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The Liberal party released a potential 2013 budget for Ontario on Thursday, May 2. Several sources, such as Poverty Free Ontario (PFO) and the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC), believe that the proposed budget is progressive in that it has finally acknowledged the severe financial hardship that single adults on social assistance face. Indeed, OW and ODSP rates will increase by 1% as of September or October, and single adults without dependents on OW will receive an extra $14.00 a month in addition to the rate increase. While the proposed budget changes may only increase the social assistance for single adults by $20.00 a month, a far cry from the $100.00 that PFO proposed, it does suggest that PFO has finally been heard by the provincial government.

Other positive changes in the proposed budget include:

• Increasing the amount of liquid assets that people on social assistance may have  — From $606 to $2500 for single people; from $1043 to $5000 for couples and families

• Increasing the amount of employment income that people on OW and ODSP can keep — The first $200 a person earns a month will be exempt from the 50 per cent reduction currently in place

• Increasing the amount of cash gifts that a person on OW can receive, without losing some of their benefits, to $6000 (the same as people on ODSP)

Despite these positive plans, the budget has received some criticism. Most notably, PFO and ISAC suggest that the changes to OW and ODSP rates do not reflect increases so much as they will keep current OW and ODSP benefits on par with inflation. Moreover, PFO strongly criticizes the government for continuing to “claw-back” the employment earnings of OW and ODSP recipients, calling the practice “unconscionable.” Finally, the budget does not announces any changes to the current minimum wage, which presently puts full-time minimum-wage workers at $1000 below the poverty line. Both PFO and CUPE condemn the government for this oversight.

For more information, visit povertyfreeontario.ca and incomesecurity.org

Read more here.

The free “Self Care To Care” workshop is happening on Friday, May 24, 2013 from 9:00 a.m. to noon at The Salvation Army Church located at 46 Orangewood Blvd in Chatham.

Social Inclusion, a working group of the Prosperity Roundtable, together with community partners is offering this free training workshop which includes the following topics:

Lillian Gallant (Voices Against Poverty, Windsor):
Toolkit for Building Positive Relationships

Kristy Jacobs (The Social Inclusion working group):
Customer Service: Using the “Fish Philosophy” to help to make your organization ‘World Class’ and Compassion Fatigue: Caring for yourself so you can care for others

Brad Davis (Executive Director of Family Service Kent)
Self-Care from Management’s Perspective

The engaging and interactive workshop will help to gain new techniques and speak to building stronger relationships with the individuals you serve. This workshop is open to everyone including front line staff, volunteers and management.

If transportation is a barrier to attending the workshop, please contact NeighbourLink at 519-352-5647.

Space is limited so please register early by contacting 519-354-8353 or church@chathamsa.org.

For more information about The Prosperity Roundtable of Chatham Kent see www.prosperityroundtable.com

• Did you know that 1 in 10 adults accessing Ontario food banks are employed?
• Did you know that there were a total of 226,416 meals served by the Windsor-Essex county food Bank Association in 2012?
• Did you know the Windsor Youth Centre serves roughly 1,000 meals per month to youth?
• Did you know one in five renters pays more than 50 percent of their income on rent? This will leave very little for utilities, clothing and food.
• Did you know that the average cost of r a nutritious food basket for a family of four in Windsor-Essex County is $170.23 per week or $680.92 per month? This is more than many families can afford.

What can you do?

• Go to www.wehunger4.blogspot.ca and post what you Hunger4.
• Go on Twitter and tweet using #WeHunger4
• Go to 25in5.ca and sign a petition to support a recent letter by 25in5 Network for Poverty Reduction around removing barriers to existing poverty in Ontario by allowing low-income Ontarians to Earn More, Keep More and see benefits Restored.

 Jessica, a first year MSW student at the University of Windsor, is very excited to be completing her Foundation Field Practicum with Pathway to Potential. She was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, but spent most of her childhood growing up in a rural area outside of St. Thomas, Ontario, a city whose predominant poverty inspired her early interest in advocacy and social justice issues. However, she discovered social work late in post-secondary education, completing her undergraduate degree in psychology and religious studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, before pursuing her interest in human services. Following her undergraduate degree, Jessica realized that she wanted a deeper understanding of Aboriginal people, their culture, and the social and political challenges they face, before she began her foray into social work education. Thus, she spent two years completing a diploma in Native Community and Social Development at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario. Through this program’s cooperative education she worked as an Assistant Counsellor for the Canadian Force’s Black Bear Aboriginal Youth Training Program, and as a Day Camp Counsellor for the Barrie Native Friendship Centre. She feels that her time with the Aboriginal community was an immensely rewarding and enriching experience, and she hopes to eventually serve as an ally for urban Aboriginal people who are striving to strengthen and develop their communities.

