Toronto council to consider anti-poverty plan that includes expanding TTC discounts

Thestar.com
November 7, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro

Under a renewed plan to reduce poverty in Toronto, city council will consider extending library hours, expanding a TTC discount program and reducing waiting lists for recreation programs in low-income neighbourhoods.

While council approved the 10-year poverty reduction strategy in principle in 2015, those initiatives and others still require council to make good on their promises at budget time.

And the decisions of other governments, especially budget cuts by Premier Doug Ford’s government, will put more pressure on council to make sure those measures are adequately funded, city staff said in a new report headed to Mayor John Tory’s executive committee next week.

But the cost of moving ahead on poverty reduction initiatives isn’t clear, with the staff report not spelling out what the cost of those yet-to-be-funded actions are ahead of the 2020 budget process.

The city staff report says that, based on the most recent 2016 census, one in five adults and one in four children still live in poverty in Toronto, based on a federal measure for low income, and some parts of the city are particularly marginalized, especially where neighbourhoods are “highly racialized.”

“An entire generation is being squeezed out due to the rising costs of housing, child care, transit, and youth programming. Record numbers of people are experiencing homelessness and poverty,” said Michal Hay, executive director of political advocacy group Progress Toronto. “The pace of progress on the city’s own poverty reduction plan and commitments is dangerously slow.”

The new report lists actions to be taken over the next four years in three categories: those that can be achieved with existing resources, those which require new spending approved by council and those that are still being developed.

Initiatives that staff will request funding for over the next three years include the Toronto Public Library’s plan to increase open hours by 20 per cent, cutting the current waiting list for access to city-run recreation programs in low-income neighbourhoods, and expanding eligibility for the TTC’s Fair Pass to residents who are below an income threshold that is 15 per cent above the federal government’s low-income cut-off.

The staff report says that $181 million was spent over the past four years on new and enhanced initiatives under the strategy.

Responding to questions from the Star, staff said that of 259 specific actions contained in the previous four-year plan, 67 per cent were achieved while another 30 per cent are still underway and “incorporated into the current action plan.” Five actions were deferred or reassessed “due to evolving policy priorities.”

In the meantime, by the city’s own count, the waiting lists for social housing, subsidized child care and recreation spaces continue to grow.

During the 2019 budget process, advocacy group Social Planning Toronto reported that the city was well behind on poverty reduction promises made by a majority of council members during the 2018 election, and would fail to deliver on issues of affordable housing, child care and more by the 2022 target. At the current pace, they calculated, some of the specific targets would not be met until 2024 at the earliest and as far out as 2045.

Social Planning’s executive director Devika Shah, said the group is encouraged by a staff proposal to create an Indigenous-led poverty reduction plan which was not built into the first set of actions, as well as the integration of many city priorities under the poverty reduction strategy rather than a “siloed” approach.

But she said the success of the new four-year plan, with previous actions still unfinished, depends on funding.

“This is an action plan but the proof is going to be in the pudding,” she said. “If these commitments don’t make it into the 2020 budget then this becomes an inaction plan.”

Shah said initiatives that would help achieve the strategy’s goals faster, like Councillor Josh Matlow’s push to double the number of dedicated youth hubs in community centres and libraries for $3.25 million, have been “punted” by council in the past.

She said the “biggest disappointment” has been the delayed rollout of the TTC’s discounted fare pass for low-income and other residents.

“The tiny steps they’ve taken the last few years are slower than the spread of inequality and poverty,” said Hay, urging council to make “different and better political choices” after it voted against an increase in property tax above the rate of inflation to fund new youth spaces, increase library hours and other initiatives.

The combined requests that were rejected by Tory and a majority of councillors would have meant a 1 per cent property tax increase or about $30.63 for the average homeowner in 2019.

Meanwhile, groups like the Toronto Foundation and others continue to ring alarm bells about the state of the city.

In its latest Vital Signs report released last month, the foundation outlined a growing disparity across the city where affordable housing has not kept pace with population growth, the amount of precarious work has increased and commutes have worsened.

“Despite our self-image, Toronto does not work for all,” the report begins by saying. “In fact, for a growing majority, life in the city poses a serious struggle, and the trend lines suggest things will get worse before they get better.”

City staff have also warned in their new report that provincial budget cuts will harm the city’s ability to tackle poverty.

“If the municipal share of overall funding for provincially mandated core services increases, the City of Toronto will face challenges in funding and delivering on strategic initiatives to improve the quality of life for low-income Torontonians and enable them to fully participate in the social and economic fabric of Toronto,” the staff report says.

Tory’s executive committee meets Nov. 14.