* Mayoral Candidate John Tory's Incineration Plan Debunked
* Support a New Rent Supplement Program
* Toronto Disaster Relief Committee Election organizing
* Island Airport Expansion
* Humanize Toronto Election Efforts

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- The MNSJ Badger Election Issue
- Municipal Election Unity Coalition
- CBC All Candidates Debate file
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Mayoral Candidate John Tory's Incineration Plan Debunked - Oct.11.2003
   Mayoral Candidate John Tory is labelling himself green while promoting the building of an incinerator in Toronto. Citizens for a Safe Environment provide the arguments against incineration, and a better plan for Toronto's waste. The reality is that by 2010, every bit of 'waste' that Toronto households produce could be recycled, reused or composted.
See http://www.csetoronto.org/
- ATT, the new form of incineration wastes energy. 3 to 5 times more energy is saved when resources are recycled as when they are burned to create electricity.
- ATT burns the evidence of bad industrial design. If we can't reuse it, recycle it or compost it, industry shouldn't be making it.
- Building an ATT facility in Toronto will require the investment of an enormous amount of taxpayers' money in expensive machinery.
- Like incineration, ATT is waste management in the corporate interest not public interest.
- ATT is Harmful to Human Health and the Environment, releasing toxic metals like mercury, lead and cadmium from plastics, paper and other discarded materials. It generates dioxins and furans from chlorine in plastics. And requires expensive air pollution control devices to attempt to capture some of the extremely toxic emissions. It also generates highly toxic residues that need to be landfilled.
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     Numerous arguments against the airport expansion are listed in the Community Air flyer.
-         Every few minutes 78 planes will land and take off, adding to smog and noise in the city.
-         The bridge opens the way for conversion of the island to parking lots.
-         The airport is next to a bird sanctuary and migratory bird paths. To keep the birds away cannon shot noises will go off continually.
-         Mature trees and dune eco systems are being bulldozed by the Port Authority.
-         Polluted wastewater from plane deicing and runway cleans goes straight into the water near the water filtration plant and swimming areas.
-         Taxpayer subsidies run the Federal Port Authority and the airport expansion will be another loser. Every passenger flying out of Island Airport is subsidized 50 dollars per ticket.
-         The Portlands redevelopment site will be under the main flight plan.
-         The expansion of Pearson Airport and the rail link to it from Union Station will make the Island Airport redundant.
 To help oppose the island airport expansion
Contact info@communityair.org    
http://www.communityair.org   
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At The Star - July.2003
- Airport's opponents vow to oust supporters
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They are also continuing to campaigning for free TTC on days of smog alert.
http://www.humanizetoronto.org/smog.html
http://www.humanizetoronto.org/
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Support a New Rent Supplement Program

* Why We Need Rent Supplements

   The apartment vacancy rate is now climbing in Toronto and it will continue to rise over the next several years as the condominium boom continues. Eventually there will be a surplus of condominiums. Very little affordable housing is being built and it will never be planned, funded or constructed fast enough to deal with the homeless problem. It makes sense to supplement low income people so they can use the housing that is already in existence.

   Our booming economy did little to stem homelessness because too many people are on the lower income scale. Job losses, economic evictions, personal problems and other minor catastrophes continue to throw people on the streets.

   It is unfortunate that our response is an expensive one that tends to keep them there and to further demoralize and cripple them. Shelter, Housing and Support is Toronto’s third largest budget item. Only the Police and Fire Departments swallow more tax dollars … and let’s not forget that Social Services is a separate item and sixth on the list for expenditure of tax dollars.

   Debt charges are fourth in costs to the city. It is clear that if the economy sinks the expensive shelter system will not be economically viable. If we continue attempting to solve the homeless problem with shelters an incredible amount of money will be eaten up … money that is needed for other services and culture.

