DEAR PREMIER FORD ... ONTARIO CANNOT AFFORD YOU!

On the weekend of February 21 - 22, 2020, you stood cocooned with your supporters in the Scotiabank Convention Centre for a "policy convention" inviting your supporters and other select individuals.  Media were specifically disallowed from the convention, nor were any observers from other political parties, as is the norm in actual democratic countries.  You spoke from your throne like you still speak for "the people".  Again, I ask you, "What people?"

In the meantime, thousands and thousands of "the people" gathered en masse outside in the cold February winter to give you a message that your policies are not working for the people of Ontario.  Education workers walked out en masse.  Health care workers are getting laid off en masse, right after you promised us you would stop 'hallway medicine".  Many small business owners were also in that crowd, as they are bright enough to know that when our government attacks people at the bottom, their businesses will soon pay for it.  I noticed in the past several months several business closures in my region, particularly those sensitive to local economic fluctuations.  Ontario "open for business", my ass!

When all people can get are low-wage, part-time jobs, they are not going to be spending their money at local restaurants, clothing shops, gaming shops, the pool hall, the dry-cleaner, the bookstores or the pub.  They will certainly be getting less haircuts, manicures and probably will be re-using some of their old accessories.  Many of these people are also paying 35, 45, 60, 70 percent or more of their monthly income on housing alone.  These people cannot "go shopping", Mr. Ford as they have no money to shop with!  Did you know that we have a housing crisis, Mr. Ford?  I presume not because you are well housed and pampered, probably assuming everybody else in Ontario is living the same charmed life that you do.  Every summer, your family has put on Fordfest and invited all your well-to-do supporters to gather for free beer and burgers at your mother's backyard, while using security to keep out "the people" that do not benefit from your policies.

Somebody ordered security to chase the media out of your policy convention that cold February day.  Why was this done, Mr. Ford?  What were you afraid of?  Do the people of Ontario not have a right to know what cuts you are planning next for them?  I don't know why you don't resign, Mr. Ford, because so far your government has been one unmitigated disaster after another.  Hallway medicine is up, mental health supports have been cut with longer wait lists, housing lists are longer and rents are way up, where even middle class families cannot afford decent housing.  When it touches the middle class, can you at least act then, Mr. Ford?  Or do we have to wait until it hits you, your family and your wealthy friends first, before any of us other minions get relief?

Even your attempt at making one dollar beer failed, as well as your attempt at changing the colour and makeup of Ontario's license plates.  Sometimes, Mr. Ford, it is better just to leave enough alone.  We don't need partisan coloured plates anyways.  Or was this all one big distraction from what you are really planning to do to Ontarians?  What further cuts do you have in mind?  What other services normally delivered by public services will now be handed over for profit to your friends, donors and lobbyists?  It is so easy to get your friends to do things, so when your own policies fall flat, you can always point to the private company you gave the work to and blame them, right?  It is so easy to cut, cut and then cut some more, but not so easy to actually lead a diverse democracy such as the one we have here in Ontario.

How about your major pilot project your government is testing in three parts of Ontario to help get unemployed and social assistance recipients into jobs?  Your Minister complained that what was being done now is not working.  Well, let me suggest that this pilot project is nothing new and will not work either.  It has been tried before many times and failed every time - yes, every time!  One wonders what your party's connections are with the successful applicants who were picked to run these programs.  What were your promises to these companies, Mr. Ford? Your government claims less than 1% of people leave the social assistance rolls for a job?  Perhaps, you should be looking at some of those 800 rules that your government has chosen to keep and add to as the source of the problem, as opposed to the work of employment services agencies.  

These rules discourage people from working too much.  Perhaps, you should try these same 800 rules on your corporate friends first to see if they find it to be an "incentive".  Call it a pilot project, Mr. Ford.  See which billionaire squawks first about not being able to invest when anything they receive is clawed back after the first $200 they get every month.  Is your goal only to get people off assistance and into low-paid, precarious work?  That is NOT going to keep them off the rolls ... they will be right back on assistance within a month.  Count on it!  This is what happened in Australia.

"Pay for success" has been tried here even in Ontario under ODSP employment supports and has been discontinued because it was not working: not working for the recipient, not working for the provider, not working for ODSP.  Why is that?  Did you bother to ask?  It is because the only incentive that providers have so they can keep their lights on is to push people into the first available jobs out there, whether that job is only for a day, a week, a month, part-time or full-time or contract or temporary?  This certainly will not result in matching the needs of employers for qualified workers with the needs of job seekers with qualifications.

