antiquity
01-11-2003, 08:38 AM
Jan. 11, 2003. 01:00Â*AM
Disability coalition takes on Queen's Park
Support program condemned for denying the needy
HELEN HENDERSON
A determined coalition of community and legal clinic workers is gearing up for a meeting that could profoundly influence the fate of some of Ontario's most vulnerable people.
They hope their efforts will earn those battling some of the most severe mental and physical disabilities the support they deserve to live with dignity in one of the world's most privileged societies.
They also hope the public will join in sending a strong message to Queen's Park that this government's unfeeling treatment of people with disabilities and their families could cost dearly at the polls.
The meeting, scheduled for Monday, Jan. 27, between Social Services Minister Brenda Elliott and the Ontario Disability Support Program Action Coalition, will focus on a program introduced by former premier Mike Harris and fine-tuned via a controversial multi-million-dollar contract awarded to Andersen Consulting, which has since changed its name to Accenture.
The disability support program offers a paltry $930 a month maximum for a person living alone to pay for rent, utilities, food and transportation, not to mention crucial health care supplies, services and equipment.
Many get far less, if anything at all.
In fact, the Ontario Disability Support Program
(ODSP), along with the Accenture-designed system for delivering it, has been widely condemned as little more than a thinly veiled device to force those most in need off assistance rolls and on to the streets.
Far too many deserving people are turned down flat for disability support. Instead, they are forced on to the welfare rolls of another Harris-devised program, Ontario Works.
Under that program, a single person gets a maximum $520 a month to live on, providing he or she "works," either through stipulated training schemes or voluntary community service positions.
We are talking here about people who applied for assistance in the first place because they are dealing with disabilities that make it impossible for them to fulfil that criterion. So they get kicked out of Ontario Works and end up destitute, often living on the streets.
"It's very difficult to get on to ODSP," says University of Toronto economist Ernie Lightman, who understands the dimensions of the problem through a study he is conducting on what happens to people who leave the rolls of Ontario Works.
"All the evidence so far suggests basic government harassment to keep people away and off the books," says Lightman, who specializes in social issues and has authored reports on community housing.
"It's not cracks these people fall through, it's great chasms."
That mirrors the findings of an ODSP study conducted by the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a legal aid system offshoot that researches and conducts test-case litigation related to social assistance programs.
The group is dotting the "i"s and crossing the
"t"s on Denial By Design, the working title of a report that stems from province-wide consultations initiated by the group of community and legal clinic advocates who make up the ODSP Action Coalition scheduled to meet this month with Elliott.
As readers of this column found out in November, the report shows that the seriously flawed disability support program is clogging the already overextended legal aid system, making doctors and other health practitioners give up time with patients to fill out reams of confusing forms, forcing people with disabilities into community shelters and overloading community services.
Even some people deemed to be "81 per cent disabled" by the ODSP's confusing set of bureaucratic definitions are turned down, says research and policy analyst John Fraser, one of the authors of the report.
In 2001, the province's Social Benefits Tribunal overturned almost half of the ODSP decisions it heard on appeal.
"The letter (from ODSP summarizing its decision) is simply a selection of misinformation compiled to reject the claim," the tribunal commented in one case. "The quotations are hand-picked out of context and the statements are untrue. It would be a crime to disallow a claim like this by administrative manipulation of reports and out of context quotes or other weak evidence."
Nancy Vander Plaats, a community legal worker with Scarborough Community Legal Services and chair of the ODSP Action Coalition, says "representing people who have been denied ODSP is the single largest area of law for legal clinics, consuming a huge percentage of Legal Aid's financial and human resources."
The coalition has many constructive ideas for reform, including simplifying the paperwork, providing information in clear, accessible language and making the decision process more transparent and accountable.
It also is calling for increases in the benefits available, amounts that haven't changed from the 1993 levels of predecessor programs.
Elliott said last year her staff was reviewing the disability support program, including the benefits package and the new "service delivery technology" system designed by Accenture as part of the $180 million social services "business transformation" contract announced by Mike Harris more than four years ago.
"It's an ongoing study, looking at the entire system," Elliott's press secretary Christine Bujold said this week. "There's no deadline."
According to provincial auditor Erik Peters, by March, 2002, the new service delivery system had cost $400 million.
After looking at Ontario Works in last year's audit, Peters also found: "The new information technology system often failed to provide needed information, provided it inaccurately or provided it in a form that was not useful."
That conclusion mirrors a business practice review of ODSP conducted by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Vander Plaats says the action coalition has "cautious optimism" about its scheduled meeting with Elliott. Meanwhile, it is interested in hearing from anyone who has had to deal with the system and people interested in working toward reforms.
