York Region mails out grocery cards to avoid Toronto lineups

Yongestreetmedia.ca
January 8, 2014
By Katia Snukal

The province of Ontario has been criticised for the recent distribution of grocery cards to thousands of Torontonians who lost food due to ice storm power outages.

While most applauded Premier Wynne's efforts to get food relief to those who needed it, the program attracted flak for its failure to anticipate demand. Queues at Ontario Works centres were hours long and, in some cases, supplies ran out before everyone could be served. In addition to logistical concerns, Premier Wynne was accused by political rivals of playing "postal code politics" by initially limiting card distribution to the Toronto area.

But yesterday morning—possibly in response to the program's critics—$450,000 in grocery store cards were made available across other Ontario regions, including York, Halton and Peel, that were hit hard by the late-December ice storm.

And York Region, using the wisdom of hindsight, is tweaking the distribution system that led to such chaos in Toronto.

The cards became available in the York Region yesterday, and while demand is expected to be higher than supply, no one had to brave the cold or wait in hour long lines to pick them up. That's because, rather than asking residents to come get the cards, the York Region decided to mail them out instead. Eligible residents (those who lost power for more than 48 hours and face financial difficulty in replacing spoiled food) were yesterday able to call the York Contact Centre and, after answering a few questions, were mailed a $50 grocery card.  

"Toronto shared their experience with us," says Kimberley Henderson, a communications supervisor with York's Community and Health Services Department. "We decided that assessing people's eligibility (using the criteria the government had provided to us) just made a lot more sense for us. It always good to learn from other municipalities' experience, we listened to Toronto and we made our decision based on that."

The cards were doled out on first-call, first-serve basis. As of late yesterday morning, Henderson says that "the call centres had already received a large volume of calls."

"We have some extra people on board [to answer phones]. We are trying our best to get through as many calls as possible and to limit the wait time."

Given that York Region was provided with only 400 hundred cards, supplies are not expected to last long (to put it in perspective, over 7,000 households in York Region were without power for more than 48 hours). But a least no one will have to leave their living room to find that out.