How little is too little?
When I first went on Social Assistance, it was just after the new government had cut benefits by 25% and eliminated many of the additional services that had been provided. That meant living on $520. per month. Of that, $300. was for accommodation. It was difficult then to find ANY form of accommodation in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) for that kind of money. Many landlords now request first and last month's rent for a ROOM. And there is no lease. In addition, downtown landlords are refusing to sign a proof of accommodation form for the Social Assistance Office unless they receive a $100. cash deposit.

Work is not necessarily paid employment.
I say "paid" employment because I have had several jobs in the past 4 years at which I worked up to 60 hours per week and received NO compensation. Monies were promised, delayed for a host of "real" small business financing difficulties, and eventually the company closed. Getting a job is not difficult. Getting paid can be.

All banking and many financing assistance corporations do a great job of advertising how much they want to help small businesses. I have not yet discovered one which is actually doing so. If you can finance your business totally from your own assets, you can get financing by pledging your collateral and paying high interest charges. In other words, you don't need the banks.

What are REAL expenses for the Social Assistance applicant?
The definition taken here of "real" expenses includes minimum rent, minimum food and clothing expenses, and minimum requirements for a productive job search and re-entry into paid employment. I am frustrated by the status quo reporting of politicians who have "sacrificed" for a week or two to live on a food budget that is calculated as follows:

This suggests that the applicant is going to make no effort to find a job.
There is no money allowed for such things as a monthly haircut, replacement of worn out clothing, dental hygiene, or, transportation to Employment Resource offices for resume and job search preparation, and, transportation to employers to complete/attend applications-tests-interviews, and, get to work on time until one gets one's first cheque.

First impressions are considered important. What about having clothing that doesn't stink of second-hand smoke, stale sweat, and other people's liquor fumes. A serious job hunter uses more clothing than a full-time employed person. A single person will often have two loads of clothing to wash, and dry, each week --- if he has enough changes to last for a week.

Many laundromats now charge $1.50 for each wash and each dry. Dry cleaning is extra. And most Laundromats do not have ironing stations. That means a minimum of ($1.50 X 2 washes plus 2 dryers) X 4 weeks = $24.00 minimum. Add a monthly haircut for another $12.00 Unless you are not bathing or brushing your teeth, you will likely need to add another $15.00 for hand soap, laundry detergent, dish cleaning liquid, hair shampoo, toothpaste ... forget the antiperspirant.
These little nothings add up to ($24 + $12 + $15) = $51.

Some clothing cannot be second-hand.
For the serious job hunter, socks don't last long and underwear doesn't last forever. In most cases, wearing either for the second day means the bacteria accumulated during the first active day multiply out-of-control during the second. If you want to develop athletes foot fungus, crotch itch, skin rashes, and quickly deteriorating shirt underarms and trouser crotches ... wear dirty clothing. You then have a choice of doing your wash more often (costing more shorter-term) or keeping a supply of underwear without wear-through holes that will last you for a week (costing more longer-term). Let me suggest a monthly budget requirement of $15.

Jobs and housing are seldom located close to one another any more. For the job hunter, this is often the case. If one is serious about getting a job anytime soon, one cannot just look in the area easily covered by walking. Personally, I have frequently found, while on Social Assistance, that I have a choice: Food OR Transportation.

If I buy a Metropass, that is another $83.00 I cannot spend on the above necessities and food. If I don't buy a Metropass, then I am having to struggle constantly with the question of "Which of 3 applications and interviews do I go to?" --- because I don't have fares to cover all 3. Or, half way through the month, all the transportation money is gone, so, I can't even get to work IF I should get offered a job. Leave it to comfortable bureaucrats and politicians-in-denial to forget these little extras which they take for granted. Persons on Social Assistance CANNOT take these for granted.

Everyone has choices.
I had a choice of staying in the Markham area, continuing on Social Assistance, and not likely ever getting a job --- I have been without a car for 4 years and public transportation around Markham is minimal --- OR, I could relocate to downtown Toronto and have access to most of the jobs being offered in Ontario by way of public transport. I chose the latter ... and have been penalized ever since.

It cost me monies to take the initiative. It cost money to put all of my belongings into a small storage locker, money to establish an address for resumes and applications and replies, money to get voicemail to receive messages from employers and social service staff and housing authorities, money to get to locations to apply for jobs, apply for housing, apply for assistance, use computers for job search, and get free meals.

Fortunately, I was Spiritually Guided to situate myself downtown and have been able to walk to most services --- but not to employers! I got a job offer within 10 days of my relocated search ... even though it did not turn out. I then found 7 jobs that I could apply for, but I had no money left. For the remaining 10 days of the month I cannot apply for jobs I could do and would like to do! I cannot get to the employer to complete the application, to attend an interview, or be active in the job until my next cheque.

I am sure that this is not a unique situation. I am afraid to apply for a job in case I actually get it. If I get it, I can't get to it! And the Social Assistance staff tell me that it is not their problem, that they do not set policy, that they do not make recommendations to or know who sets policy, and, that they do not care! For a few dollars more, I could be off assistance ... hopefully permanently. And I am being prevented from that option. Politicians, are you listening.

The REAL Expense Equation for the serious job applicant is:

Benefits -

I don't know many people who can live on $46 of food per MONTH. I do know of many people who pay that much for their coffees or teas and pay phone calls each month while they are seriously looking for work.

Why does Social Services insist, or ever insisted, on paying their client with monies intended for the landlord? Persons with alcohol, cigarette, sex, gambling, drug, or other chronic health problems feel forced by their compulsion to spend the money on their habit. The landlord ends up having signed a form and held a room --- with an empty room. Fortunately, I have either long ago recovered from or never had such habits.

