PFiB
Put Food in the Budget
A Walk With the Premier
Put Food in the Budget Steering Committee - Who we are!
Tell the Premier!
Dear Premier McGuinty,
You propose to freeze social assistance rates in your budget.
The Ontario Disability Support Program provides just $1064 a month and Ontario Works just $599 a month – leaving many people with no money for food after paying their rent! After inflation -in the past year, food prices have gone up 4.9% and electricity 8.9%; and rents can increase 3% this year.
The freeze on social assistance rates is a cut.
This budget does nothing to close the growing gap between rich and poor. The freeze on MPP salaries is a token measure, and corporations and wealthy CEOs face no tax increase.
I support an immediate increase to put food in the budget of people on social assistance.
I support a small tax increase on people earning over $200,000 a year.
I believe public services should not be cut at a time when the rich are getting richer.
Your budget appears to abandon your commitment to reduce poverty.
Maintain your commitment to reduce poverty and increase social assistance rates immediately!
Tearing Down Poverty's Stigma
You can't get much for $17,420 these days. Yet an increasing number of residents in the Tri-County region are living on less per year than this figure, which according to the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit is the low-income cutoff for this area. "Imagine for a family of three to live off $17,420 a year," Carole Chang, a registered dietician with the health unit, told The Recorder and Times on Tuesday. "That is pretty low." Recent numbers from Operation Harvest Sharing seem to testify to the growing level of poverty in this region, with overall food demand to date in 2011 up four per cent over 2010. On average, the Buell Street facility has issued food to 483 families -- or approximately 1,000 people -- per month, said its co-chairman, Rev. Myra Garvin. With this in mind, the health unit has teamed up with the Food Matters Coalition to create SNAP (Spread a New Attitude About Poverty ) 2011, a day of poverty-awareness workshops slated for November 4 at Loaves and Fishes. Its goal, Chang says, is to help break down commonly held misconceptions about poverty as local officials continue to build on the awareness campaign that began with last fall's "Do the Math, Eat the Math" challenge, during which local community leaders each tried to live off a single bag of groceries for one week. "We realized there is still a lot of need to reduce the stigma and judgemental attitudes associated with poverty," she said. A sequel to Do the Math, the SNAP event will help build on some of the momentum gained in that campaign, Chang said. "We are hoping for this campaign, we can educate our communities about the root causes of poverty and some of the realities that low-income families are faced with," she said. "We really want the community to be more compassionate and more inclusive of families living with low incomes." Chang said the day of workshops is similar to the Do the Math drive in that it is designed to once again place participants in the shoes of the economically challenged people they wish to help. To read more, CLICK HERE!
By STEVE PETTIBONE, THE RECORDER AND TIMES
Food challenge should offer insights into poverty
Amid a week of stories celebrating great local food, the Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination is seeking to tell one about much simpler and sparse fare.
In the wake of the Taste of Guelph fundraiser — and heading into such great, weekend, food-first events as the Fall Wellington Rural Romp, the annual Organic Harvest Feast at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre, and a borscht festival at St. Mary’s Church — some people may have missed the launch of the task force’s more sombre food story.
On Monday, the task force and the Guelph Food Bank briefed and sent forth a crew of not-needy citizens with rations for three days and told them to live on them for five. There is some room for supplementing the grocery allotment. Items from the home gardens of the participants can be added in, as well as a set and small number of pre-existing foodstuffs from their pantries. The trial though is expected to prove a bit of a test for these subjects, and a learning experience, too.
To read more, CLICK HERE!
Time to put emergency food policies on the table
GUELPH — I was acutely aware of what I was buying at the grocery store last weekend, knowing I was going to take part in the Do the Math Challenge at the Guelph Food Bank this week.
Nothing lavish or expensive, but I wanted to get some nutritious, hearty, cheap and delicious food in me before eating only what’s been provided for me for this challenge.
The Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination wants to draw attention to poverty issues in the provincial election campaign and has invited a half-dozen local people and their families to live on food bank rations and blog about the experience.
The task force wants to underscore how difficult it is for people living on Ontario Works or a disability pension to find a decent place to live — and put food on the table every day. Ontario Works typically pays $592 a month to a single adult, which doesn’t leave much for food after paying rent, clothing, medication (if you need it) and transportation expenses. The task force is asking the government to add a $100 monthly healthy food supplement for every adult receiving social assistance.
Taking part in Do the Math are: Matthew Bulmer, a farmer in Puslinch and his family; John Borthwick, the minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church; Peter Glaab, a teacher at St. James Catholic High School; Chris Jess, the culinary arts teacher at Centre Wellington high school; Dr. Nicola Mercer, Medical Officer of Health; Andrew Seagram, co-chair of the poverty task force; a team from the University of Guelph’s Central Student Association; and me and my daughter, who loves to cook and is hunting down recipes so we can make the best use of what we got.
We’ve been given enough food for three days, but will try to stretch it to five. We can eat only what’s in the box, along with any produce coming from our own backyard gardens, and a maximum of five additional food items already in our pantries. It’s going to be hard to decide between salt or sugar or flour, oil or margarine, coffee or tea, and soy sauce or ketchup or spices. I want them all. I’m seeing a week of bland dinners ahead of me.
To read more, CLICK HERE!
