Ontario changes to social assistance have Windsorites feeling hopeless

Betty Nickerson is on disability support. She can't walk or stand for long periods of time and she's had a series of health issues with her heart and back.

With Ontario's latest announcements to cut the planned increases to social assistance from three per cent to 1.5 per cent, and also cut the basic pilot income project, Nickerson is upset.

"We're going to be dinged again," she said. "I'm one of the lucky ones, I have a place to live."

Nickerson's home is above the New Song Church, where she volunteers and helps prepare meals for Feeding Windsor, an organization that operates inside the building.

She said her friend who's homeless was "banking" on the increase, because "that would have helped to give her a little bit of a boost."

Housing seems to be getting more and more expensive and without increases to social assistance, Nickerson said, the government is "just making things worse."

The CEO of the Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor, June Muir, said there's a lot of disappointment about the string of changes.

"I don't know how they do it. It's gotta be really hard," she said.

People walk through the doors every day to find work, Muir said. And sometimes it's hard to get the jobs that are available because they have low literacy and need some help.

While Windsor wasn't one of the three cities selected for the basic income pilot project, she was looking forward to seeing the results.

"I think people probably are feeling hopeless," she said. "It's just gotta be devastating and overwhelming."

And Feeding Windsor coordinator Rodger Fordham sees the increases when he goes to shop for groceries.

While he used to only have to spend $700 a week to prepare 1,000 meals, the cost is now $1,100 for the same meals.

Fordham thinks the cuts are sending a message that the government doesn't care.

"They don't matter to this government. The thing is that all people matter," he said. "And you don't move ahead by leaving people behind."