Rethinking the role of Social Assistance within a Poverty Reduction Strategy

July 2008 | Income Security Advocacy Centre

It’s time for a paradigm shift in how we think about social assistance, its objectives and its role. Social assistance programs must incorporate an explicit objective to move people out of poverty, by offering meaningful support opportunities for those who can work and ensuring that those who cannot are able to live with dignity.

Recommendations for an Ontario Income Security Review

June 2010 | Social Assistance Review Advisory Council

REPORT OF THE ONTARIO SOCIAL ASSISTANCE REVIEW ADVISORY COUNCIL

May 2010

There is deep and continuing dissatisfaction with the existing approach to social assistance from all quarters: community groups, business, labour, policy makers, the people who run the system and those who receive its benefits.

Ontario’s core social assistance programs – Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program – together with the other programs that make up Ontario’s income security system, continue to fall short in providing an economic safety net for individuals and families as well as promoting opportunity to ensure everyone can contribute to the long-term prosperity of the province.

Why Don't We Want the Poor to Own Anything?

October 2009 | John Stapleton Metcalf Foundation

We all tend to think things were tougher in the past. We walked to school in the snow. We made less money. Welfare was harder to get. Wasn’t it?

As a matter of fact, when we look at the asset limitations on the four programs in Ontario that still have them – Ontario Works, disability support, subsidized housing, and legal aid – the limits for eligibility are the harshest they have ever been.

The 'Ball' or the 'Bridge': The Stark Choice for Social Assistance Reform in Ontario

May 2009 | John Stapleton Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)

Think about a small ball of string that you keep at home. Every time you have a loose piece of string, you wrap it around the ball and poke each end into the ball. You keep up the practice for years until you have an unkempt ball of string that is as big as a basketball. In your mind’s eye, think of taking that large ball of string and immersing in a large vat of crazy glue. Take it out and let it dry until it is hard. Then think of handing it to a friend and saying “Your job is now to unravel the ball”.

A Blueprint for Economic Stimulus and Poverty Reduction in Ontario

February 2009 | Sheila Block, OFL 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction

As the economic crisis deepens in Ontario and the provincial government prepares to release its 2009 Budget, 25 in 5 has released a plan to kick start the economy while reducing poverty at the same time. A Blueprint for Economic Stimulus and Poverty Reduction in Ontario – the result of consultations in 30 communities across Ontario – recommends investments that will reduce child poverty in Ontario by close to 20% while simultaneously providing a much needed boost to the province’s faltering economy.

A Housing Benefit for Ontario: One Housing Solution for a Poverty Reduction Strategy

November 2008 | FRHPO, ONPHA, GTAA, DBFB, Metcalf, Atkinson

Hundreds of thousands of poor people in Ontario – whether they work or receive social assistance – spend more than half their income on shelter. This is a proposal to address this feature of poverty in Ontario by designing a new housing benefit. A broad coalition from the rental housing industry, the non-profit housing sector, the community-based sector, as well as two private foundations, came together to develop these ideas.

Disability Should Not be a Life Sentence to Poverty

July 2008 | ODSP Action Coalition

It’s time to think again about the real impacts that ODSP has on real people. It’s time to think about how ODSP could be improved – and how much real peoples’ lives would improve as a result. This document outlines the ODSP Action Coalition’s initial recommendations for making ODSP a program that actually meets the challenge of providing supports for people with disabilities in Ontario.

“If it’s Still Broke, Fix It”

July 2008 | Income Security Advocacy Centre ODSP Action Coalition

We strongly believe that a system that has been documented to be broken needs to be fixed. This government’s commitment to poverty reduction gives us hope to believe that, finally, ODSP can become the income security system that it was intended to be – one that truly supports people with disabilities and gives them the means to get out of poverty, rather than continuing to condemn them to a life sentence of living in poverty and despair.

Why is it so tough to get ahead?

November 2007 | John Stapleton Metcalf Foundation

We cannot claim to have people-centred government policies. Not when an 18 year old, lone parent refugee is considered to be an adult under four policies, a child under two, a student under a third policy, a dependent adult under two others, a non-resident under two, and a legal resident of Canada under four more. And as far as government is concerned, it is her job to sort all this out.

Towards a New Architecture for Canada’s Adult Benefits

June 2006 | Ken Battle, Michael Mendelson and Sherri Torjman Caledon Institute of Social Policy

Canada must modernize its social security system to meet the heavy demands of our changing economy, society and political system. Conceived in the 1930s and 1940s and built largely in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, our social programs require radical rethinking, reconstruction and (because some parts were never built) construction: We need a new ‘architecture’ of social policy for the 21st century.

What Next in Welfare Reform?

April 2006 | Dean Herd, PhD Toronto Social Services

Recent years have seen a new consensus emerge around welfare reforms…. This report highlights a number of these “next steps” in welfare reform which reflect the types of services and supports necessary to move clients away from unemployment and poverty.