Should the system change?  Of course, it should!  But it should be changed to the better, so that people are not just continuing to scramble to survive, as opposed to bettering themselves.  You tossed THAT pilot project aside, which was working for nominal period it was allowed to run for.  People involved with the basic income were attending school, getting better jobs, starting businesses, etc.  Is this not what you want people to do?  However, that all stopped with the cessation of that pilot project and people were thrown back to the 800 rules.  Your proposal is only going to push more people into the scramble for survival, for which many unfortunately will fail (e.g. die).  Further, in order for a system like you are proposing to work, there has to be an abundance of well-paid jobs for every level of ability and qualification.  People will get off and stay off assistance if they got one of those jobs, but even you (and all of your Ministers that have worked on this file) cannot even tell us where these jobs are going to come from!  Further, many people are on ODSP because they cannot work.  Most of the others have significant limits on what they can do.   

Are employers going to magically overnight develop an enlightened attitude and want to hire persons with a range of disabilities, accommodate them and pay them well?  If that is the case, then I want you to give ME and anybody else who wants one a job that pays at least $80,000 a year and does not discriminate against us.  You may say you can't do that, so how do you expect your friends with literally no ties to the selected communities and an interest only in profit (through the private pilots) to do the same?  My experience is that employers will not hire anybody they have to accommodate in any way.  Are you going to ask people already on ODSP to participate in this circus, which I can tell you right now will give you the same results (with less than 1% leaving the rolls).  Remember what they say about the definition of insanity.  You can try the same concept over and over again and expect different results.  How much money do you expect to waste on this project before your government would have to call it quits, like you did with the license plates, the education cuts, etc.?

I can already tell you people in my part of Ontario are not getting any more money in their pockets than they had before you got elected, yet they are spending more and more out of their pockets on everything, ranging from government services, to health care (due to cuts) and auto insurance (another behemoth you promised to reduce, but is actually going up 10%).  I know I can't afford you.  Neither can the man I spoke to on the bus on the way home tonight.  This man is a trained auto mechanic, but he can't find a job anywhere.  After being forced to live on Ontario Works for many years with many spells of homelessness in between, he was finally put onto ODSP, where he is just a tad better off, but not by much.  Most of my friends can't afford you either.  I have a friend who just got her PHd and she is not working either.

I am asking you to wake up to the reality of the province you want to lead.  That means talking to "the people", not just those who are bamboozled by your bullshit.  Talk to people who are experts in policy, program design, economics, health care and other things, as well as people with lived experience being kicked around and attacked by governments over the generations.  If you want to find out what you need to do to help people get off social assistance, talk to somebody on social assistance.  If you want to find out what is wrong with health care, talk to people who use the health care system on a regular basis.  If you want to find out what children with autism need, talk to their families, as well as adults living on the spectrum.  When consultation and inclusion is lost on our government, our very essence of democracy is thrown out the window.

** For my readers, please copy this and send to as many of your friends, media sources, social media sites, MPPs and others, over the next few weeks of budget talk and follow-up **

THE CONTINUING DARK AGE OF THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

These days, there is so much that is spoken about race, gender and creed in the news and how people in minority groups are under attack.  In my region of Niagara, there was recently a rally that included several hundred people at city hall to watch a number of people speak to devote their time and respect to the people of Charlottesville, Virginia, after an alleged white supremacist rally took place.  Groups of people started to protest when it was known that officials were going to remove statues and other symbols of Confederacy from the landscape, while carrying torches and Confederate flags ... In response, groups of people opposing racism, sexism and this type of violence counter-protested.  The protests became violent until such point, somebody drove his vehicle into the counter-protesting crowd and killed a young woman, while injuring many more. The year before, a lone gunman walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and shot and killed forty-nine persons, injuring fifty-eight others. There was a similar honoring ceremony that followed here in Niagara, as members of the LGBTQ community gathered with their supporters to recognize this senseless crime for what it was. While it is interesting to be part of peaceful public gatherings like this (and how positive a society can be when it respects the rights of persons regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation), it still chills me to the bone that the rights of persons with disabilities still don't matter.  As a person with an invisible disability, I often feel overwhelmed by the public silence about this issue.

