[homeles_ot-l] Fwd: Ontario food banks seek 'guerrilla war' on hunger

[Terrie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Rae <thepenguin at rogers.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 7:31 AM
Subject: Ontario food banks seek 'guerrilla war' on hunger
To: aebc at blindcanadians.ca


       Ontario food banks seek 'guerrilla war' on hunger

Laurie Monsebraaten
The Toronto Star, Aug. 19, 2008

Low-fee credit unions for the poor and a plan to help low-income households
pay for heat and hydro are among a broad series of initiatives needed to
fight poverty in Ontario, say the province's food banks in a report to be
released today.

Cutting poverty in half by 2020 would lift more than half a million
Ontarians out of poverty and should be the McGuinty government's "commitment
of a generation," says the report by the Ontario Association of Food Banks.

To do this, the report suggests more than two dozen new ideas aimed at
giving everyone affordable homes in safe communities, financial security,
social and economic opportunity and a government committed to the cause.

And it calls on Queen's Park to invest $720 million next year and $2 billion
by 2015 toward the goal.

"We believe that we must fight hunger and poverty like a guerrilla war: city
by city, block by block, and house by house," says the 63-page report to the
government's Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction.

Premier Dalton McGuinty has given the committee, headed by Children's
Minister Deb Matthews, until the end of the year to define poverty in
Ontario and come up with a comprehensive plan to fight it with measurable
goals and timetables to meet them.

The food banks' report is among more than 600 submissions the committee has
received since it started work this spring.

The explosion of payday lenders and the high proportion of low-income people
without bank accounts underscores the need for affordable financial
services, the report says. Queen's Park should draft special legislation and
provide seed money to set up community development credit unions as an
alternative to payday loans that charge high interest and trap low-income
people in a cycle of debt.

The report, based on six focus groups with more than 70 food bank users from
across the province, notes that lack of affordable housing is a key cause of
hunger in Ontario.

Allowing public housing companies to issue housing bonds could raise money
to build 60,000 affordable homes by 2020, the report suggests. In addition,
50,000 new shelter subsidies - worth up to $300 per month - would help
one-third of the highest need households on social housing waiting lists
afford to live in the private rental market.

The wide-ranging report borrows heavily from anti-poverty initiatives in the
U.S., Europe, New Zealand and Quebec, and hearkens back to Canada's success
in introducing public health care and pensions for seniors in the 1960s.

For example, it recommends creating 10 "Opportunity Zones" - anything from a
neighbourhood to a small town - to entice businesses to locate in areas of
high unemployment and hire low-wage workers by offering wage subsidies and
business grants.

Under the scheme, modelled on Renewal Community and Empowerment Zones in the
U.S., the province would help businesses buy equipment or space and offer
wage credits of up to $1,500 per new employee and up to $3,000 for hiring a
new Canadian. A $78 million annual investment would put 35,000 people to
work, including 15,000 recent immigrants, the report says.

In the wake of rising energy costs, it recommends spending $30 million
annually to provide energy subsidies of up to $200 and conservation
assistance for about 300,000 low-income households, similar to a program
operating in Arizona. In the past five years, household heating fuel in
Canada has gone up by 89 per cent. It is expected to rise another 20 per
cent this fall.

Many American jurisdictions help the poor build a financial nest egg to get
out of poverty. The food banks want Queen's Park to match the savings of
10,000 low-income households to help them save up to $10,000 for education,
home ownership or to start a business.

And the report advises Ontario follow Quebec's lead and enshrine its
commitment to poverty reduction in a law. Legislation binds future
governments to the task and keeps poverty on the political agenda, the
report says.

The report recommends annual reporting through a senior cabinet minister
responsible for poverty reduction who will oversee a new government agency
dedicated to the cause.

Measuring poverty is a complex task that requires a mix of indicators
including income, social inclusion and deprivation, says the report. While
work must be done to set benchmarks for social inclusion and deprivation,
the best measure for income should be the Low Income Measure or LIM, it
suggests.

At 50 per cent of the median household income, LIM is easy to calculate and
understand and is used by most jurisdictions around the world, the report
adds.

To pay for the plan, the report suggests the Liberals use money from next
year's projected revenue growth of $3.4 billion or reduce its projected $1
billion investment in provincial reserves for 2009.

Ontario is among five provinces, including Quebec, Newfoundland, Manitoba
and Nova Scotia, that have developed or are developing plans to cut poverty,
the report notes.

With such significant provincial interest in the issue, the provinces should
be pressing Ottawa to ante up, it says.

Although a recession "may be on our doorstep," the government should "not
focus on short-term efficiency and risk management over long-term progress
and prosperity," says the report's author, Adam Spence, head of the
association.

"We believe now is the time to be bold," he says. "We must make
transformative choices that will build a better Ontario."




-- 
Terrie ( mocharebyl at gmail.com )
"If you see an injustice being committed, you aren't an observer, you are a
participant." June Callwood
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and
renders the present inaccessible. Maya Angelou
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