An Open Letter to the Ontario Government
Dear Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur;
I have been following the situation in Ontario regarding the Special Diet Allowance for people on various forms of social assistance in this province with interest for some time now.
According to this article in the Star,the province is considering doing away with the Special Diet Allowance and replacing it with a general increase of 3 or 4 percent.
I have a much better idea: give the Special Diet Allowance to everyone on social assistance.
Current levels of social assistance are absurdly low.
I'm retired now, but when I was a landlord I saw a lot of people on social assistance, and got an unusually intimate look into how they were coping in their day-to-day lives. When I first started out, someone on social assistance could keep a roof over their head and eat. There wasn't any extra money, but it covered the basics. That was over 15 years ago. By the time I retired about a year ago, it was clear that the social assistance was no longer sufficient to do the job. And this was in a city with very affordable rents by provincial standards (Cambridge).
"No longer sufficient to do the job." By this I mean that people had to start trying to double up in apartments not meant to be doubled up in, with people they didn't have anything in common with but poverty. You can imagine how well this works. By this I mean the quality of people's possessions dropped as constant moving without any money to move with obliged them to leave things behind for me to discard. It was heartbreaking to throw away people's photos and other life mementos. By this I mean that people's health, and that of their children, suffered as they cracked under the stress of having no money.
I've been a business person for much of my life. I have nothing against the argument that we should provide people with an adequate amount of money to live when we give them social assistance because it is the decent thing to do. Indeed, I don't want to live in a society where people think doing the decent thing isn't necessary.
But I also see that failing to provide the necessities of life to people on social assistance is very expensive in the long run, and even in the medium to short run. Sure, you will save millions by giving out less social assistance money. But you will pay billions more in increased health costs, in increased education costs, in increased policing and justice system costs, in decreased productivity as people fail to thrive sufficiently to return to employment in an effective manner.
Please don't waste my tax money. Please give social assistance recipients the money they need to live healthy, dignified lives, and to return to fully productive lives if and when that's possible. Please provide the money now available only as a Special Diet Allowance to everyone on social assistance in Ontario.
Yours Truly,
Ferdzy
Please contact Madeleine Meilleur to express your views on this topic.
I have been following the situation in Ontario regarding the Special Diet Allowance for people on various forms of social assistance in this province with interest for some time now.
According to this article in the Star,the province is considering doing away with the Special Diet Allowance and replacing it with a general increase of 3 or 4 percent.
I have a much better idea: give the Special Diet Allowance to everyone on social assistance.
Current levels of social assistance are absurdly low.
I'm retired now, but when I was a landlord I saw a lot of people on social assistance, and got an unusually intimate look into how they were coping in their day-to-day lives. When I first started out, someone on social assistance could keep a roof over their head and eat. There wasn't any extra money, but it covered the basics. That was over 15 years ago. By the time I retired about a year ago, it was clear that the social assistance was no longer sufficient to do the job. And this was in a city with very affordable rents by provincial standards (Cambridge).
"No longer sufficient to do the job." By this I mean that people had to start trying to double up in apartments not meant to be doubled up in, with people they didn't have anything in common with but poverty. You can imagine how well this works. By this I mean the quality of people's possessions dropped as constant moving without any money to move with obliged them to leave things behind for me to discard. It was heartbreaking to throw away people's photos and other life mementos. By this I mean that people's health, and that of their children, suffered as they cracked under the stress of having no money.
I've been a business person for much of my life. I have nothing against the argument that we should provide people with an adequate amount of money to live when we give them social assistance because it is the decent thing to do. Indeed, I don't want to live in a society where people think doing the decent thing isn't necessary.
But I also see that failing to provide the necessities of life to people on social assistance is very expensive in the long run, and even in the medium to short run. Sure, you will save millions by giving out less social assistance money. But you will pay billions more in increased health costs, in increased education costs, in increased policing and justice system costs, in decreased productivity as people fail to thrive sufficiently to return to employment in an effective manner.
Please don't waste my tax money. Please give social assistance recipients the money they need to live healthy, dignified lives, and to return to fully productive lives if and when that's possible. Please provide the money now available only as a Special Diet Allowance to everyone on social assistance in Ontario.
Yours Truly,
Ferdzy
Please contact Madeleine Meilleur to express your views on this topic.
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