Joan Roberts Consulting

Social Planning Toronto
Research & Policy Forum
March 1st, 2010 9:00am-12:00pm

Social Planning Toronto invites you to attend our March Research & Policy Forum.

This month we will be looking at issues around immigrant homelessness and health & labour market outcomes for immigrants.

Presenters include:

• Dr. Stephen Hwang, St. Michael’s Hospital/ University of Toronto
• Dr. John Shields, Ryerson University/ Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative (TIEDI)

March 1, 2010 9:00am – 12:00pm
Social Planning Toronto, 2 Carlton Suite 1001 (Carlton & Yonge)

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED.

Click here to download the Social Planning Toronto Pre-Budget Submission to Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.

Thursday, February 18 from 9:30 AM to Noon

519 Church Street Community Centre

Toronto’s 2010 proposed operating budget will be introduced on February 16 at City Hall.

Join us on February 18 to:

• Learn more about what’s in the budget
• Ask questions and share your ideas
• Find out how to have your say in the budget process

Not a Social Planning Toronto member?
Individual and organizational memberships are available.
You can sign up online, by phone at (416) 351-0095 x251 or at the event.
For more information about membership or to sign up online: www.socialplanningtoronto.org/get-involved

Please pre-register for this event or call (416) 351-0095 x251
Organizational members can send up to two people.

This venue is wheelchair-accessible.

AGENDA: Homeless Memorial, Community Lunch & Federal Party & Community Panel
DATE: Tuesday, February 9, 2010
TIME: 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm.
PLACE: Church of the Holy Trinity (just west of the Eaton Centre between Dundas and Queen Street).

• The Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green Parties of Canada and the Bloc Quebecois Party have been invited to answer questions on actions they will take to more effectively respond to the ongoing recession and the harsh impact on many vulnerable people and communities.
• Also, representatives from several community coalitions will respond to positions taken by the parties and pose questions.
• In addition, the Recession Relief Coalition will be releasing the responses to a Survey we sent to the five federal parties, and will also release our 3rd Bulletin on the Impacts of the Recession.

While Parliament is prorogued until March 3, it is vital that individuals and community organizations come together to talk about the experiences and needs in neighbourhoods and communities, and to put forward the expectations we have of our Federal government and political parties to meet these needs.

The Recession Relief Coalition is a broad-based group of organizations and individuals concerned about the impact of the recession on Canada’s most vulnerable and marginalized residents. Over 260 organizations, and over 1,100 individuals across Canada endorsed the coalition’s call on the federal government to invest funding to prevent cuts to public and private non profit agencies serving vulnerable communities, a and to increase funding to support vital social services including homelessness programs and settlement services.

To contact the Recession Relief Coalition.
www.recession-relief-coalition.org
Message line: 416-760-2197
Email: ronzig@recession-relief-coalition.org

Thanks to all for taking part in Social Planning Toronto and Toronto Open Budget Initiative’s City Budget Process 101 workshop on February 3.

Budget Chief Shelley Carroll, CAW Sam Gindin Chair Judy Rebick and TOBI speaker Ann Fitzpatrick delivered excellent presentations to a packed house on the state of the City budget process and how we can make it more inclusive and participatory.

Videos from the evening will be posted online shortly.

Social Planning Toronto is pleased to announce that we have hired Jeremy Tudor Price as our new Communications Officer.

“I am pleased to welcome Jeremy Tudor Price to our staff as our new Communications Officer. Jeremy brings very strong technical and communications skills to the position, and combines strong experience in the private sector with a real interest and commitment to working with the Council and our community partners. I know he will be a real asset to the Council. Please join us in welcoming Jeremy to the organization. (Jeremy can be reached at jtudorprice@socialplanningtoronto.org)

I would like to thank Christopher Wulff for his contributions here over the past eighteen months, and wish him all the best as he embarks on a variety of new adventures. (Should anyone wish to continue contact with Christopher, he can be reached at cwulff@patienceandfortitude.com)”

John Campey
Executive Director, Social Planning Toronto

Social Planning Toronto is pleased to announce that we have hired Jeremy Tudor Price as our new Communications Officer.