For example, while persons with disabilities are supposed to be protected before and under the law under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, there are so many areas of living where they do not matter and where the law and our own government continue to abuse and diminish the quality of life most persons with disabilities can live.  For example, the employment rate of persons with disabilities is less than half of what it is for the general population, and even among those who are employed - persons with disabilities are over-represented among workers in low-wage, unstable and precarious jobs.  Further, persons with disabilities disproportionately make up the population of persons forced to live, or more accurately, barely exist on our society's loosely termed safety net.  Even the safety net in question with its rules and regulations arbitrarily create a different set of laws and further disadvantages for persons with disabilities.  In fact, these very programs and so-called supports that are supposed to protect persons with disabilities in fact actually cloak them with a cloud of stigma, forcing many into silence, thus preventing members of the public from realizing how we continue to hurt them and shut them outside of our society.  These issues are those that people without disabilities or disadvantages, in general, take for granted:  the right to earn an income, the right to personal privacy, the right to mobility and choice, and the right to engage in a partnership with a significant other (and build their lives together).

First, the right to earn an income is an issue.  People naively assume that people with disabilities are "taken care of", or have social benefits to support them and pay for a semi-reasonable lifestyle.  We might have heard about specific programs of the government geared to finding employment for persons with disabilities, or more rarely - entrepreneurship initiatives.  We assume that persons with disabilities can all partake in these programs and that they "work" to their benefit.  In return for a reasonable effort, persons in these programs "should" be able to achieve equality in the workforce.  Unfortunately, in a Statistics Canada survey, about 12% of those surveyed felt they had been denied a job because of their disability.  The reality is that discrimination in the workplace against persons with disabilities exists, although it is rarely as explicit as a complete refusal to hire.  One glaring example I personally have experienced is being shut out of most jobs due to not being able to drive, even if the job did not involve travel.  While this is technically only supposed to be required if the job included travel as a bona fide requirement (e.g. courier, delivery, bus driver), employers outside of major metropolitan areas well served by public transit almost always "require" this.  Other times, jobs are deliberately located outside the areas served by transit, or shift work is "required" whereby one would be scheduled even when transit isn't operating.  This is just one example of discrimination.  If you always drove, this issue is invisible to you.  This does not mean you might not have other barriers to employment due to disability, but this is a clear example of how ableism pervades society.  Assumptions in other areas, such as management positions (seen as too "stressful" for someone with mental illness), writing jobs being not for blind or visually impaired persons, customer service jobs being too difficult for those with cognitive or certain physical impairments, or seizures being a risk in most workplaces.  As a result of discrimination, lack of willingness to accommodate persons with disabilities and occasionally, the disability itself, many are forced to live in abject poverty through our so-called social safety net.

People with disabilities are no less eager to work than those without disabilities.  In fact, many who have been kept out of the workforce for the above reasons are often desperate to work, because today's social programs rarely provide enough for people to survive, let alone live with any dignity. For example, it is not uncommon for persons deemed to be severely disabled to try working, if only to escape the deep poverty they are forced in.  In fact, I recall one of my clients a few years back getting twenty-three jobs in less than a year, only to lose them due to his disability issues.  Failing to find work or stay working has left too many people with disabilities in abject poverty, poorly housed and living lives of low quality.  It is past the time where a guaranteed annual income for persons with disabilities is put into place that does not have the rules, complexities and abysmal rates that typical welfare programs have.  Those with disabilities that can and want to work that manage to find work are also under attack.  We hear about how our wealthy people complain about how paying more taxes will dampen their interest or "incentive" to invest, grow their companies or even start businesses in the first place.  However, our provincial government in an unpublished report on marginal effective tax rates on those working and receiving ODSP benefits, cites that for many of those that make more than a small amount of money are losing approximately 70 - 87% of every dollar earned, of course not counting the further impact of any outside income on one's subsidized housing or how one is expected to cover the expenses of actually having work.  If high taxes "hurt" wealthy billionaires, how does clawing back income from persons with disabilities at even a higher rate than that paid by these same whining billionaires make this an incentive for them?  I once quipped with a Cabinet Minister and their staff about taking this same proposal to the private clubs they often raise funds at to tell their wealthy donors that the province will not tax the first $200 each month they earn or receive from investments, but for every dollar above that the province will tax it back at fifty percent?  What do you think the chances of a government like that are for getting re-elected?  If this is good enough for persons with disabilities, it is good for the billionaires too!

