In preparation for and throughout the term of the Social Assistance Review, we wanted to share a number of important reports and studies produced by others. We were hoping that these materials would be helpful…
This workshop by the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) and the Steering Committee on Social Assistance (SCSA) provides an early analysis of issues in the Social Assistance Review and discusses organizing strategies with community legal…
If we were redesigning an income support program for persons with disabilities we would start from these principles:
– Persons with disabilities have the right to be treated with dignity;
– Income support levels should adequately support the needs of people with disabilities;
– The capacities of persons with disabilities to participate and contribute to economic and civic life should be recognized and nurtured; and,
– Provincial income support programs should be aligned with other programs and policies of government (provincial and federal), to the greatest extent possible and without disadvantaging the people they are intended to serve.
The Commission for the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario will be travelling around the province talking to people in eleven communities. The chart below shows the communities the Commission will be visiting, the date…
Several proposals have been made in the last few years about how to change the way income supports are delivered to people in Ontario. Why are people proposing a different “delivery architecture”? What problems would a different system help to resolve? What are some of the options for different kinds of systems? What do they look like, and how would they work?
Many people in Ontario agree that Ontario Works needs to be fixed. One of the ways it could be fixed is to give people more help to get a job, so they can get out of poverty…
Women – and especially women from racialized groups – experience poverty differently from other people, and have particular concerns that should be addressed in the course of the Social Assistance Review. In November 2011, a…
Yesterday’s 2011 provincial budget did nothing to free people relying on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) from the poverty traps built into those programs. Given skyrocketing food prices and continuing…
On November 30, 2010, the Ontario government announced they decided to keep the Special Diet Allowance program instead of cancelling it. But, they said, they were going to make some changes to the program. If…
The Social Assistance Review now underway is part of Ontario’s strategy to reduce poverty. That’s why social assistance programs should have Poverty Reduction as their goal. Government has taken four very important steps that acknowledge that poverty is…
To contribute to the Commission’s first consultation: 1) Complete the Workbook Groups and individuals can either complete the workbook and mail it back, or do it online. – The printable version of the workbook (either Word…
These are powerful stories, interwoven with themes of fear and desperation, of shame and frustration, of dignity and resilience. The stories raise the need for more appropriate education and training, for more sensible treatment of income, and for rules that are easy to understand and designed to encourage people rather than break their spirits. They highlight the punitive nature of the current social assistance system, and the need to break down the systemic barriers that keep people trapped in poverty.