Put the shortfall on their desk.

Three letters. Copy them. Paste them into your own email. Add your name and riding. This site does not collect addresses and does not send mail. Officials already have the statutes. They need to hear that \$733 and a 15-year wait are unacceptable.

Premier of Ontario and Minister of Children, Community and Social Services

I am writing about legislated destitution in Ontario.

A single adult on Ontario Works is still paid $733 a month — the same maximum as 2018. ISAC notes prices have risen about 23–25% since that freeze. Maytree’s Welfare in Canada 2025 puts total welfare income for that household in Toronto at $10,242 a year: 33% of Canada’s Official Poverty Line (Market Basket Measure) and only 43% of the deep-poverty threshold.

A single adult on ODSP is paid $1,436 as of July 2026. That is still short of a Toronto purpose-built 1-bedroom at $1,985 (CMHC 2024 AMR). Stack the Canada Disability Benefit ($204.20) and tax credits and the household remains under Daily Bread’s $2,444 Toronto poverty line.

Parents on OW or ODSP do not get to spend the Canada Child Benefit on education or a childhood. The shelter cap is so far under market rent that the child’s cheque is absorbed by housing.

I ask you to:
1. Index Ontario Works immediately and restore 2018 purchasing power as a stopgap (about $916).
2. Legislate a path to 75% of MBM within a year and 100% of MBM within two.
3. Set the shelter maximum to local average market rent.
4. Stop withholding the shelter line from people who are unsheltered or in emergency shelter.
5. Fund portable rent supplements and RGI supply so waits are months, not 15 years.

Housing First and the Human Rights Code already name the duty. The cheque is the breach.

Please reply with the date on which OW will be indexed and the date on which shelter maxima will track CMHC rents.

Prime Minister and Minister responsible for the National Housing Strategy Act

The National Housing Strategy Act (2019) recognizes housing as a fundamental human right and commits Canada to its progressive realization. CESCR General Comment No. 4 says housing costs must not threaten other basic needs.

In Ontario those commitments are failing in public view. Ontario Works remains $733. ODSP remains $1,436 against Toronto 1-bedroom rent of $1,985. The Canada Disability Benefit is $204.20. The Canada Child Benefit, on a parent’s OW or ODSP file, is routinely consumed by the rent gap the provincial shelter cap does not cover.

Dr. Andrew Boozary of UHN has put the public cost on the record: a hospital month $30,000 or more; prison about $10,000; shelter about $6,000; supportive housing $3,500–$4,000. We cannot afford the status quo.

I ask the federal government to:
1. Raise the Canada Disability Benefit so that, with provincial disability income, a single adult reaches the Market Basket Measure.
2. Scale the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit from a rationed referral program to an entitlement that pays the gap to local average market rent.
3. Condition federal housing transfers on provincial rates that reach at least 75% of MBM and on Housing First as the default — keys first, supports offered.
4. Sit a binding federal–provincial–municipal table with published targets on homelessness, shelter occupancy, and the OW/ODSP-to-rent gap.

A right without an income that can rent a room is a press release.

Mayor and city / regional councillor (housing and homelessness)

Municipalities are paying the overflow of provincial rates and federal rationing: emergency shelters at or near 100% occupancy, motel contracts, hospital and police responses — and, in Waterloo Region, $1,695,006 in outside counsel over fourteen months to defend a by-law a court then struck under Charter ss. 7 and 15. That invoice is the floor. It does not include the 2023 Charter file, staff time, or the appeal. The same dollars would have bought about 424 months of supportive housing at $4,000.

Toronto accommodated 7,295 people on 17 September 2026 (family rooms 98.1%, women’s emergency 97.9%, respites 100%). Ottawa had 664 families in motels as of March 2026 after nearly $30 million in hotel spending in 2025. Toronto’s RGI list is 104,851 households; a 1-bedroom wait is about 15 years.

I ask council to:
1. Publish the all-in cost of shelter, motel, hospital, and police responses beside the cost of a rent supplement that covers the gap between the ODSP/OW shelter line and actual rent.
2. Move motel and overflow contracts onto leases and portable benefits.
3. Treat Housing First as the default in coordinated access: keys first, no readiness test.
4. Press Queen’s Park and Ottawa, on the record, for OW/ODSP rates at the official poverty line and a shelter cap equal to local AMR.
5. Adopt Shelter First: no ticket, seizure, or clearance until an adequate indoor offer exists for that person.
6. If council has declared a housing or homelessness crisis, publish a quarterly swap ledger and make legal-fee lines for displacement residual — first call on available dollars is the rent gap and Housing First.

A bunk is not adequate housing. A 15-year wait is not a housing plan. A $1.7 million invoice to move a tent after two Charter losses is not fiscal responsibility.

Find MPPs at ola.org, MPs at ourcommons.ca, and councillors on your city site. Look up current minister titles before you send — cabinets move. If the reply is another minimized promise, use the notice and the forums on the Challenge page. This site does not send mail and is not legal advice.

Notice and remedies