Home

Social Planning Network of Ontario

A Recovery-Free Zone: The Unyielding Impact of the Economic Downturn on Nonprofit Community Social Services in Ontario

TORONTO, July 8, 2010

Community service organizations across Ontario report an unyielding dilemma, driven by the economic recession: how to meet increasing demand for services with falling revenues from funding sources.

A Recovery-Free Zone, a survey of 311 non-profit community service agencies across Ontario, released today by the Social Planning Network of Ontario follows up one year later on a similar survey conducted in 2009. It shows that service demand continues to rise with 68% of respondents seeing a greater demand in April 2010 than prior to September 2008. Almost 80% of respondents attribute this increase in demand as primarily or in part due to economic conditions.

Social Assistance Advisory Council Report’s Bold Vision for Tomorrow Does Not Put Food on the Table Today

TORONTO, June 14, 2010 /CNW

The Social Assistance Review Advisory Council Report released Monday morning at Queen’s Park promotes a bold new vision for income security in the long run but is weak on what it asks the Ontario Government to do to help people on social assistance meet their basic daily living necessities now. The Review panel recommends a consultation and system overhaul process that will take 12 to 18 months.

“A bold vision for tomorrow does not put food on the table today,” says Marvyn Novick, retired Professor Emeritus in Social Policy at Ryerson University and contributor to the Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO). “The Ontario Government has ignored the needs of the most vulnerable in the province. It sets up a panel on social assistance and shortly thereafter cuts the Special Diet Allowance, reneges on the dental program for adult recipients, and reduces the woefully inadequate real income of recipients by 1% in the latest budget. While the panel claims to promote long-term reform, the real situation with people on the ground is deteriorating rapidly.”

2010 Budget Holds Only Threat For Ontario’s Most Vulnerable

TORONTO, March 25, 2010 /CNW

The 2010 Budget fails the test of a Government committed to a comprehensive poverty reduction plan for Ontarians. An amount of $57 million is designated as an increase to the Basic Needs Allowance for people on social assistance, which is 1%, while inflation is projected to be 2% or higher in 2010.