When Jessica is not working (or studying), she enjoys experimenting with new vegetarian recipes while listening to jazz, funk, and Motown. She also loves reading novels (preferably outside), watching documentaries, and exploring all of the nooks and crannies of Windsor that she has yet to experience.

Petition to Include Pedestrian and Cycling Infrastructure on the New Public Crossing Connecting Windsor

The workshop consisted of discussions and group activities concerning: the definition, causes, types, and measures of poverty; lived experiences of people living in poverty relative to the experience of the middle class; and the intersecting barriers. We also discussed what long-term social and political changes we could implement to reduce poverty within Windsor-Essex County.

Before starting the workshop, participants assessed their current understanding of poverty issues within our community. Of those who filled out the evaluation form, 50% stated that they had a moderate understanding of poverty issues in Windsor-Essex, while 58% had a high knowledge of challenges faced by people living in poverty in Windsor-Essex. Additionally, 58% rated themselves as having a moderate to high knowledge of community resources.  Following the workshop, 77% felt they had a high to very high understanding of poverty issues in Windsor- Essex, 73% had a moderate to high knowledge of challenges faced by people living in poverty in Windsor-Essex, and 65% had a high to very high knowledge of community resources. Overall, many participants strongly agreed that the workshop’s information was useful (69%), that the facilitator was knowledgeable (85%), and that they would recommend P2P’s Understanding Poverty Workshop to a friend (88%).

Over 50 other leaders from over 30 communities attended the event where we shared community updates and determined direction for the upcoming year. There were a number of ideas, outcomes, discussions and decisions brought out during the gathering.

Among the topics covered, a group of leaders in the living wage movement in Canada came together over the past six months to develop a framework for guiding local living wage calculations and campaigns across the country. P2P is looking forward to bringing this initiative to our community in 2013.

Read more about the gathering here.  

On April 11, 2013 Megan Conway, the Interim Vice President Programs and Research at Pathways to Education Canada, and Maureen Thompson, a Consultant to Pathways to Education Canada, joined Windsor-Essex for a community conversation on place-based strategies for improving educational outcomes for young people.

Pathways to Education helps youth in low-income communities graduate from high school and successfully transition into post-secondary education. As the presenters noted, the provincial dropout rate is in the 20-30% range, the low-income community dropout rate is in the 30-50% range, and the Aboriginal dropout rate is in the 50-70% range. Pathways identifies four pillars that are required in order to increase the number of students who graduate: financial support, academic support, social support and advocacy. This model has been proven to reduce high school drop-out rates by as much as 70%, and increase the rate at which youth go on to college or university by up to 300%.

The community conversation also featured speakers from the Windsor-Essex community.  Dan Fister, Superintendent of Education – Student Success and Alternative Education for the GECDSB, and JoAnne Shea, Superintendent of Education – Student Achievement K-12 for the WECDSB, spoke about what programs, activities, and supports their school boards currently have in place to help increase graduation rates. Examples provided included co-ops, apprenticeships, Literacy Support teachers, dual credits through St. Clair College, and individual program planning. Lorraine Goddard, Director of Community Impact and Development for the local United Way, also presented an overview of her organization’s community impact framework.

There was a group discussion in which four questions were asked: 1) what are the priority issues related to youth and how do you know these exist?, 2) what have people (youth themselves, parents, teachers, community members) told you?, 3) what are the programming responses (current and possible), and 4) in ten years’ time, how would you know what you did was successful?

Participants identified several priority issues based on what they have heard from youth, parents, teachers and community members, including: stability, poverty, employability, lack of hope, mental health, substance use, family dynamics, lack of connection, lack of awareness, money, lack of social connection, bullying, transportation and lack of funding. The current and possible programming responses identified were student nutrition programs, research, scholarships/bursaries, interest groups (i.e. youth councils), afterschool reports, research, co-op programs, and peer mentoring. We would know we were successful in ten years’ time if literacy rates increased, the cycle of poverty decreased, there were more supports for young children in place, more stable housing were provided, and the incidence of mental health issues and addictions decreased.