Report on Poverty
Homelessness Initiative
Campaign for Adequate Welfare
(HICFAW)
presents
A Portrait of Poverty:
Living on Social Assistance in Hamilton
A Portrait of Poverty: Living on Social Assistance in Hamilton (2003) is a report by the Homelessness Initiative Campaign for Adequate Welfare (HICFAW) prepared in partnership with the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton.
The Community Action Plan on Homelessness in Hamilton-Wentworth (SPRC: 2000) recommends
a reinstatement of the 21.6% that was cut from social assistance rates in 1995. Additionally, that percentage should also reflect inflation rates since 1995.
Further, although ODSP recipients did not experience the 21.6% cutback in assistance, they have not received increases since 1995 and so should receive a 5.9% increase for inflation as well as a reinstatement of the many discretionary benefits that have bee removed from ODSP (Priority Area Recommendation #29).
In response to this recommendation, poverty activists in Hamilton joined with representatives from community organizations working to address the growing crisis of homelessness in Hamilton to form the Homelessness Initiative Campaign for Adequate Welfare, or HICFAW.
As a result of the work of HICFAW, this volunteer committee has produced the following report in partnership with the Social Planning & Research Council of Hamilton titled: Portrait of Poverty: Living on Social Assistance in Hamilton
HICFAW organized two large community meetings to hear what it is like to live on social assistance in Hamilton from people who receive benefits through either Ontario Works (OW) or the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). What emerged from these meetings with people living on social assistance in Hamilton was A Portrait of Poverty, the title of the report.
A Portrait of Poverty combines the qualitative information gathered at these meetings with local statistics on the use of homeless shelters and food banks. As well, this report compares existing social assistance rates with a minimal list of the most basic necessities of life, and finds the levels of income assistance provided through both OW and ODSP to be seriously inadequate.
Please download this report and distribute it to your friends.
Comments and criticisms are welcome. If you would like further information or would like to get involved in the fight against poverty in Hamilton please contact
Mark Williams at mwill@netinc.ca,
Wey Robinson at weyr@hwcn.org or
Robert Foster at rjf@nas.net, or
call the Social Planning & Research Council at 905-522-1148.