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The 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction, a coalition of over 100 organizations across Ontario is urging the premier of Ontario to follow through on his promise of reducing poverty in the province. The network has put forth a plan that focuses on ensuring sustaining employment, so that people who work don’t live in poverty; reforming social assistance, so that people who can’t work get the support they need; and providing for strong community supports, to give opportunity and inclusion to all.

Oxfam has just released a new book called, From Poverty to Power (full text online in PDF) which gives an analysis world economic, finicial and state systems and how they can be changed and are being changed by people to reduce global poverty and injustice. You can also read a number of From Poverty to Power background papers. Watch a introduction of the book below:

A disabled activist and member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty has received an apology from a Toronto restaurant who discriminated against him. The manager at the Everest restaurant had told Aaron Shelbourne's assistant that they were not welcome back after they had finished a meal because wheelchairs could damage the newly renovated restaurant. Read a more, watch a video, and see some pictures of Aaron's campaign on the OCAP website.

Colour of Poverty Campaign is trying to ensure the Ontario government's poverty reduction strategy begins to address the reality that people of colour are disproportionately living in poverty in comparison to other groups and face specific barriers because of issues like discrimination and racism. Read about their demands below and the attached Shared Framework for Action:

Dear Colour of Poverty Network Members and Supporters

May 2008

As you know, the Provincial Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction has begun its consultation process. The approach adopted by the Committee would appear to be to avoid addressing the particularly harsh experiences of historically and dispropor-tionately disadvantaged groups & communities - racialized persons, aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, newcomers or lone-parent families - and to conduct closed door invitation only sessions - which will exclude most members of the concerned public.

It is important for members of racialized communities as well as other marginalized groups to find a way to be most meaningfully engaged in this critical discussion - and to try to make sure that the realities and issues impacting our communities are on the table.

In order to help mobilize and support members of our communities to best participate in this process, *Colour of Poverty* has created a *Shared Framework for Action.*

The *Shared Framework for Action* is a short priority list of the policies and measures as put forward by members of the various racialized groups and individuals who were able to take part in our over 30 local workshops and neighbourhood conversations - held in communities across the province over the past 6 months - which culminated in the *Colour of Poverty Provincial Forum* held on April 28-29, 2008.

This *Shared Framework for Action* focuses on the specific measures that participants felt would best address & redress the realities & the particular challenges characteristic of racialized poverty in Ontario. We are calling upon all community groups and individuals concerned about these issues to engage in one or more of the following *ACTIONS* -

1. Endorse the **Colour of Poverty Shared Framework for Action
2. Write to your local Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) introducing them to, and getting their support for the Shared Framework for Action
3. Ask for a meeting with your MPP – as well as your local media contacts - to more fully introduce, share and discuss the Shared Framework for Action
4. Organize meetings within your local groups and communities to discuss the local and provincial application of the Shared Framework for Action
5. Attend the consultation meetings of the Cabinet Committee and help us to consistently and coherently put forward the Shared Framework for Action

HURRY! The Cabinet consultation process ends soon. We need to act now & act together !!

*For more about the Cabinet consultations - www.Ontario.ca/GrowingStronger

On May 29th, Aboriginal people across Canada will hold the second National Aboriginal Day of in Action. The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) calls upon people in Canada to stand together to call on the federal government to ensure First National people are no longer living in poverty, that First Nations children are given equal opportunities as other Canadian children, and that the federal government "set aside the colonial Indian Act and dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs in favour of a new approach that provides First Nations with the right and responsibility to make the decisions that affect their lives." Read more about the demands and the National Day of Action on the AFN site and in an editorial in the Toronto Star, ""Protest message should be heard."

Read an article in the Toronto Star, "Poverty 'steals from your soul'" about a board member of the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) travelling to Ottawa to describe to the senators what it is like to live in poverty in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood.

More and more anti-poverty organizations and coalitions are using the web to broadcast videos of their work. Housing not War, a campaign to demand the federal government spend money on housing instead of war and militarism organized by anti-war organizations and anti-poverty organizations in Toronto, has a short video on YouTube, "Housing not Bombs," of their most recent demonstration. The Kensington Welfare Rights Union, a multiracial organization of, by and for poor and homeless people, has a video on YouTube, "Homeless Hero," about homeless people organizing in the USA.

The ODSP Action Coalition is seeking support for the demands they are making for the October Ontario provincial election. Read CLEONet's story about the campaign for more information.

Code Blue for Child Care, a national campaign to protect child care is accusing the Conservative government of abandoning child care. Code Blue has issued Harper and his government an "F" in three areas: providing universal child care, helping parents balance work and family, and honouring agreements. Instead of going forward with a national universal child care program, the Tories are giving parents a taxable $100 per a month towards covering their child care fees. Read more in the CBC article, "Child-care coalition gives Harper failing grade, calls for real plan." Across BC, child care advocates, labour groups and parents held rallies for child care to protest the provincial government's cuts to monthly child-care subsidies by about $40 per child.

