Sudbury
emergency food aid because of August blackout was badly done
Anti-Poverty Group, City Squabble Over
Blackout Payments
From the OCAP website
Contrast Sudbury's $50 for singles and up to $125 for families with Hamilton's measly $10 and $20 vouchers. In both cities, the responsible authority failed to get the word out effectively.
No response has yet been received to our letter of September 1st to Hamilton City Council asking for further emergency aid on an urgent basis. Phone calls and emails to councillors and the mayor would help. People continue to suffer and in some cases lose their housing as a direct result of food loss during the blackout.
Anti-Poverty
Group, City Squabble Over Blackout Payments
by Carol Mulligan/The Sudbury Star
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Thursday, September 04, 2003 - 11:00
Local News - The Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty isn't buying it.
It doesn't agree with how the City of Greater Sudbury delivered emergency relief cheques to about 1,000 Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program Workers who lost food after the massive power blackout in Ontario last month.
But the director of social services for the city says it did the best it could with limited financial resources and limited staff who worked extended hours in offices without air conditioning.
"The intent was to serve the greatest need, and we believe we did that," said Harold Duff.
Troubles arose after the Aug. 14-15 blackout in Ontario and the northeastern United States.
Thousands of Sudbury residents, including many of the 4,000 or so people on Ontario Works in the city, lost refrigerated foods because of the power outage.
Recognizing social assistance residents were hurting, Mayor Jim Gordon said the city would give them a little extra to replace some of the perishables they had lost.
Duff said it wasn't automatic that all 4,000 recipients would receive the extra money, which ranged from $50 for single recipients to $125 for families.
"We were very fortunate we served more than 1,000 people ... we can't please everyone, but we made a valid attempt," said Duff.
"It wasn't a guarantee. It was to help those in need."
Crystal Poitras would argue she was one of those people. She said she didn't find out the city was offering the extra assistance until the deadline to request it had passed.
The city announced the emergency funding Aug. 20 and set a deadline of Aug. 22, but Poitras didn't find out about the extra money until after that.
Duff insists that every effort was made through the media to notify recipients of the emergency cash and the deadline to obtain it.
But Gary Kinsman of the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty takes issue with that. He said there are two "central problems" with the city's approach.
The first is that it assumed its media releases got to the people they needed to in just three days.
The second is that, because government offices worked at reduced levels the week after the blackout, recipients without appointments to see caseworkers were turned away from the Ontario Works office by security when they approached it.
The Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty is a group of people who offer support and resources to people in three areas Ontario Works, social assistance or disability pensions, arbitrary eviction or housing problems, and employment.
The group, whose core membership is about 25, also campaigns for better housing for the disadvantaged and for improvements for those living in poverty.
Poitras said she never thought there would be money available to help replace the $100 or more in groceries she lost during the power outage.
And that meant her four children aged 10, eight, four and two years had to do without essentials such as milk.
When she learned help was available, she called the city, only to be told she was too late.
"It was stupid," she said of the deadline.
"I think I'm being penalized. I'm not a person who bleeds the system and calls in for every little thing, like the people who jumped on it.
"I feel that I'm on social assistance and that's enough."
Poitras was told to contact the Red Cross Society, which was offering assistance to those in need, some of it funded by money from the city.
But she was unable to get any financial help there, she said.
Kinsman is critical of the fact the city expected Ontario Works and disability pension recipients to "miraculously find out about" the extra funding.
Even if they did, it was almost impossible for them to get through on phone lines to their caseworkers.
Still, Duff maintains the city did all it could, even making September's cheques available to clients two days early.
"That logic is pretty skewed," said Kinsman, and shows there's not very much "understanding or sympathy" for people on Ontario Works.
He said welfare recipients were bound to run short even sooner this month because they got their cheques Aug. 29 instead of Sept. 1.
"The approach is that people (on social assistance) don't really deserve to have what they're getting."
Angele Freeman, a case worker with the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty, said the help the city offered was "not adequate."
All recipients should have received the emergency funding, and there should have been a greater "outreach" effort to get it to them.
For example, case workers could have called their clients individually to tell them help was available.
"It was an emergency situation that wasn't attended to."
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Page last updated September 20, 2003