Secondly, one of the cases I am working on involves privacy and persons receiving public disability support.  At one of my hearings, I asked the case worker involved if I have the right to know not only where she lives, but also the right to knock on her neighbours' doors to ask questions like: (a) who she lives with; (b) if she appears to be working; or (c) how she spends her money.  She was offended by the question, but she did not understand that she seems to take the liberty to do the same to those individuals on her caseload.  In fact, these intrusions and similar types of policing take up a large proportion of case worker time, taking time away from assisting people they serve in improving their own lives or accessing benefits and services to aid them in maximizing their potential.  These daily intrusions are exactly why people with disabilities are often afraid to take the steps they need to take to improve the quality of their lives.  In another case, I was told that my client who had received a substantial inheritance was required to have a trustee to manage her monies.  This policy in itself implies that the person has limited or no capacity to manage their own affairs or make their own decisions.  The Human Rights Tribunal might take a dim look at something like this, but then again, those making the rules count on people being too beaten down to fight these things. How would the caseworker like it if s/he were required to have a trustee manage his/her pay cheques?  This is no different.  If one makes (or enforces) the rules, then they must live by them as well.

Thirdly, most of you reading this have mobility and at least some choices.  People that do not drive and do not live in a metropolitan community where public transit is deemed a necessary part of its infrastructure, do not have that.  They have limited mobility and often, few choices.  Many of the progressive folks I meet talk about how they will never shop at Walmart or Loblaw's or some other major grocery chain, often times for good reasons.  However, these same people have the option of getting into their cars and voting with their wheels to go elsewhere, such as a farmer's market, an independent grocer or some other less 'oppressive' company.  Have you ever wondered why stores like Walmart and so forth tend to locate near poor neighbourhoods?  Low income persons with disabilities, or those that do not drive and therefore do not have the freedom of choosing where to go, cannot vote with their dollars like those that can drive and have the funds to pay a little more for locally grown produce, for example.  Until we have self-driving cars or start to value effective and reliable forms of public transportation as a matter of right for all citizens, this will be the case.

Even for those of us that can get to the larger discount chains, those of us with disabilities continue to remain invisible.  The place where I shop has a very large and spacious parking lot, along with close by parking for people attending the smaller stores in this "outdoor mall".  Those of us that do not drive do not routinely stop by the grocery store on the way home from work to grab a few groceries to cook up for dinner that night.  We have to make a day of it and get enough to last a couple of weeks or so. Because this is too much to carry on a bus, we need to transport by taxi.  Many times, we need to wait for a considerable period of time for a taxi, which means we need somewhere to sit down.  The store where I shop removed the benches in the front for no good reason.  I presume they think nobody needs them or uses them because EVERYBODY simply takes their groceries to their cars and drives away, so there is no need for this.  It doesn't matter anyways, as people with disabilities and their needs are invisible to these types of organizations.  It is not like I have much of an option to "drive" off to another store that might serve us better.

Finally, most of you who are reading this are living with a partner (other than those of you who are recently divorced or who are choosing single life for now).  Your partner could be your legal spouse, your common law partner, your same sex partner or partner of a second marriage, etc.  The face of Canada is changing with the popularity of marriage itself declining with the uptick in the number of common law partners, many of whom live together in the same manner as those in a long marriage.  About 27% of households are people living alone. For most of you with life partners, you likely did not have to think about the risk to your paltry entitlements or health benefits once you moved in with your partner.   In most cases, both partners contribute financially to the relationship, as well as in other areas and these arrangements are set by the people involved.  However, if you were disabled and forced to live on public disability benefits - you do not have the same rights.  ODSP Statistics are published monthly by family type: single, couples and lone support parents, versus all family types.  I calculated percentages at the back of a paper napkin to determine that the ODSP caseload consists of 78.6% of households where there is only one person, 12.7% of households where there is a couple (married, common law) and 8.7% of households that are led by a single parent.  Something is definitely wrong when only 27% of the general population lives alone, while 87.3% of households on the ODSP caseload are single or a single parent.  A closer look at the statistics show that the raw number of couples tend to vary dynamically each month, suggesting that partnerships in receipt of ODSP tend not to last long and can go through cycles where they are split up and again, together.