   Shelters aren’t a solution to the homeless problem. Many people in them have jobs but are still on the street. Homeless shelters create a culture of despair. The homeless learn to feel inferior. They adapt to the ways of the streets and stay at the bottom. To avoid the violence at shelters they take to sleeping in public areas and that leads to another huge expense for society in Health Care. When you sleep in the cold your circulatory system fails and your health deteriorates quickly. Street culture is one that is heavy on cigarette smoking and includes drugs and alcohol and exposure to smog.

   Youth make up a large segment of street culture, and they shouldn’t be learning to be despairing drifters that care little about their health or their future. Homelessness is also a women’s and elderly issue. Most women that are sixty and over are having difficulties paying rent. Young women don’t do much better.

   In some ways it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Shelters perpetuate homelessness by creating the continuance of the despairing attitude and the idea that we don’t need real homes. It is obvious that any solution to the homeless problem has to be one that keeps as many people as possible off the streets in the first place.

   When affordable housing isn’t being built the only real option to shelters is a new government-run rent subsidy program geared at preventing homelessness and the poverty that leads to it. It is a solution that would be easier, more affordable, simpler to plan and administer and politically appealing.

   Across Ontario residents are used to having renters or tenants around. Opposition rises when shelters are proposed for neighbourhoods. In Toronto a new bylaw allows limited shelter construction across the city, and there will be a backlash from residents and a never-ending bitter battle over shelters.

   A new rent subsidy program could be initiated by any of the three levels of government, but all should participate. If the city initiates it then the province and the federal level would be expected to contribute. One question is whether the City or the Province should administer it.

   To help prevent Homelessness and Poverty a Rent Subsidy Program would have to deliver.

- Rent supplements for the elderly, the working poor, the homeless and for those already on forms of disability or social assistance, but don’t receive enough to cover rent and survive in their locale.

- It would need to be tied into the Tenant Protection Act. To prevent economic evictions it would be necessary to review whether the persons being evicted could be aided through a rent supplement. Or whether they had been entitled but didn’t make a claim.

- Information on the program would have to be available at all shelters for the homeless or disadvantaged and mentally ill.

- Supplements would have to take families into account and provide more to house a family or single parent with children.

- It would have to be a central program that stands on its own and not a hodgepodge of rent aid or voucher programs scattered among various ministries.

- Administration would be public and transparent and not through landlords or co-ops or private sector firms that could profit from the program.

- Supplements should be delivered as government cheques to the applicant, and only paid directly to the landlord in cases where a tenant behaves irresponsibly with the money.

- Assistance must be immediate and without waiting lists.

- The applicant must be free to choose any housing that meets the requirements of the program and not be limited to units located in subsidized or co-op housing projects.

- The subsidized tenant must be able to move according to job or other requirements and retain the subsidy.

- Since a primary purpose of the program is to reduce homelessness, aid for tenant problems should be available to subsidized tenants.

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 Some examples of Rent Supplement Programs.

BC Housing administers a variety of rent supplement programs, including:

    * Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters (SAFER)

    * Supported Independent Living Program (SILP)

Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters (SAFER)

   The SAFER Program provides direct cash assistance to eligible residents of British Columbia who are age 60 or over and who pay rent for their homes. If you are eligible and pay more than 30% of your total income for rent, SAFER may reimburse you for a part of the rent that is over 30% of your income. The reimbursement is calculated to give the most assistance to people with the least income. For more information contact BC Housing at (604) 433-2218 or 1-800-257-7756

Facts about SAFER

An average SAFER client who lives alone:

* has a monthly income of $973

* pays $519 in rent

* is eligible for a subsidy of $205

* would pay 53 per cent of their income on rent without SAFER

* 77 per cent of SAFER clients are female

Supported Independent Living Program (SILP)

   The Supported Independent Living Program (SILP) is a partnership between BC Housing, the Ministry of Health and the health regions. SILP is a supported housing program that enables people with severe and persistent mental illness to live independently in affordable, self-contained housing. The Adult Mental Health Division of the Ministry of Health funds the shelter component of SILP. BC Housing administers the program.

   Staff from mental health centres, located across the province, select participants for the SILP program

   As of September 30 2002, BC Housing provides 1,648 individuals with SILP rent supplements. Average rental assistance is approximately $248 a month.