“I am pleased to welcome Jeremy Tudor Price to our staff as our new Communications Officer. Jeremy brings very strong technical and communications skills to the position, and combines strong experience in the private sector with a real interest and commitment to working with the Council and our community partners. I know he will be a real asset to the Council. Please join us in welcoming Jeremy to the organization. (Jeremy can be reached at jtudorprice@socialplanningtoronto.org)

I would like to thank Christopher Wulff for his contributions here over the past eighteen months, and wish him all the best as he embarks on a variety of new adventures. (Should anyone wish to continue contact with Christopher, he can be reached at cwulff@patienceandfortitude.com)”

John Campey
Executive Director, Social Planning Toronto

The Welcoming Communities Initiative has released a new report titled Putting Equity on the Agenda: Are We Being Heard? that relates the findings from a year’s study and reflection in York Region by the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians. [PDF Format]

SPT Housing Submission to Jim Watson, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing

Download the full report [PDF Format]

Setting the Context

Access to safe and affordable housing is a human right, a basic need, and a vital determinant of individual, family and community health. It is critical to Toronto’s ability to attract and sustain workers as a major driver of Ontario’s economy, and plays an important role in ensuring a greener, livable city and promoting vibrant communities.

Across Ontario, more than 627,000 households are in core housing need, lacking suitable, adequate and/or affordable housing and without the income to access it. This crisis is felt acutely in Toronto where a third of all Ontario’s tenant households reside. Toronto is a city of renters where over 45% of all occupied dwellings are rental dwellings. In a city where 1 in 4 residents lives in poverty, high rent and utility costs and lack of social housing leaves about 257,700 households without affordable homes and tens of thousands more homeless. Overcrowding and major repair issues coupled with the affordability problem affect large numbers of residents.

Communities and groups disproportionately affected by lack of adequate, suitable and affordable housing include renters, low income residents, the unemployed, households whose major source of income comes from government transfers, the youngest and oldest in the population, women, lone parent families who are primarily mothers and children, recent immigrants, racialized groups, Aboriginal people and people with disabilities.

We need a bold, sustainable, long-term affordable housing strategy that responds to the housing needs and ensures the housing rights of all Ontarians. In these tough economic times, the provincial government may be hesitant to make the full investment that is required to tackle Ontario’s affordable housing crisis head on. Just tinkering around the edges of the problem will not bring a lasting solution for struggling communities. A bold strategy with the dollars to back it up is critical to Toronto residents and communities across the province.

Despite green shoot sightings with the upswing of Canadian financial markets, the people’s recession in Ontario, for all intents and purposes, rages on. The number of people receiving social assistance has remained at record highs in recent months with a caseload of more than 235,000 in October 2009.9 Ontario’s official unemployment rate sits at 9.3%, 674,000 Ontarians, with double digit unemployment levels in Toronto. We are reminded that it took almost eight years to return to pre-recession employment levels after the recession of the early 1990s. Ontario faces particular challenges with the widespread loss of manufacturing jobs which may never return – recovery or no recovery.

Real investment to significantly expand Ontario’s affordable housing stock will not only provide much needed housing but also create jobs and stimulate the economy through the challenging years ahead. Local hiring strategies and women in the trades programs can provide opportunities for communities and populations hardest hit and historically disadvantaged.

A major Senate report tabled today is declaring that Canada’s system for lifting people out of poverty is substantially broken and must be overhauled.

This provincial forum, sponsored by Health Nexus and the Best Start Resource Centre, will address pertinent information for service providers working with families with young children living in poverty.

Individuals/organizations are invited to submit abstracts for oral presentations or poster presentations by Friday December 18, 2009 for a conference aiming to gather local academic and community researchers with interest in health services for uninsured and undocumented clients.

The report is based on the testimony of more than 170 witnesses who spoke at hearings held in nine cities across Canada over a two-year period. The release can be viewed live online December 8th at 3:45pm.

The Ontario government must set targets for attracting more low-income, disabled, rural and aboriginal students to higher learning in order to fight poverty and boost the province’s economic recovery.

More Ontarians turned to food banks in the past year than ever before, says the Ontario Association of Food Banks in the 2009 Ontario Hunger Report.

Ontario has appointed the head of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank to head a panel of anti-poverty advocates to advise the government on a long-awaited review of its welfare system.

The 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction warns that the province risks missing its target unless further action is taken in their new report Making Good on the Promise: Evaluating Year One of Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy.

The Ontario Deprivation Index was developed by Daily Bread Food Bank and the Caledon Institute of Social Policy to provide a list of items that are commonly seen as necessary to have a standard living above the poverty level.

TTC Riders, on the web at ttcriders.ca, is a new organization created to give a voice to the interests and concerns of hundreds of thousands of Torontonians who use public transit.

View the submitted designs at an open house in the City Hall Members’ Lounge from Dec. 4 to 6 from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. each day.