Doubling social assistance rates would make 'life-changing difference,' recipient says

Whether she's riding the bus to an appointment, packing her son's school lunch or taking courses so she can get a good job, Tia is constantly running numbers in her head.

"I crunch numbers all day long to figure out what I have, what I'm going to have, what I might need to put aside, or if there's $10 left over, if I'll put it on the hydro bill," the 27-year-old mom told CBC News earlier this week. "I can't just go in tp a grocery store and put things into my cart like the average person. I have to think about the cost, how I can stretch it."

Every month, $1,002.92 gets deposited into her account from Ontario Works (OW. Her rent is $925 a month. Add in an $8 service fee charged by her landlord to pay the rent, $25 for a cell phone, $70 for Rogers and $60 for hydro, and she's already $86 in the hole, without having purchased any food for herself or her son.

"Every month when you get your check,it's already spent. It's gone before you get it," Tia said. (CBC News is only using her first name because of the stigma of living on social assistance). If it weren't for a monthly federal child tax benefit and quarterly carbon tax credit, she wouldn't be able to survive.

The United Way Elgin Middlesex recently launched an unprecedented campaign, calling on the province to double social assistance rates, which keep people in "deep poverty," said agency president and CEO Kelly Ziegner.

"The reality for those folks is their days are spent in survival mode. If you're spending your days thinking about surviving the next hour, the next day, the next week,it's very difficult to plan for your future, let alone to have the necessities to do so," she added.

Tia has been getting Ontario Works for seven years, since her son was two-years-old. In 2019, she graduated from a personal support worker program and hoped to find work in that field, but the pandemic meant having to stay home with her son because there was no other child care.

"You learn to just go without things, luxuries that maybe some other families have that we don't have," she said. "You have to make tough choices. I've gone months without a cell phone. When my son was little I accumulated an $800 hydro bill because I had to make sure he had food, that he had what he needed."

Doubling social assistance rates would "make a life-changing difference," she said.

The Ontario Works money comes once a month, and there's a constant juggle of which bill will get paid and which one won't Tia said. "As a single parent, their ends come before yours and then everything comes after that," she said. She's tried to shield her son from some hardships, but wants him to know the reality of their family's financial situation.

"I never want him to be on Ontario Works. I never want him to make the same mistakes that I made. But I do want him to see and acknowledge them so that he can live differently or make different choices," Tia said.

The province, which funds Ontario Works, and the city, which administers it, have changed where money is allocated. That's meant that as of Jan. 1, Tia no longer gets$135 that she used to get for bus tickets to get job training.

Circles, Goodwill-program she participates in and credits with connecting to her to resources, school and a potential career,has also been cut back. Facilitators Ashley Harp and Velentina Rivera say the money people currently get from Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is unlivable.

"People on ODSP and OW are consistently trying to find ways to survive. They're in survival mode every day, every month, and they're struggling. If they doubled it, which they should, it would allow individuals that are in these programs to focus their attention on life stabilization," Harp said.

'From survival mode to thriving mode'

"If they don't have to worry about their light bill or feeding their child or transportation, they can focus on 'Where do I want to be? Do I want to go to school? Need an education? How do I find a job?' They could go from survival mode to thriving mode instead."

It's extremely difficult to focus on goals when you have to focus on making sure you have enough food and stretching other resources, Rivera added.

"People have to focus on their day-to-day survival rather than their potential," she said.

London Morning5:50Town hall to address struggles Londoners face living on low social assistance rates

The local United Way is trying to draw attention to the low rates of social assistance Londoners receive from Ontario Works and ODSP, which fall well below the Canadian poverty line. The issue is the focus of a town hall being held on Monday. London Morning spoke with Kelly Ziegner, CEO and President of United Way Elgin Middlesex, ahead of the meeting.

Ziegner said she hopes the province will increase the social assistance rates in the next budget. "We're asking members of the public to endorse our recommendation. People need effective and dignified income through social assistance," she said.

In response to a question from CBC News about whether it would increase social assistance rates, the province said it "continues to invest in programs and services to make life more affordable for residents across Ontario so that nobody gets left behind."