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The USA has Voucher Programs 

Housing Choice Voucher Program Facts

    This information was gathered from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)  www.hud.gov

WHAT ARE HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHERS?

    The Housing Choice (Section 8) voucher program is the federal government's major program for assisting very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to rent decent, safe, and sanitary housing in the private market. Since the rental assistance is provided on behalf of the family or individual, participants are able to find and lease privately owned housing, including single-family homes, townhouses and apartments. The participant is free to choose any housing that meets the requirements of the program and is not limited to units located in subsidized housing projects.

    Housing Choice (Section 8) vouchers are administered locally by public and Indian housing agencies (HAs). The HAs receive federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to administer this voucher program. A family that is issued a rental voucher is responsible for finding and selecting a suitable rental unit of the family's choice. This unit may include the family's present residence. Rental units must meet minimum standards of health and safety, as determined by the HA. A rental subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the HA on behalf of the participating family. The family then pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program.

    Eligibility for a rental voucher is determined by the HA based on the total annual gross income and family size and is limited to U.S. citizens and specified categories of noncitizens who have eligible immigration status. In general, the family's income may not exceed 50% of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which the family chooses to live. Median income levels are published by HUD and vary by location. The HA serving your community can provide you with the income limits for your area and family size.

    Once an HA approves an eligible family's lease and housing unit, the family and the landlord sign a lease and, at the same time, the landlord and the HA sign a housing assistance contract which runs for the same term as the lease. This means that everyone -- tenant, landlord and HA -- has obligations and responsibilities within the voucher program.

- March.2003 
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Toronto Disaster Relief Committee Election organizing
Date:
Mon, 5 May 2003 16:38:31 -0700
From: "TDRC" <tdrc@tdrc.net>


Want to get involved raising housing and homelessness issues in your community during the
provincial and municipal elections? Check out the attached letter - It explains what's being
planned and how to get involved in the riding that interests you!

-- Dana Milne
Community Development Coordinator
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee

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TORONTO ELECTION ORGANIZING

We need Drop-ins, Shelters, Community Legal Clinics and

Community Groups to get involved!!


With federal, provincial, and municipal elections just months away, housing advocacy groups,
community groups and neighbourhood associations have begun meeting to discuss how to put
housing and homelessness issues front and centre over the next year.


As frontline workers, we know you don’t have to be convinced of the homelessness crisis in
Toronto and across Canada. It has been more than four years since the City of Toronto declared
homelessness a national disaster and yet the numbers of people on the street, housed in
inadequate, oversized shelters, overcrowded in cramped apartments, or living in substandard
housing continue to grow.


The private rental housing boom that was promised when the provincial government stopped
funding new social housing in 1995 has never materialized. In fact, with record numbers of
condominium conversions, demolitions and rooming house closures, the 2001 Census shows
that rental housing has actually diminished in Toronto. The result? The waiting list for social
housing is an unconscionable 10 to 12 years long and, for the third consecutive year vacancy
rates remain below 3%, leaving tenants with little option but to take apartments that are often
inadequate and unaffordable. And still rents rise. Since the provincial government removed rent
controls in 1998, rents have skyrocketed at the same time as tenants’ incomes and social
assistance rates have dropped. According to the National Housing and Homeless Network, half
of the 780,000 tenants in Toronto can only afford a monthly rent of $676, yet the average rent
for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,027. For people on social assistance, rent eats up their
entire cheque! It is no surprise, then, that 24,000 households faced eviction in Toronto in 2001
– an average of 100 households every working day of the year.


The result is a homelessness epidemic that has put extreme pressures on drop-ins, shelters
and neighbourhood centres at a time when you, too, are facing cuts. While government
programs such as SCPI, Homeless Initiatives, and Off the Streets into Shelter funding provide
some relief, government responses are profoundly inadequate and hardly scrape the surface of
what’s needed.