It is about time that the elephant in room is pointed out and eloquently deciphered.  The ODSP Action Coalition has published broadly that most recipients are afraid to get involved in relationships, fearing they would then become part of a "benefit unit" and whoever it is that gets together with them will have both their income and assets counted against them, thus putting them at risk of losing most or all of the benefits.  Ironically, because of more liberal attitudes to granting "equal rights" to same sex partners, even those engaging in non-conjugal roommate situations are hesitant to get involved as almost everybody who "lives with" another adult can risk being deemed a "spouse" by ODSP officials, and therefore, liable to be forced to almost solely support the person with the disability.  For those already involved in relationships, the albatross weighs heavily because if the relationship ends, the one receiving ODSP will be forced to seek support from the "ex-partner" (regardless of what the Family Law Act of Ontario requires). For those that remain together, the disabled partner loses most of their independence and this can't be healthy for anybody.  The one who tells it like it is writes a blog, but there are many others coming forward today.  In fact, there are legal professionals taking this up as a cause to change.  As Eric Letts states on his site in his video, this rule may in fact be in direct violation of human rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

When I have raised this issue in the past, I have received very questionable responses.  Remember: those who make the rules should be made to live by them.  We would see swift change in this if everybody in relationships were treated like this.  Not very long ago, women who were married were considered the property of their husbands.  They were not allowed to sue and be sued, not allowed their own income, not allowed to vote, not allowed to do anything apart from their husband.  People with disabilities are almost in this position today.  If it was unacceptable for women to not have their own identities, their own incomes, their own bank accounts, their own legal status, etc. (as it is stated clearly under the Family Law Act), why is it okay to treat persons with disabilities like this?  It states, as follows:

PART VI 
AMENDMENTS TO THE COMMON LAW

Unity of legal personality abolished

64 (1) For all purposes of the law of Ontario, a married person has a legal personality that is independent, separate and distinct from that of his or her spouse.  R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 64 (1).

Capacity of married person

(2) A married person has and shall be accorded legal capacity for all purposes and in all respects as if he or she were an unmarried person and, in particular, has the same right of action in tort against his or her spouse as if they were not married.  R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 64 (2).

Purpose of subss. (1, 2)

(3) The purpose of subsections (1) and (2) is to make the same law apply, and apply equally, to married men and married women and to remove any difference in it resulting from any common law rule or doctrine.  R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 64 (3).

ODSP unfortunately retains some of the unity of legal personality with respect to married couples where one or both are receiving benefits.  In a regular marriage, where one of the spouses can run up a credit card and max themselves far into debt, they can no longer bind the other spouse (unless the spouse is signed on or is a guarantor of sorts).  However, when ODSP has "overpayments", regardless of how they arose, both spouses are deemed by the Crown to be liable for it (e.g. if they split up, they will go after both spouses for the same overpayment).  This brings us back to the early days when women were not permitted to have their own credit lines.  Couples not involved with ODSP have a lot more freedom in determining their relationships.  If one of the spouses works and earns $100,000 a year, for example, and the other has chosen to stay home to raise the children, the working spouse is under no legal obligation to hand over fifty percent of their income to the stay-at-home spouse.  The working spouse can provide a bit of an "allowance" or pay for expenses, but there is no law that they ought to.  While ODSP couples are still together and not separating, the disabled spouse loses over fifty percent of their benefits and the more the other spouse makes, the less they get (and the higher the clawback or marginal effective tax rate).  This can be cut off at relatively low levels.  It is quite possible that a spouse might be only earning poverty level wages where the other might lose most of their income support.  This is what forces many of these relationships to end, or in worse cases, keeps the vulnerable person trapped in an abusive situation.  A couple of years ago, I fought a case that desperately needed to go further, although I did make movement on this issue ... exemplifies the very difficult bind this puts people into.  At one point, I had three different clients at the same time in a women's shelter because of an abusive relationship they were in (and they were on ODSP).  All three went right back to their alleged abusers because they did not have the financial resources to get out.

Attempts are being made to address this issue at the human rights level.  It is being chiseled away at the Social Benefits Tribunal and HRTO, but not chiseled down enough where both spouses are independent legal entities with rights and entitlements of their own.  In particular, this is repugnant because a person with a disability that cannot work or cannot financially contribute to a relationship is now forced to either live alone or risk losing everything, whereas a spouse in a relationship where both are merely unemployed, their situation is temporary and their legal status is intact once they both work again.  In effect, it is the disability that is the impugned variable that leads to the gross inequity of this situation, as this person is not going to suddenly get a job and start contributing.

