Poverty is a critical issue and entirely avoidable social condition that is most certainly holding 40% of ward 2 residents hostage. I have several solutions to compliment the efforts of the Anti Poverty Roundtable, Hamilton Urban Core, Housing Coalition and other anti poverty stakeholders throughout the city. We must break down the solutions into a three-pronged approach that addresses income security, housing security and food security explicitly.

We need to lobby the provincial government to hasten the process of uploading the complete financing of Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) to the province. We must ensure that the monies that the municipality currently contributes to these programs are not clawed back following that upload, and are then available to be reinvested into affordable housing and social service upgrades.

We need to negotiate a low or no cost transit pass for ALL seniors on OAS/GIS, ALL OW recipients and ALL ODSP recipients.

I will commit to advocating for the creation of living wage jobs for our employable. I commit to advocating for social benefit and social service upgrades, and insist that these benefits and services be delivered in a manner that maintains the dignity of our most vulnerable citizens.

I commit to developing strategies to replenish the affordable and subsidized housing stocks, and work to establish youth housing units for <25. I will establish a committee that tracks the affordable housing lost in redevelopment projects with a view to ensure zero housing units lost within the year. We will challenge the economic development committee to demand developer’s account for the zero housing unit loss within each project, with a view to develop strategies that assist developer’s to replenish any housing stocks they remove within a given project.

I will lobby the future fund to support loans for affordable housing projects, and work to establish a low interest or no interest affordable housing loans program. We will assist developers to secure grants and loans for these projects.

I will continue to work with tenants, landowners, public health, municipal by-law, the Ministry of the Environment and others to improve the safety and conditions in the homes and neighbourhoods of our most vulnerable residents.

I support the universal food programs that are already being implemented in our schools. I also endorse a municipal top up to the food portion of social welfare benefits so that these citizens, our citizens identified in the recent Code Red series, have access to a healthy food basket.

I believe that these costs are NOT the municipality’s to bear alone. I will be investigating how we will work together with the provincial and federal governments, as well as local social services and NGO’s to investigate, fund, and monitor the implementation of all of these proposals.