Over the next 18 months or so, all three levels of government are going to be having elections.
While we may not all agree on whether voting has much effect on government policies,
elections are an opportunity to move housing and homelessness issues forward on the public
agenda and help homeless and underhoused people organize and raise their voices together.
But to do this will take a degree of coordination and effort.


For the last month, housing advocacy groups and neighbourhood associations such as the
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, Housing
Action Now, Homelessness Action Group, the West Coalition on Housing and Homelessness,
the Etobicoke-Lakeshore Housing Task Force, the Caring Alliance in Scarborough, Social Housing
Advocacy Network, Toronto Housing Association of Tenants, Daily Bread Food Bank, Pay the
Rent / Feed the Kids Campaign, Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force, St. James Town Resident
Association, Canadian Pensioners Concerned, Christie-Ossington Neighbourhood Centre,
Syme-Woolner Neighbourhood and Family Centre and the Weston King Neighbourhood Centre
have been meeting to strategize around the upcoming elections. At our last meeting, April 25th
we agreed on a plan that we’d like to share with you in the hopes that you’ll become more
involved.


What we’re proposing is that we target seven ridings – not because we think they’re
necessarily “winnable” but because these are the areas where homeless and low-income people
live and where we think there’s the energy to organize. Then, what we’re envisioning is that,
most likely in late September, local community groups, organizations and drop-ins in these
seven ridings/wards would work together to organize a community event in a central location in
each riding, all on the same day. While each of the community events could have a unique
flavour, the focus of the day would be to register homeless and underhoused people to vote,
discuss housing and homelessness issues with local candidates, and provide participants with
information on housing and homelessness issues and the impact of government policies. We’d
also like to invite various services and groups to attend, such as ID workers, legal workers and
groups such as Justice for Workers, who are organizing for a $10 minimum wage.


This “Community Housing Blitz” would be the culmination of a summer of other events, all with
the goal of highlighting housing issues and demanding action from all levels of government.
We could to do everything from all-candidates meetings to demonstrations at City Hall or
Queen’s Park, and beyond! It’s really up to us.


So how do you get involved? Simply contact the organizers below in the ridings that you’re
most interested in or come out to the meetings being organized in each riding in the next few
weeks. You can also attend the next broad organizers’ meeting on Tuesday, May 20th from
10:30 am – 12:30 pm at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO) on the 5th Floor, 425
Adelaide St. (just west of Spadina Ave.).


We look forward to working together with you to keep housing and homelessness issues in the
public eye.


Sincerely,

[Insert your name and organization]



Local Organizers


1) York-South Weston

- Linsey MacPhee: West Coalition on Housing and Homelessness 416-766-4634, ext 227

- Seth Clarke: Weston-King Neighbourhood Centre 416-241-9898

- Local organizing meeting: _________________________________________________



2) Etobicoke-Lakeshore

- Helen Armstrong: LAMP 416-252-6471, ext. 271

- Michael Oliphant: Daily Bread Food Bank 416-203-0050, ext. 256

- Local organizing meeting: _________________________________________________



3) Broadview Greenwood / Beaches East York

- Holly Kramer: Toronto Harm Reduction Taskforce 647-222-4420

- Local organizing meeting: _________________________________________________



4) Toronto Centre / Rosedale

- Tony Tracy: Toronto Disaster Relief Committee 416-599-6195

- Cliff Martin: Social Housing Advocacy Network 416- 880-0080

- Local organizing meeting: Thursday, May 15th from 10 am -12 pm

at Fred Victor (upper lounge):145 Queen St. E./Jarvis



5) Parkdale-High Park / Davenport / Trinity-Spadina

- Jen Woodill: Christie-Ossington Neighbourhood Centre 416-534-8941

- Jane Caldwell: West-end Drop-in Network 416-964-8747, ext. 225

- Local organizing meeting: _________________________________________________



6) Scarborough East

- Margaret Hefferon: Caring Alliance 416-261-2916

- Local organizing meeting: _________________________________________________



7) York West / York Centre

- Barbara Ainey-DuVall: Toronto Housing Association of Tenants 416-633-9998

- Local organizing meeting: _________________________________________________