These above facts are not well known by members of the public that are reading this and many assume that if this were changed and disabled persons were able to get benefits in their own right, that suddenly they would get married to millionaires, this is silly.  First, the types of people who are likely to become eligible for ODSP in the first place do not regularly attend the same places that the so-called millionaires attend.  I've never met too many people on ODSP who are regular members of the St. Catharines Golf & Country Club, or the St. Catharines Club.  Most of them have virtually exhausted all of their resources and have nothing left to spend on these pursuits.  Besides, people tend to get into relationships with people who are more like them than not like themselves.  Teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses and so forth tend to marry people who are in similar occupations.  How many times have we noticed the so-called "power couples" on the front pages of newspapers or magazines or online?  They certainly do not have a lot of ODSP recipients in their wider circle of friends.  Even if there is the one off case where somebody earning good money does marry a recipient ... so what?  The time for slavery, peonage and people-as-chattels has ended for most people, except for people with disabilities.

I am seeking out people who have read this and are getting angry and/or motivated by this post to get in contact with me to start something.  A stone in the water starts a ripple; several stones can cause a wave ... and we need to turn this tide before too many more people get hurt.  Your thoughts?

THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS RECONSTRUCTED

We are hearing from more and more news reports that certain cities that young, upwardly mobile professionals are increasingly getting locked out of the housing market, without help from parents or winning a lottery of sorts.  This is particularly true of Vancouver and Toronto..  We are learning that political authorities have been trying various measures to "cool" the hot housing markets where there is this difficulty, such as imposing a tax on foreign investors or a vacancy tax.  Younger people are still buying, but further afield from their workplaces, thus amounting to a longer commute for them to go to work each day (and thus contributing to the congestion problem).

At the other end of the market, we are talking to people who have purchased homes perhaps in the last few years, but can no longer afford to stay in them.  This is particularly true of seniors, as pensions are diminishing and forcing more and more elders into poverty, or due to health issues that such seniors cannot afford to cover the costs for (e.g. home care, accessibility renovations).  Low income persons in their own homes are also impacted by higher costs and stagnant benefits.  With the removal of the Home Repair Benefit that used to assist at least on ODSP to perform necessary repairs in their home has been cut, leaving only loans and discretionary programs that rely on geography and even then, on the whims of the region or county one lives in.  There has been a substantial hike in the number of low income persons, including assistance recipients and seniors, who cannot afford to repair leaky roofs, heating systems, electrical system, etc.  In my own practice, I've represented such persons who were essentially threatened with an unsafe building order when it was learned that these people were living in such states of disrepair.  Unfortunately, my region thinks the only solution is for these folks to live in shelters, where their health will decline quickly.

At the very lower end of the spectrum, people are only seeking rental housing at a reasonable cost.  For those on social assistance, there is nowhere in Ontario they can live and stay within their allotted shelter allowance without having to take the majority of their "basic needs" benefit to cover their shelter costs.  Average rents across Canada and Ontario have been rising, not falling.  Yet social assistance rates have been falling further and further behind the costs of everyday items.  The only other options for such folks is to get on the wait list for social housing, which hardly seems worth it as lists are very long and there is little turnover in available units within the respective municipalities. Even if we can manage to build 171,360 units overnight, the wait list will be refilled by others who see movement on this eternal wait list and want to join up too.  The cost of building all the new units we need would be way too expensive - in the multi-billions! However, the wait lists are not getting shorter, nor is the wait times getting reduced.  Even people with so-called "priority listing" can wait at least a couple of years before they get a unit.  Others can wait between six years in some regions to twenty-one years in others.  It is obvious the social housing system we have adopted is not working.

Even when people do obtain a unit, the municipally owned ones are often in a state of disrepair.  In my opinion, the municipalities do not have the money to keep them up.  The larger their owned housing stock, the worse the problem appears to be.  In Toronto, TCHC units have a $2.6 billion repair backlog, while Niagara Region (a smaller region with a lower proportional housing stock) has a $120 million backlog.  In its report, entitled Neighbourhoods First, the Smarter Niagara Steering Committee has presented a number of problems with social housing itself, particularly how those in social housing are segregated and are made to know their place in society (as being less valued and sought after).  Their suggestions have been interesting, to say the least:

1.  The Cost:

In this report, it stated  What is not measured is the public tax benefit (much less the human benefit) of diverting children to better outcomes compared to the cost of providing subsidized housing to subsequent generations. This approach to addressing housing affordability costs all of us in lost productivity, continued social assistance, and in the physical upkeep of the properties. Much of the current affordable housing stock is in disrepair, largely due to the failure to adequately invest sufficient initial capital funds. Many buildings were cheaply built with low “maximum unit prices” and other methods of capital cost limitations. Insufficient reserve funding also meant that these projects suffer from budgetary deficits and are now forced to refinance for capital improvements well beyond what private market units would require.  Children who have grown up in public housing often end up living in public housing themselves as they grow up.  People in one part of my husband's family have all lived in public housing as children, only to grow up and have children living in public housing themselves.

Repair backlogs are expensive.  I've been inside units in my region that have had serious issues, such as mould, rotting ceilings and nonworking appliances.  When taken to task for repair issues, the municipality cries about lack of budget, whereas we can force private landlords to fix their     properties relatively easily comparatively.

2.   Segregation:

Particular buildings and housing complexes are known as "public housing" and act as ways to   segregate low income people.  When people living in these communities go outside, they do not see a diversity of people, with a diversity of lifestyles and different levels of ambition.  They mostly meet people much like themselves who could only teach one another how to better "survive" poverty.

3.   Social Housing Rules:

The rules determining rent rate depend on what a family's total income is, as well as number of people.  If there is a mismatch between the number of people and the unit size, the family may be forced to move.  If a family with several children live in a social housing unit, as each child leaves the household, the family may be forced to move once again (at their own expense and trouble).  This repeats itself until the person is living alone or half of a couple, whereas then they are not permitted except under slim circumstances to have a second bedroom, where many families outside the subsidized system use the spare bedroom as a place for a child to return home to, to house a family member in temporary need of a place to stay, or even to start a home based business.  In social housing, none of this permitted, even having a home business run out of one's unit (although this might have changed recently although one is still likely not allowed to allocate an extra bedroom to run the said business).  In addition to this, those receiving OW or ODSP are further punished if they attempt to earn significant incomes or try to reduce their reliance on social assistance. It is stated in a study by the Social Housing Services Corporation that a full time worker living in an RGI unit gains a net of only $1 per hour for working full time, as opposed to remaining on social assistance and not working at all.  Further, as individuals work more hours, their housing rents go up accordingly, eventually trapping the person into making very difficult choices: quit the job/reduce one's hours or move to market housing.

4.    Maintaining Families as Permanent Renters:

If you are paying only $139 a month for rent and you go to a bank or mortgage broker seeking a mortgage to buy even a low priced ownership property, you will be laughed out of there.  Somebody paying full market rent for several years without issue has a greater chance of being accepted for a mortgage than somebody that hasn't.  There are some assisted down payment programs available through social housing providers, but they are limited in scope.  Even seniors that own their own homes have to sell within six months of being accepted into social housing, which means they cannot maintain an asset that might do them well as they move on in years and might need additional income or leverage for borrowing, or even to pass down to their children in an inheritance.  This makes poverty further inherited and embedded into the family structure.  In the market, technically home ownership and renting should be competitive and if rents are set too high, tenants should theoretically have the option to move to ownership.  It doesn't work that way, so of course, the rental market is more likely to be difficult for lower earners.  Saving for a downpayment is that much harder for them.

5.    Little Assistance for Low Income Homeowners:

Imagine you became sick and had to leave your job and had to resort to disability benefits.  You own your home, can manage (barely) the monthly costs of ownership, but cannot afford the extras, such as when your roof blows off or your furnace quits in the middle of January.  There are way too many homeowners in this position.  Some of them can afford to take on more debt, by applying a home equity loan to the cost of their repairs, but this would increase the monthly cost burden to those whose income is too low to take that on.  Further, some homeowners end up with something major happening, whereas the insurance refuses to cover it or only covers a portion of the repairs.  There used to be the RRAP (Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program) run through the federal government and there were provincial counterparts, as well as the Home Repair Benefit for people receiving social assistance.  Virtually all of those programs were scrapped in favour of a municipally-run discretionary forgivable loan (for my region the maximum one can acquire is $5,000 for every 10-year period which is truly inadequate).  There were tax credits, but they were not refundable meaning people have the money to do the repair, spend it and then later can "write it off".  Those people without income to begin with are sharply disadvantaged.  Repair costs can add up rapidly and quiickly exceed the $5,000 maximum, as I've seen in many cases.  Most of these people live in their homes without adequate heat, hot water or other issues, hoping beyond all hope nobody finds out.

