Disabled turn to city for food aid
Provincial offices closed during blackout

By MICHAEL VALPY


While Ontario's municipalities have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
to feed able-bodied poor people whose food was spoiled by the blackout, the
hungry disabled who went to provincial government offices for help found
closed doors and instructions to find assistance elsewhere.

Eric Gam, Toronto's commissioner of community and neighbourhood services,
said yesterday his department has paid out half a million dollars for
emergency food aid, and that an increasing amount has gone to clients of
the
provincial Ontario Disabilities Support Program.

"There were a lot of desperate people out there. We're under tremendous
pressure from ODSP clients coming to us for help."

Many ODSP recipients also began turning up at the west-end Toronto
warehouse
of the Daily Bread Food Bank after being unable to get help at ODSP
offices.

Sue Cox, the food bank's executive director, said her agency's daily case
load has increased by 50 per cent since the blackout ended Aug. 16.

The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, an advocacy organization for
homeless
and poor people, said it has been flooded with calls from people looking
for
food. Many didn't know they could be eligible for special assistance from
their municipality.

Mr. Gam said Ontario Works recipients are told when they first qualify for
the program that they can ask for more assistance if their circumstances
change.

Daily Bread staff plan to invite reporters to meet ODSP recipients today to
hear their stories of trying to get help from the provincial agency
responsible for their support.

All but two ODSP offices across the province closed last week, and the two
that remained open did so for only two hours a day.

ODSP clients able to get in the door of an office say they were told to go
to food banks or their local municipalities for help. Social agencies
dealing with disabled people asking for help said that although ODSP
offices
were open yesterday, phone lines were constantly busy.

Christine Bujold, spokeswoman for Brenda Elliott, Minister of Community,
Family and Children's Services, which includes ODSP, said the offices were
closed because "we didn't want any fragile people stuck in elevators" in
case of another electrical failure.

Asked how many of ODSP's offices across Ontario were accessible only by
elevator, she repeated that ODSP didn't want to risk the safety of its
fragile clientele.

She also pointed out ODSP is a shared-cost program with municipalities --
which is true, but the province runs it without any input from
municipalities.

Mr. Gam said the ODSP offices were closed as part of the province's
energy-conservation measures, which Toronto's social assistance offices
were
also supposed to follow, "but we made the decision to stay open. I don't
think they took much electricity." (Municipalities administer the
province's
Ontario Works program for non-disabled poor people on social assistance).

He said those who came to the city for food help were given either
supermarket vouchers or emergency cheques. "It was a scramble at the
beginning; it was heavy at the beginning, but we did what we could," he
said.

Mr. Gam said the city thought it had succeeded in dealing with the
desperate
Ontario Works cases by the end of last week. Then, he said, the ODSP case
load started getting bigger and bigger.

Ontario Works recipients will get their next month's support today and
tomorrow. ODSP recipients must wait until the end of the week.






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