According to research done by the PIVOT Legal Society and the Carnegie Community Action Project, one in five open lodging house rooms in Vancouver have been sold or put up for sale since January 2006. According to an article in the Tyee, "Poverty Hotel Buying Binge" the hotels that have been sold represent about 1,010 of the estimated 5,000 SRO rooms that remain in the Downtown Eastside. Many activists, residents and community groups fear that this will drastically increase the already high number of homeless people in the city. In October, Vision Vancouver proposed that the city put a moratorium on the demolition of any more Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units. At various council meetings over the last couple months, mote then a hundred people have voiced their support of the moratorium. At one council meeting the Anti-Poverty Committee performed a play called A Tragedy in 2 1/2 Acts (available for viewing on YouTube) about the hotel evictions. Despite the community support for the moratorium, the Vancouver city council defeated the motion on February 13th.

In November, women who use the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre (DEWC) asked the centre to be remain open after regular hours and act as a shelter for homeless women. With the help of volunteers, the Elder's Council and staff members the centre acted as shelter to over fifty women each night. In December the provincial government granted to centre a one time funding of $80,000 to allow DEWC to operate as an emergency shelter for women for the next couple of months. Read a press release about the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre and a CBC article, "Women occupy Vancouver drop-in centre."

A number of websites have sprouted up to protest the Conservative cuts to the Status of Women Canada. The cuts will also end funding to women's organizations that do lobbying, advocacy or research on rights issues, and the closure of most of the federal agency's regional offices. A group of Halifax women started the site: www.thewomenareangry.org about the cuts. Another site, the statusreport.ca is dedicated to raising awareness of the cuts. Read a CBC article, "Women upset with cuts to Status of Women Canada take protest to the web."

Government officials in Victora traditionally host a New Year's Levee when the public are invited into the main government building for food and beverages. For the past nine years, poor people and activists in Victoria have sung songs and asked questions of government officials at the New Year's levees to bring attention to homelessness and poverty. This year fifty people travelled to three levees in the Victoria area on a donated bus. Watch a video of the 9th Annual Poor People's Levee Tour on Homelessnation.org.

The Anti-Poverty Committee and their supporters have launched a housing campaign to force all levels of government to deal with the growing homelessness crisis in Vancouver. Over the past month, APC has set up two squats to demand that the Vancouver city council buy one empty single room occupancy hotel a year as promised in the city's Homeless Action Plan (in PDF). The first squat was set up in a empty hotel in the Downtown Eastside that has sat empty since the city shut it down in 1999. After the police evicted the squatters, APC and some supporters opened a second squat in a city-owned apartment building across from City Hall. The tenants of this building were evicted over the last year to make way for the new Canada Line Station. APC wanted to open this building as an emergency shelter for homeless women but the city sent the riot police in to evict the squatters after one night. Read an article in the Tyee about the squats and the city's reaction, "Homeless Activists Scoring Points".

On the National Day to End Homelessness, the Victoria Ad Hoc Committee to End Homelessness and the Community Solidarity Coalition helped support a squat in an abandoned building in downtown Victoria, BC. That same day Victoria kicked off a convention for BC municipalities attended by Premier Gordon Campbell and mayors from around the province. The protest ended with tear-gas, riot squad police, jail, and a charge of mischief. Rallies for the homeless continued through-out the week in front of the Victoria convention centre. Watch a video of a homeless activist involved in the squat. The Ad Hoc Committee is continuing on their housing campaign with a list of recommendations for action on housing for the City of Victoria. The Victoria City Council has since agreed to meet with anti-poverty activists to work on its new housing strategy committee.

The Hands Off Campaign has been working to stop the clawback of child benefits for those on social assistance. In Ontario, the provincial government clawbacks the majority of the federal tax benefit of those families who are on social assistance. An article, "Children bear scars of clawback," talks about why the federal and provincial governments need to stop the clawback.

Advocates and many others have been appalled by the abysmally low welfare rates in BC. The Raise the Rates Coalition was launched this spring by some community, faith and advocacy groups to call on the province to:

• Increase welfare rates by 50 per cent;
• Remove the arbitrary barriers to accessing welfare;
• Let people on welfare keep up to $500 per month of money they earn through employment;
• Raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour, and abolish the $6 starting wage.

Premier Campbell has promised to raise the shelter rates for welfare recipients but has not announced how much the increase will be. The Centre for Policy Alternatives has a related report about welfare rates: A Better Way to Set Welfare Rates.

Ontario has increased the maximum monthly welfare cheque by 2% this month for Ontario Disability Support Program recipients and Ontario Works recipients. The Ontario Social Assistance Rate Increase explains in more detail what is effected by the rate increase. Unfortunately this rate increase is far cry from what anti-poverty activists in Ontario have pushing for. There has been a 40% loss of in real income for poor people over the last ten years. Add your name to the Raise the Rates Petition to Premier McGuinty, signed by thousands of people asking for a 40% increase to welfare and disability rates. Read more about the Ontario Raise the Rates Campaign .

The Save Low Income Housing Coalition (SLIHC) is a coalition working to save low-income housing units in the Greater Vancouver Area and to raise the rates of shelter allowance for income assistance recipients. SLIHC is seeking endorsement for the their Blueprint for Homelessness Prevention. It is intended to provide the City of Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, and Government of Canada with the strategies required to protect deep-core need, low-income rental housing in Vancouver in the face of the upcoming 2010 Olympic Games and the continued rapid growth of the Lower Mainland.