City Hall | Bay and Queen | Wednesday, October 12 | 1 pm
Meet by giant Toronto sign in the square
Facebook | #HSFJustice, #FightToWin
The Housing Stabilization Fund (HSF) is a crucial fund that poor people in the city rely upon to pay emergency costs to obtain or retain housing. The City’s HSF policies, however, systematically discriminate against disabled people and families with children by nullifying or greatly reducing their HSF entitlements.They do so by labeling money set aside for raising children and for necessary health-related benefits (such as the Special Diet or Guide Dog allowance) as “excess income.” The policy affects more than 30,000 social assistance recipients who apply to this fund each year.
Join the fight to end this discrimination on Wednesday, October 12 and be part of the mass delegation to Mayor John Tory & Councillor James Pasternak (head of the committee that oversees the HSF administration). Help us make it clear to the City that we will not allow them to run a policy that is discriminatory. Poor people’s lives are impacted by these policies and our lives are too important to be compromised by bureaucratic negligence, incompetence or an unwillingness to act.
On June 15 of this year, a mass OCAP delegation descended on City Hall to demand justice for Laura Bardeau, a disabled mother of two children who was being denied access to the Housing Stabilization Fund (HSF). Struggling to survive on sub-poverty social assistance rates, Laura and her kids needed the money to purchase furniture they had lost to bed bugs. But instead of granting them the funds, the City refused to issue a single cent by claiming that Laura and her kids had income “in excess.”
Together, along with Laura and her kids, we fought back and won the Bardeaus’ the full amount they were entitled to. We also forced the City to release its HSF adjudication policies, which they had thus far kept under wraps. The policies confirmed that the City is systematically discriminating against disabled people and people with kids. We will be releasing a report exposing the City’s discrimination on our website tomorrow.
Together we won justice for Laura Bardeau, its now time to win it for all HSF applicants. Fight To Win!
