Poverty Awareness in York Region

Tom-A-Talk

A Poverty Action For Change - PACC - Blog Report

Well the summer started with a bang until the sky started falling. First I lost my phone for a week, and many contacts permanently, when a Viva bus inadvertently ran over my cell phone…it’s a long story... I did resist reaching to grab for it despite a few seconds window and my cheap Scottish instincts rooting me on. Suffice to say, inconvenience would be an understatement as I try to conduct business mostly on this phone. At any rate I got another after shelling out way too much $ while also deciding to check out a new provider which has since suspended my service twice as I struggled to set up payments with them…it didn’t help that my bank paid the wrong account…Imagine not having a phone though? Many don’t and PACC has been distributing phone numbers to those without phones since March thereby enabling at-risk families and homeless individuals into homes, jobs, keep consistent contact for appointments with doctors and social workers etc, and take and receive messages 24/7. Next my computer went wonky so I wasn’t receiving emails for 2-3 weeks...imagine not having access to email or internet ever? Many don’t.

I travel the York Region transit system often and have noticed that in their quest to save money YRT have quietly (again) begun to cut service to isolated areas often containing low income residents, such as Newmarket’s route 53 bus to Bathurst St. which now stops running northbound from Yonge St around 8:30 pm, so kids working jobs to further their educations, and parents struggling to survive better hope they work 9-5 hours locally to allow them time for shopping, appointments or activities after they get home. Too bad that even if they get a job at the big local mall to pay for a bus pass there is no bus now for them to get home like there was previously as the mall closes at 9:00 pm ... and since the town raised taxi rates last year during the recession (poor people without cars mostly take cabs), giving away an hours pay from a part time job just to get home doesn’t make any sense either, when you may only get a 3 or 4 hour shift and may have to pay a babysitter. It’s bad enough this service runs every hour most times, but stopping service to these areas at such an early hour to a location that’s a 50 minute summertime walk to a grocery store or high school, is hurting people’s ability to survive and further isolates and marginalizes people. This bus service doesn’t even start early enough to get someone to work by 7 or 7:30 am need be – locally! – and connections often leave one waiting a half hour or an hour leading to some local trips taking two hours to travel a 15 minute vehicle ride while hourly only service from Fairy Lake / Main Street Newmarket stops at 8:30 pm. Ridiculous. So much for the new downtown renovations being for everyone to enjoy.

I was never more frustrated than the other day. As I struggled to make an appointment on a very hot afternoon my bus pulled in as my connecting bus was in the bay waiting already. "Great!” I thought, “Perfect timing!” But, alas, there was no spot for my bus to pull in right away and as it waited it circled the building once again before finally docking just as my connecting bus pulled out....running just once an hour! These are the reasons their YRT ridership is low on these local routes – terrible service (although increased Viva usage on main routes has helped skew the stats)! ......Keeping with the transit talk the local high-school claims the same neighbourhood is .1 km out of busing range – therefore making those kids walk or pay for transit at $80 per month - oh, and incidentally, of course increase YRT ridership with this ‘arrangement”. How people are expected to rise up out of circumstances when they are burdened with not even being able to consistently travel to work or school is a travesty and frankly a mystery as to why we’ve got this “system”. Many just quit…life or school.

In 2010, PACC in cooperation with the YRDSB, assisted some of these kids expected to walk by supplying free back-packs. PACC identified several areas where students are burdened with lengthy high school walks from isolated low and mixed income neighbourhoods. PACC Vice- Chair Kristine Carbis is currently negotiating another PACC to School program now for 2011. It’s not a bus but the wheels are turning!

Some of those connected with the Poverty Free Ontario campaign from across the province attended in person and on the phone last Friday, along with social service review Commissioners Francis Lankin and Munir Sheikh. Lead by PFO's Peter Clutterbuck the meeting was set up in order to express PFO’s mission, to influence the Commissioners and to make some asks such as would they make short-term recommendations prior to the election?... which I asked for... and which they politely turned down citing the need to remain non-partisan in an election year. My hope was to also have the Commissioners create a sense of urgency, in short supply with all these government bodies it seems, and I informed the Commissioners that York Region - with winter coming and only 25 full time beds for men in a population of 1.1 million (Y.R.) - could benefit from a resident influencing statement from them acknowledging the vastness and importance of this real problem (poverty) - believing such a statement may assist people to decide who to vote for - but t’was not to be… although the meeting was very productive, as I believe we assisted the Commissioners through providing clear, concise ideas and 1^st hand testimonials, and as well garnered their interest to receive more statistical and practical information for their peruse to assist towards recommendations of change. Commissioner Lankin particularly liked the framing of a term put forward by PFO’s Professor Marvin Novick when he said during his time to address – “People need to be able to earn their way out of poverty” but I’d take that one step further, based on my experience and from our own PACC hosted (ISARC) social audit, and say that “People WANT to earn their way out of poverty.”

Other PFO target points included unveiling the plan to virtually eliminate poverty in Ontario – like some Scandinavian and Nordic countries have accomplished with much fewer resources. Reducing poverty to 4%, as opposed to the over 10% we have now, meets this goal and the plan outlines how this can be accomplished through various adjustments including minimum wage and social service increases and carry-over benefits that cover low income workers. If you’d like to be more informed about the Poverty Free Ontario campaign or see how you can become involved click on through! A “reverse” election campaign with lawn signs will commence this Sept 15 via a province wide release for those interested! Order PFO signs and buttons through your local organizations or PFO for 25 cents a piece or through me at $1 each to help PACC survive. Signs run $2.42 per unit with metal legs for18” x 12” footers. Larger lawn signs available as well.

Speaking of survival, I received a call from a very perturbed long time PACC mom struggling to keep a roof over her head as she wrestles with red tape, income woes, rent arrears, and being refused help from welfare for making too much money - even though her total work income including child support is less than $1,000 per month. Complicating her case seems to be having two teenagers, one who just graduated high-school and is now 18, which seems to always freeze our social safety-net “system”. Usually everyone gets denied any benefits regardless of situation these days, perhaps to weed out the weak, and then has to fight for basic rights to survive. This stressed out mom is also in the middle of horrific work conditions, dictated by an empowered abusive female supervisor who seems to have a cozy after-hours relationship with male management to the point where the workers are afraid to say anything in fear of losing their jobs - as one long time employee did for speaking up. Meantime, the unchecked supervisor gains even more strength to wreak havoc with abusive conduct towards her subordinates, while complaints about her are met with threats on their jobs or a reduction of hours.

A doctor’s note explaining this PACCers medical condition asking for retraining (desk) and a move to a later start time have been ignored as well she tells me and ultimately they will use her “tardiness” against her despite the Doc's letters. As I listened to her plight and the desperation she feels regarding the degrading conditions in her work place, I advised her to take videos and contact the labour board. I began to realize that this is why and how things get started - with someone who’s just had enough and has nothing left to lose. I asked about a union. While some of their shop is unionized, some workers in this large company are not, and the caller wondered about starting one? She's shared in the past that she has always spoken up for peoples rights, even in her native Guyana before coming to Canada and having kids here, and that she will fight for her rights and the rights of her co-workers and her fired friend – who by all accounts was a well liked supervisor when let go for frivolous reasons. Her co-workers are interested to start one as well but afraid of being fired. I promised her I’d spread the word to help her start a union in her workplace, and so this is what I’ve done here!

Here’s a fun original video with some important messages as Bumbling Brit Reporter Thompson Williams is still Stuck In Canada Day 49

Tom Out!