It's Time to Close Canada's Food Banks
Elaine Power
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Jul. 25, 2011 2:00AM EDT
Food banks have become a serious obstacle in the fight against poverty. By promising to “end hunger” by feeding hungry Canadians, they provide a comforting illusion that no one is hungry – or if they are, it’s their own fault. They shelter us from the harsh reality that millions lack the basic necessities of life.
It’s time to close our food banks. I’ve reached this conclusion after 18 years of researching food, hunger and poverty; volunteering at food banks; serving on a food bank board; and recently taking part in a challenge where I ate from a typical food bank hamper for three days.
The first problem is that food banks can never end hunger.
Most people who could officially be classified as “hungry” simply don’t use them. In the only national survey that bothered to ask (conducted by Human Resources Development Canada), one in four hungry Canadians used food banks. Many would rather go hungry than accept charity. Or they choose to leave the food for those who, they tell themselves, “really” need it.
To read more, CLICK HERE!
Poverty Pariah
Pocketbook politics put a crimp in bid to up cruel welfare rates
By Paul Weinberg
OCAP heads to allan gardens this weekend for another of the org’s legendary mass feed-ins to press for an increase in social assistance rates.
Not that it, or any other anti-poverty group, has had much luck. Assistance levels have been allowed to fall stunningly behind over the years: single people currently receive $592 a month, a living wage when Lester Pearson was prime minister. Singles on the Ontario Disability Support Program get $1,042.
Problem is, don’t look for a discussion on rates in the upcoming election; the Liberals have neatly tucked the issue away in their social assistance review process. Struck last November, the review is being led by two highly respected figures: Frances Lankin, past president and CEO of United Way Toronto, and Munir Sheikh, former chief statistician for the feds, the civil servant who quit on principle over the long-form census affair.
But call it the Hudak factor: the Libs have crafted the review so that the final report isn’t due until June 2012, missing the election fracas by a country mile. And while Lankin has stated publicly that tinkering won’t fix the system and that “fundamental reform [is] required,” many in the policy community are unimpressed by the timing.
“The [Liberal] political arm,” says U of T policy analyst Ernie Lightman, “has basically taken a step back because of the election and has left it to the bureaucrats. They’ll come up with some recommendations, but they’ll be very incremental.”
Incremental is not what poverty experts think is in order, but the seemingly entrenched government position on keeping rates low has generated a wide debate over tactics on the anti-poverty front.
“Social assistance is a bad brand,” says John Stapleton, a policy analyst and former senior civil servant in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. He points out that until the Harris Tory regime, welfare rates for singles steadily rose, from $491 in 1989 to $663 in 1993 under the Bob Rae NDP government. If subsequent governments had pegged rates to inflation, the welfare rate today would be $932 a month.
Stapleton is pessimistic that politicians of any stripe will ever increase payments again. “Through good times and bad, social assistance has been reduced relentlessly for the last 18 years, and the question is, can you do something outside of social assistance to adjust poverty?”
Sure enough, poverty activists are trying to finesse their way around this brick wall – but they aren’t all on one page.
Some, like Stapleton and Gail Nyberg, executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank (where Stapleton is on the board), are pushing what they perceive as a more saleable option: a shelter benefit for all low-income people, even those who are working.
They advocate a monthly $103 housing benefit for low-income tenants via the tax system. It would cost a little over $200 million and target 66,000 families or 129,000 individuals across the province.
“The NDP is interested, the Liberals seem to be interested and even, to my surprise, the PCs wanted to know lots about it. I can’t tell you if it will be in their platforms, but we will be out there lobbying,” Nyberg says.
That’s one strategy. But there’s another one prioritizing food over shelter. The Put Food In The Budget campaign seeks to increase the monthly food portion of the social assistance cheque by $100.
City Council Endorses Healthy Food Supplement
If April Campbell suddenly had extra money to spend on food, she'd buy a steak.
"A T-bone steak," she said. "I haven't had one in years. With some good broccoli and a baked potato with sour cream."
Campbell is one of the thousands of Niagara residents living on social assistance getting by on less than $600 a month.
With rent at a cheap apartment set at about $450 a month, there's not much left over for food, said Campbell, who has relied on Ontario Works payments since 2006, when she lost her job and suffered a heart attack that robbed her of half of her heart's function.
Now she stretches her grocery money by visiting food banks, soup kitchens and drop-in centres. When she does shop, fresh fruit and vegetables seldom make their way into her grocery cart.
She knows it's not good, but she has no choice.
"I am not supposed to be eating too much canned food because of the sodium, because of my heart," she said.
"You are buying noodles and pasta sauce and spaghetti, stuff that will last through the month. I always travel to buy my groceries, to see if I can find a better deal."
That's why Campbell, who is also a volunteer at Start Me Up Niagara's Gale Crescent drop-in centre, welcomes an initiative that is urging the province to immediately provide a $100 Healthy Food Supplement to people living on social assistance.
At this week's city council meeting, St. Catharines councillors unanimously endorsed a motion from Merritton Coun. Jeff Burch, which calls on the province to set social assistance rates "that are based on the real cost of living a healthy, dignified life."
The "Put Food in the Budget" campaign also calls for an urgent $100 monthly boost.
To read more, CLICK HERE!
