[homeles_ot-l] fyi

[Reuel S. Amdur]

I have learned that you have e-mailed ODSP-related staff indicating that private lawyers will no longer be reimbursed for expenditures on assessments of clients appealing denial of ODSP.  It had been for several years the practice of People Services to pay half the cost of assessments, so that the low rates paid by Legal Aid could be matched.  I assist lawyers in aiding clients to appeal ODSP denials and I put out money for these assessments, for which I get half back through Legal Aid payments to lawyers.  You have given no advance notice of the termination of this arrangement, leaving me in the lurch for several hundred dollars.

As you know, private lawyers are engaged when the legal clinics are too overloaded to take a new case.
Aside from the blatant unfairness of simply stopping payment without warning private service providers, the move simply makes no sense.  Ottawa is in serious financial straits at this time, and the province is moving to upload the cost of ODSP.  At the same time, your caseload is honeycombed with clients who have substantial problems functioning in the workplace.  The problem is more acute now because times are good, so that a larger portion of your caseload is ODSP material.  In effect, your termination of this program (without warning, as I said) will make it more difficult to move people onto ODSP.  You will carry the financial burden of people staying inappropriately on Ontario Works. This move is truly pennywise and pound foolish.  The city is simply shooting itself in the foot.

For my part, I look to the minimum of fairness in being paid for out-of-pocket expenses that were made on the basis of a policy that was terminated with no notice.  And if the new policy remains, I will cease my efforts working for lawyers representing people on appeals.  I don't know if I will be part of a parade out, but if not the lawyers continuing in the field will in all likelihood present weaker cases because of hesitancy in obtaining critical evidence due to unreimbursed costs.  
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