E-mail mansonc@lao.on.ca or write the ODSP Action Coalition, c/o Flemingdon Community Legal Services, Suite 205, 49 The Donway W., Toronto, Ont. M3C 3M9. For more information, check http://www.incomesecurity.org.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=15be5f6329fffad0&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035776410131&call_pageid=970599119419
Disability coalition takes on Queen's Park
Support program condemned for denying the needy
HELEN HENDERSON
A determined coalition of community and legal clinic workers is gearing up for a meeting that could profoundly influence the fate of some of Ontario's most vulnerable people.
They hope their efforts will earn those battling some of the most severe mental and physical disabilities the support they deserve to live with dignity in one of the world's most privileged societies.
They also hope the public will join in sending a strong message to Queen's Park that this government's unfeeling treatment of people with disabilities and their families could cost dearly at the polls.
The meeting, scheduled for Monday, Jan. 27, between Social Services Minister Brenda Elliott and the Ontario Disability Support Program Action Coalition, will focus on a program introduced by former premier Mike Harris and fine-tuned via a controversial multi-million-dollar contract awarded to Andersen Consulting, which has since changed its name to Accenture.
The disability support program offers a paltry $930 a month maximum for a person living alone to pay for rent, utilities, food and transportation, not to mention crucial health care supplies, services and equipment.
Many get far less, if anything at all.
In fact, the Ontario Disability Support Program
(ODSP), along with the Accenture-designed system for delivering it, has been widely condemned as little more than a thinly veiled device to force those most in need off assistance rolls and on to the streets.
Far too many deserving people are turned down flat for disability support. Instead, they are forced on to the welfare rolls of another Harris-devised program, Ontario Works.
Under that program, a single person gets a maximum $520 a month to live on, providing he or she "works," either through stipulated training schemes or voluntary community service positions.
We are talking here about people who applied for assistance in the first place because they are dealing with disabilities that make it impossible for them to fulfil that criterion. So they get kicked out of Ontario Works and end up destitute, often living on the streets.
"It's very difficult to get on to ODSP," says University of Toronto economist Ernie Lightman, who understands the dimensions of the problem through a study he is conducting on what happens to people who leave the rolls of Ontario Works.
"All the evidence so far suggests basic government harassment to keep people away and off the books," says Lightman, who specializes in social issues and has authored reports on community housing.
"It's not cracks these people fall through, it's great chasms."
That mirrors the findings of an ODSP study conducted by the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a legal aid system offshoot that researches and conducts test-case litigation related to social assistance programs.
The group is dotting the "i"s and crossing the
"t"s on Denial By Design, the working title of a report that stems from province-wide consultations initiated by the group of community and legal clinic advocates who make up the ODSP Action Coalition scheduled to meet this month with Elliott.
As readers of this column found out in November, the report shows that the seriously flawed disability support program is clogging the already overextended legal aid system, making doctors and other health practitioners give up time with patients to fill out reams of confusing forms, forcing people with disabilities into community shelters and overloading community services.
Even some people deemed to be "81 per cent disabled" by the ODSP's confusing set of bureaucratic definitions are turned down, says research and policy analyst John Fraser, one of the authors of the report.
In 2001, the province's Social Benefits Tribunal overturned almost half of the ODSP decisions it heard on appeal.
"The letter (from ODSP summarizing its decision) is simply a selection of misinformation compiled to reject the claim," the tribunal commented in one case. "The quotations are hand-picked out of context and the statements are untrue. It would be a crime to disallow a claim like this by administrative manipulation of reports and out of context quotes or other weak evidence."
Nancy Vander Plaats, a community legal worker with Scarborough Community Legal Services and chair of the ODSP Action Coalition, says "representing people who have been denied ODSP is the single largest area of law for legal clinics, consuming a huge percentage of Legal Aid's financial and human resources."
The coalition has many constructive ideas for reform, including simplifying the paperwork, providing information in clear, accessible language and making the decision process more transparent and accountable.
It also is calling for increases in the benefits available, amounts that haven't changed from the 1993 levels of predecessor programs.
Elliott said last year her staff was reviewing the disability support program, including the benefits package and the new "service delivery technology" system designed by Accenture as part of the $180 million social services "business transformation" contract announced by Mike Harris more than four years ago.
"It's an ongoing study, looking at the entire system," Elliott's press secretary Christine Bujold said this week. "There's no deadline."
According to provincial auditor Erik Peters, by March, 2002, the new service delivery system had cost $400 million.
After looking at Ontario Works in last year's audit, Peters also found: "The new information technology system often failed to provide needed information, provided it inaccurately or provided it in a form that was not useful."
That conclusion mirrors a business practice review of ODSP conducted by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Vander Plaats says the action coalition has "cautious optimism" about its scheduled meeting with Elliott. Meanwhile, it is interested in hearing from anyone who has had to deal with the system and people interested in working toward reforms.
E-mail mansonc@lao.on.ca or write the ODSP Action Coalition, c/o Flemingdon Community Legal Services, Suite 205, 49 The Donway W., Toronto, Ont. M3C 3M9. For more information, check http://www.incomesecurity.org.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=15be5f6329fffad0&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035776410131&call_pageid=970599119419