Green leader Mike Schreiner unveils plan to ‘end legislated poverty’

Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner was on home soil on Thursday morning, sharing his party’s plans to support the financially and socially vulnerable people in the province before kicking off a campaign in Hamilton.

The Ontario Green Party announced its plans to end “legislated poverty” if Schreiner is elected by doubling Ontario Disability Services Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) rates and building 310,000 affordable, co-op housing units.

According to the party, more than 80,000 people living in Ontario are experiencing homelessness, a number that has increased by one-quarter in the last two years, and over that same period, food bank usage has increased by 78 per cent.

Schreiner noted that the average rent in Ontario is approximately $1,600, and those living on ODSP are receiving just under $1,400-per-month, or just over $700 on OW.

“If you double ODSP, that’s going to move you from $1,300 to $ 2,600 a month, which gets you up to that low-income cut-off level,” he said.

Schreiner explained that the majority of affordable homes on the market in Ontario were built before the turn of the 21st Century, something he identified as a failure of multiple government administrations to build affordable housing for Ontarians.

He and the Ontario Green Party will also focus on ensuring the proper guidelines are met in the relationships between landlords and tenants.

“We need to make sure that we have protections against above-guideline rent increases, renovictions, harassing and bullying of tenants by those bad-acting landlords,” said Schreiner.

The party leader also noted that he believes his political opponent, PC Party Leader Doug Ford, is out of touch when it comes to supporting the most vulnerable people in the province.