Unfortunately, the weaknesses of the system have encouraged abuses which now work against those who need assistance. Having spent monies to give me a better opportunity for a successful job search, I did not have the cash. So, I could not get the room. So, I could not apply for Assistance. So, I was back out on the street spending nights in a locker and getting a meal or two each day from soup kitchens which are cutting back along with their budgets. Looking for work was limited to the area surrounding the hostel and locker regions, neither of which were good work resource regions.

Why are Social Service Offices always financially hypocritical?
What do I mean? In the past 4 years, I have at some time or other sought the services of 4 different regional Social Service offices.

• ALL have been huge offices in new buildings. Huge in the context that the number of seats filled in the waiting area is usually less than 10%.
  
  
• ALL of the offices have had high security design with heavy-duty segregated interview offices, a security guard, bullet-proof glass, and no appointment ever without prior arrangement. Why don't we just give the interview officers side-arms? Obviously, this speaks to the inefficiency of the system and the size of the problem. If the service was constructive and doing the job it was intended for, employees would not have to fear the public.
  
  
• ALL of the offices have Job Bank machines ... that do not work.
  I have yet to go into any such office at any time and find all of the machines working. In some cases, I have found all the job bank machines in an office to be out of order for weeks! Of the 12 machines that I have used, I only found one that could print dark enough for easy reading.

  This multi-million corporation cannot spend less than $10 for an ink ribbon? When I reported the problems at various offices, I received differing responses. Some attendants acknowledged the concerns and made notes. At the Wellesley-Jarvis office, the receptionist expressed a "don't care" attitude, crumpled up the evidence and discarded it. I guess helping people get work was not one of her duties.

Why can't I and others trust would-be employers?
During the past 4 years, I have been on and off Social Assistance. In less than 2 months on my first application, I asked the office to close the file because I had been told that I was hired for a job. Unfortunately, that was a commission only job with training that never became a reality. The income also did not materialize and after 2 months I was worse off, had to move, and was in another social assistance office.

Recently, in mid-September, 1998, I had a great interview for a position that I am qualified for and would be successful in. The interviewer was second in authority in the company and was asking me, in anticipation, how soon I could start. We left the situation at Friday Noon that I would call the next morning to find out which day I would start on.

When I called, I was told that the position had gone to someone else who had more experience in the industry. On the Friday, I was happy that I could forego applying for Toronto Social Assistance. On Saturday, with almost no money or tokens left, I was forced back into pursuing a social assistance application. My own experience and that reported to me by others is that this circumstance is very depressing, non-assertive, and unlike anything met with earlier than 8 years ago.

Why can't we have REAL unemployment figures reported by the government?
Bureaucracies tend to live in denial of their inefficiencies and tend to cover up their failures with every form of intellectualization and idealistic rationalization ever devised. We all know that "objective" is just another term for the values and assumptions made by the status quo. A brief look at the so-called unemployment figures will reveal to anyone that they are a farce. Who is not included?

1. Persons laid off from full-time jobs and working on part-time jobs ... are employed ... even if they can't support themselves.
   
   
2. Many people in Metro Toronto have apparently taken 2 or more simultaneous part-time jobs increasingly during the past 10 years. Does that mean that they count for "two" employed persons?
   
   
3. What of "seasonally adjusted figures" which don't count unemployed persons who are employed for 20 weeks of the year because their industry is only "seasonally active."
   
   
4. Unemployed persons whose UIC benefits have run out (usually after a year) are no longer considered unemployed. I have repeatedly been told by Social Assistance advisors over the past 4 years not to get depressed about my frustrating job search ... because persons of my age with my expertise are now "expected" to ... and are taking 1 year, 1-1/2 years, 2-years ... to get a job! I guess I'm not part of the unemployment stats.
   
   
5. Persons who have been self-employed and have been operating a business which, for any reason, has had to close, are not eligible for UIC benefits. That means you do not stop at GO. You go directly to Social Assistance once your assets are all gone. Is this another example of a person NOT being considered "unemployed"?
   
   
6. Individuals who have been looking for a job for a long period and who may be unassertive, not particularly self-directed, may not have an aggressive and positive support system, and, are chronically depressed from the culture hype of capitalistic success and their own financial devastation and social degradation --- may simply give up trying. To the bureaucracy, they are no longer looking for work ... so they are not unemployed!
   
   

Let's get REAL.
If the majority of the population knew how many people were actually unemployed and underemployed, they would probably revolt and dump all the current politicians out of office for misrepresentation and incompetence. Now, that IS a good reason for hiding the facts.

Decentralization of hostel locations would decrease neighbourhood problems.
Presently, ALL of the hostels in the GTA for single men are located in the downtown core that is referenced in this report. This is advantageous bureaucratically in that it concentrates all of the persons with substance abuse and behavior problems in one area and allows for agencies which serve such persons to be centralized also. In reality, it aggravates terribly the potential for any individual on assistance located in this area to get a job.

One individual I know commutes back and forth from the Seaton House hostel every day to Vaughan for work. It takes him 1-1/2 hours travel each way. If he quickly finishes the early breakfast and runs out, he just gets to work on time. There is no possibility for overtime. If he does not leave work as early as possible and rush back to Seaton House, he misses the last supper. He had been doing this for 6 weeks 7-days-a-week when I met him.

The jobs which many of the people in the shelters are likely to get are semi-skilled light industry jobs. Few are located downtown. If one needs this form of shelter, there is no choice on location. The consequence is that downtown is flooded with people who are most needy, could benefit the most from employment, and, may have addiction problems ... and are far from potential employers.