York Region ends funding for Housing Help Centre for low-income residents
Ending funding will hurt region's most vulnerable residents, legal clinic says

YorkRegion.com
Nov. 29, 2016
By Lisa Queen  

A senior citizen who never had a chance to go far in school, Norma Smith has turned many times to the Identification Clinic at York Region’s Housing Help Centre to help her understand government forms and to assist her filling out paperwork for needed documentation.

“They are so handy and helpful to the community,” she said.

The former nanny and personal care worker is devastated to learn regional government will end its funding next month to the Richmond Hill centre, which helps more than 2,000 low- and moderate-income York Region residents a year.

“Oh my God, I don’t have the words to say,” said Smith, a native of Jamaica, who said staff at the centre have encouraged to her to take adult learning classes.

“I am very, very sad, deeply sad. They are like a family to me. It’s going to be very difficult for the community.”

The region is cutting off the $204,230 it provides annually for the ID clinic and the $136,310 it gives for the housing help centre, executive director Mary Ann Proulx said.

The region is the sole source of funding for the programs, other than a small amount the facility gets from PowerStream to help low-income residents struggling to pay their hydro bills.

“I was in shock,” said Proulx, adding the centre and clinic are the only services of their kind in the region.

“We don’t have operating funds to continue. It brings me to tears. I feel really bad for them (clients). They’re going to struggle, they’re going to struggle even more so.”

Agencies are aware they must apply annually for funding under the Community Investment Strategy, the region’s commissioner of community and health services, Adelina Urbanski, said.

“Annually, York Region provides targeted funding to not-for-profit agencies to help deliver projects to low- and moderate-income residents that address service gaps in the community,” she said in an email.

“We receive many more proposals than there is available funding and each application is carefully evaluated through an equitable process. All applicants are made aware that it is a competitive process and there is no guarantee of funding.”

Proulx is surprised the housing help centre, which has been operating since about 1993, and the ID clinic, which began in 2002, lost funding after so many years.

“They said my proposal that I wrote did not score as high as other proposals they had received,” she said, adding the centre employs five people including her.

“After I heard that we didn’t get funding, I really didn’t hear a lot after that other than my proposals didn’t score as high.”

The housing help centre helps low- and moderate-income York residents find housing and refers them to other services.

“We can assist them in connecting them to food banks and clothing, resources and furniture and all those other services that they need to support themselves,” Proulx said.

“Even once they get housed, clients continue to rely on us because they call us and say ‘I’m behind on my rent or I can’t pay my hydro bill or I don’t have any food or I don’t have any clothing and where do I go?’”

There are about 14,000 people on the region’s waiting list for subsidized housing.

That leaves lower income residents scouring for a modestly priced place to live in a region where the average rent for a bachelor apartment is $815 a month, compared to $1,036 for a one-bedroom, $1,194 for a two-bedroom and $1,357 for a three-bedroom.

Even when clients find housing, the centre often works with them to ensure they remain housed, Proulx said.

When a report on homelessness was released last month by the region and the United Way of Toronto and York Region, officials spoke about the importance of ensuring the marginally housed keep a roof over their heads.

Meanwhile, the ID clinic pays the processing fees for lower income residents to obtain necessary documentation such as birth, marriage and death certificates, social insurance numbers, Canadian citizenship certificates, health cards, immigration papers and Ontario photo ID cards.

Identification is necessary to obtain a wide variety of services, from applying for social assistance and accessing food banks to getting health care and registering children for school, Proulx said.

Staff recently assisted a homeless client who was receiving a monthly $300 street allowance. While filling out paperwork for him, they realized he turned 65 this month and is entitled to a monthly allowance of $1,750, Proulx said.

The ID clinic also acts as a mailing address for the homeless and marginally housed, she said.

The Community Legal Clinic of York Region, which offers legal support to low-income residents, often refers clients to the housing help centre and the ID clinic, community legal worker Kim McKinnon said.

The loss of the programs will be disastrous for some of the region’s most vulnerable residents, she said.