SAR report and municipal responses to CSUMB

SAR report and municipal responses to CSUMB

From Jennefer Laidley (ISAC), October 18, 2012

As you know, the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) was cut from social assistance in Budget 2012. People on OW or ODSP can still apply for CSUMB, but the benefit will end as of December 31, 2012. This change is intended to save government approximately $150 million over three years.

Starting January 2013, half of the funding for Community Start-Up will be transferred to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The Ministry is bundling it with funding from five other housing-related programs and transferring that money to the municipalities (i.e., the DSSABs and CMSMs) under a new program, the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative (CHPI), which was created July 24. CHPI is intended to provide more flexibility for municipalities to respond to housing and homelessness needs in their local areas.

For people on social assistance, the loss of CSUMB will mean they will have no guarantee of receiving a benefit that 16,000 people rely on each month. They will have to compete with all other low-income people in their area for a piece of a smaller funding pie. In most areas, they will also have no appeal rights to decisions to deny funding for housing-related benefits, as they do currently under CSUMB.

The full report is available at http://yourlegalrights.on.ca/sites/all/files/SAR%20and%20CSUMB.pdf.