when an applicant is receiving help from an advocate, settlement worker, community organizer, legal aid representative, family member, or other support person. While the system allows a support person to indicate that they are applying “for someone else,” it does not include fields to record the support person’s name, phone number, email address, or consent information. Full representative information is only collected when the person is acting as a legal trustee.
As a result, key information is missing from the application process about who may be supporting the applicant, and who can assist with communication. The Ministry has said it may introduce a technical fix in the future, and that consent can be provided verbally or through separate channels. However, in practice, this gap leads to unclear and fragmented processes. Without dedicated space on the application for support workers to enter their information, or a simple way to upload consent documents, support workers rely on workarounds such as faxing forms after submission, making follow-up calls, or attempting to access MyBenefits while waiting for the Ministry to update the application fields and make further technical enhancements.
These workarounds are inefficient and prone to break down. If consent documents are not properly linked to the file, or if applicants miss intake calls, the system may mark the file as “no contact” and close it. At the same time, the system does not clearly explain how applicants can request in-person appointments or communication supports. These issues are compounded by all of the issues identified about the “no response” letter process.
The Process to Access Last Resort Income Cannot be a Work-in-Progress
The Centralized Intake system has introduced efficiencies in some areas, but it has also created new significant barriers for those least able to navigate them. People’s livelihoods and ability to keep a roof over their heads depend on timely, reliable access to last resort income supports. Ontario cannot treat the administrative system for these benefits as a work in progress.
Without immediate technical fixes to the system, clearer provincial direction for file hand-offs to municipalities, and a shift towards flexible, person-centred service rather than process-centred intake, the Centralized Intake system will continue to reinforce existing and new inequities.
A system designed to make it easier to access assistance should, at a minimum, not get in the way of people receiving those last resort funds.