Press Hits

Hamilton city council is set to require landlords of units with air conditioners to maintain a maximum temperature of 26 C — but a long-awaited “adequate temperature” bylaw for all rental units is still to come. Councillors at the city’s planning committee voted unanimously last week to require landlords who have provided air conditioning (AC) to keep it in good repair — and able to keep the apartment unit’s temperature below 26 C. The decision is to be ratified by council Wednesday.

ACORN members staged a “Poverty Picnic” in London Ont., Tuesday afternoon, setting out empty plates to symbolize how low social assistance rates leave families struggling to eat. “The poverty picnic is essentially a picnic with no food at it because the reality is a vast majority of us are skipping meals,” said Jordan Smith, an ACORN member. The demonstration took place across cities in Ontario, demanding the provincial government double social assistance rates. “The disabled in Ontario are really, right now, struggling 60 per cent below the poverty line,” said Smith. ACORN representatives said a single person on the Ontario Disability Support Program receives a maximum of $1,408 a month. Meantime, Ontario Works (OW) rates have been frozen since 2018.

Advocates are putting pressure on the Ontario government to at least double the amount of money people on social assistance programs receive. Chapters of ACORN, as known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, organized what they called “poverty picnics” in six cities across the province on Tuesday. They set up picnic blankets, empty plates and lawn chairs outside the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) offices in Kitchener, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, London and Brampton. They said the displays were a physical representation of food insecurity.

Affordable housing advocates will hold “poverty picnics” in Brampton and across Ontario to urge the province to double social assistance rates. The rallies will see members of housing activist group ACORN camp out in front of Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) offices next week in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Kitchener, and Brampton. Dubbed “poverty picnics,” social assistance recipients will set up picnic blankets, empty plates, and lawn chairs as “a visual testament to how current rates keep people unable to afford food and other necessities,” ACORN says.

After two and a half years of fighting renovictions, the landlord of both buildings Michel Klein has withdrawn all remaining renovictions. This comes less than a week before the Webster tenants were expected to attend a hearing with the Landlord Tenant Board. “It’s been an awful nightmare. I’m glad I’ll get to wake up from it now.” said Marni Skilton, an ACORN member living in the Webster buildings. She continued by thanking ACORN for their contributions. “Without them we wouldn’t have made it, we needed that support and organization.”

Les loyers à Ottawa sont parmi les plus inabordables au pays. À l’est de Vanier, des locataires de longue date se battent contre le propriétaire qui tente de les expulser: «On n’aura nulle part où aller».