Bursting at the Seams: Premiere

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Everyone’s Invited to the Gala Screening & Premiere of our New Short Film

Thursday, November 10 | Mayor John Tory’s Condo | 6:30pm
[Bedford & Bloor, Outside St. George Subway Station]
Food will be served before the screening

In collaboration with a few key allies, OCAP has made a short film on conditions of brutal overcrowding within Toronto’s homeless shelter system. We are going to show it outside the building where Mayor John Tory lives in somewhat better circumstances.

Watch the Film Trailer:

As we move into winter, the homeless are being crammed into facilities where they face the most appalling conditions or are dumped onto the streets. The crisis is being compounded by a concerted drive by City Hall to move shelters out of the City core to make way for more upscale redevelopment.

Come out, see the film and support the fight for the right to shelter.

Note: One Bedford is just outside St. George subway station (accessible subway station).

Speakers Series #11: Capitalism, Crisis & the War on the Poor

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Thursday, November 17 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street)
Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens

*****
Join us for our monthly speaking series focusing on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public.

Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

This month’s topic is: Capitalism, Crisis & the War on the Poor

Speaker: David McNally, long-time activist and professor at York University.

Come for the meal at 6pm and stay for what promises to be a a very informative and engaging session!

Report Back: Mass Delegation to End HSF Discrimination

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This past Wednesday, October 12, we led a mass delegation into Toronto City Hall to demand that the City immediately cease implementing the discriminatory aspects of the HSF policies, change them, and add $13 million to the fund to meet the need. Approximately fifty of us gathered in front of City Hall to bring our demands directly to the members of City Council responsible for this unjust and abusive situation. See more pictures of the action here, here and here.

After speakers set out our demands and intentions, we marched into the building and made straight for the office of Mayor John Tory.  We were met at the doors of the office by Tory’s representative and, of course, security staff.  We were told that the City is preparing a consultation meeting, on October 20, to seek input into the HSF and how it is being implemented.  We reminded them [see video] that two such consultations have already been held and nothing has changed as a result of them. We demanded that they stop denying the HSF unfairly, providing reduced amounts without cause and that they end the discriminatory policies they have in place that penalize disabled people and those with families. We informed them that if they bring forward real improvements in the HSF we’d be happy to consult with them but we would not legitimize a farce designed to delay such urgently needed measures. Having delivered this message, our delegation circled the rotunda of City Hall, loudly putting forward our demands to make sure the bureaucrats and politicians understand this fight would only end when #HSFJustice is won.

On October 8, we released a new report, Left in the Lurch: The Destabilizing Reality of Toronto’s Housing Stabilization Fund, which exposed how the City is systematically discriminating against disabled people and families with children in its administration of the Housing Stabilization Fund (HSF). The practice affects over 30,000 social assistance recipients who apply to the fund each year.

Since the Ontario Government eliminated the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) and downloaded the responsibility onto local governments in 2013, poor people across the province have had to try and contend with patchwork of inadequate local programs.  People in need and their advocates have found Toronto’s HSF to be a flawed system that utterly fails to provide those on the verge of homelessness with any real protection.  Earlier this year, OCAP fought and won a long battle to ensure that Laura Bardeau and her family weren’t left without bedding and furniture after they were denied access to the HSF.  Since then, we joined with the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, in preparing the ‘Left in the Lurch’ report which details the arbitrary treatment, opaque policies and outright discrimination towards disabled people and families that plagues the City’s administration of the HSF.

These gross violations built into the HSF policies can’t be allowed to stay in place. A housing fund that prevents homelessness and enables people to obtain homes to live in is a matter of vital necessity and we intend to win it.

Media Coverage of the action & the report:

Inside Toronto | Radio-Canada | Toronto Star

New Report: Left in the Lurch

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Download the Report | Read Toronto Star Coverage of the Report
[Print Version]

The report uncovers the discrimination and procedural injustice built into the City’s Housing Stabilization Fund (HSF), an emergency housing needs fund with a mandate to prevent homelessness. The report is based on an analysis of policy documents we forced the Toronto Employment and Social Services (TESS) to release over a two-month fight this summer around the case of Laura Bardeau, a disabled single mother of two children (also living with disabilities) who was refused access to the fund. As the report makes clear, Laura was not alone. The arbitrariness and discrimination she experienced is systemic and affects over 30,000 social assistance recipients who apply to the fund each year. The report demonstrates how the current HSF policies discriminate against disabled people and people with children, and the how lack of transparency in its administration has paved way for rampant arbitrariness in decision-making.

The report was created in collaboration with the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario.

Mass Delegation to End HSF Discrimination

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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!

OCAP Demands Justice for Disabled Children in Greece

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On October 5, a delegation of OCAP members and supporters delivered a letter of protest to the Greek Consulate in Toronto.  In solidarity with the Emancipation Movement of People with Disabilities in Athens, we demanded justice for disabled children, confined under appalling conditions in a centre in Lechaina and in other facilities around the country.  Our allies in Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) held an action at the Greek Embassy in London, UK on the same day.

Our delegation was met at the entrance to the building by the First Counsellor at the Consulate who, with the RCMP watching over the proceedings, received the letter and heard our demand for justice for these children.  He promised to convey our message to the Greek officials responsible for the matter and was made to understand that OCAP was prepared to take such further action as our comrades in the Emancipation Movement of People with Disabilities feel is necessary.

OCAP is proud to have taken an action in support of those resisting austerity, social abandonment and the particular abuses faced by disabled people in Greece.  In response to the OCAP delegation, Antonios Rellas from the EMPD wrote: “Mighty greetings from Athens, thank you very much for your invaluable help in the fight for the dignity of disabled persons living in institutions.”

Click here for additional background.