In most cases, homeowners do not want to return to the rental market, especially under the current rules in place, which effectively keep them impoverished and cause them to drain all or most of their assets just to receive an inadequate amount of support.  Perhaps, if this help was more realistic and made more readily available to low income homeowners, there would not be the downturn of assets and impoverishment the current rules force on people.

6.    Stigmatization:

Lastly, there is a great deal of stigma with certain addresses or housing run by certain groups (e.g. housing for people with mental health problems).  Most people who have mental health problems do not want to live in a "mental health" housing unit, as this usually denotes the requirement that they need twenty-four hour support or at least daily support.  People may need this support, but it should not be connected to their housing unit and the person should be able to stay there if their needs change later on.

Recommendations include:

1.  Change the RGI income rules so that the same dollar is not clawed back twice or more if the     resident is on social assistance.  The Marginal Effective Tax Rates are very high for this group,       ranging from 85% to sometimes exceeding 100%.    While we have billionaires complaining that if they have to pay a single dollar more than the 15% rate they currently pay, they say they have no incentive to hire or to invest ... why is it any different for poor people?

2.  Be easy on the rules about over-housing/under-housing.  If somebody has a reasonable need for a second bedroom, allow it.  If I had to move to a one-bedroom at the time I was literally being   harassed to do so back in the 1980's, I would have had to quit school not having a quiet place of my own to study.  People's needs differ and the "one size fits all" mentality has to stop.  For others with larger families, they may wish to move to a smaller unit to get in to social housing and out of overpriced rental housing just so they can have a place to stay until an appropriate sized unit is available to them.

3. Quit segregating the poor into specific buildings or projects.  Tie the subsidy to the person or        family, not the unit.  Let people move where they want and give them a portable subsidy to top up their income so they can reasonably afford average market rent accommodations for their needs.  This way, people should have the right to move if the need arises.  People in segregated complexes are often left to live with less than desirable neighbours, one of whom was beaten up by his neighbour for being a Muslim and told to move back to "his country" though he was born and raised here.  He asked for a transfer, but was refused.  If one's neighbours are up all night partying and dealing drugs to others in the complex, one should also have the right to move, esp. if the housing complex refuses to evict them (which is often the case as they refer to themselves as "last resort housing providers").

4. Work on the economy from the bottom up.  Never mind tax breaks for those that can afford to   pay them and get rid of those boutique tax breaks that most low income people will not be able to use anyways, such as children's sports credit, children's art credit, etc. (and myriad of other credits available to families that can easily pay the costs to these things, only to have a tax break for part of the purchase).  These taxes if paid would go a long ways to assisting those at the bottom, many of whom will be able to spend the extra money and grow the economy.

5. Recognize housing affordability at the lower end is an income problem and not a housing       problem.  At the present time, landlords cannot afford to drop their rents so that lower income     people can afford them.  However, there would be less issue with maintaining and developing new rental properties if more people can afford to rent them.  Some of the proposals regarding a portable rent subsidy in Michael Mendelson's paper are worth looking at, particularly those that would allow all low income people on assistance to afford average market rents.  This should also be available for homeowners that are paying too much of their income on basic monthly costs for their homes as well. Supply will eventually develop as more landlords see the potential to rent to more people in the market.

6. For those in |"supportive housing", there should be a disconnection between the support and the     unit.  Therefore, the support would come to the person on an as needed basis, while it would be reduced over time as the person needs less help, but can still remain in the same unit.

7. There should also be innovative funds for people wishing to enter the market for renting units to others.  For example, a homeowner of a single family home may want some assistance to purchase a tri-plex or four-plex and renovate them to enable them to provide affordable rents to those seeking rental housing in their communities.  Doing this should be encouraged, even if the homeowner is on ODSP or other social assistance and can rent the units to recover some additional income over and above the maintenance costs.  Some people on ODSP do want to retire with some assets and not have to rely on GIS.

8.  Also, municipalities should be allowed to buy and sell their housing stock to anybody, or even sell their stock and remain only in the business of managing the housing supports.  Given this additional freedom, this will reduce the repair backlog and also enable some social housing tenants to purchase their own units, either on their own or collectively.

These are my thoughts.  What about yours?