Toronto single mother Laura Bardeau, who is disabled and struggles to raise two boys on social assistance, lost all her furniture to bedbugs last April.

Under a city-run emergency housing fund that helps people on welfare avoid eviction, pay first and last month’s rent or buy new furniture after a fire, flood or bedbug infestation, Bardeau was eligible for up to $1,500 to buy new beds.

But when she applied, she got nothing.

“It was awful. Just awful,” said Bardeau, 42, recalling how her east-end apartment was treated four times by a pest-control company before the bugs were gone.

“After every visit, they told me to get rid of more and more furniture because the bugs were everywhere.”

It was particularly traumatic for her 9- and 10-year-old sons because they have autism and don’t handle change easily, she added.

Anti-poverty activists cried foul and pressured city staff for answers.

Bardeau finally got her money in July. But activists, who say they have seen many similar cases, are calling on the city to overhaul what they say is an opaque, underfunded program.

Policies governing the city’s $28 million Housing Stabilization Fund “are discriminatory towards people with disabilities and those with children,” says the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in a report to be released Saturday.

The city’s employment and social services department, which oversees the fund, “must make changes to its administrative processes . . . and eliminate discrimination built into its adjudication policies,” the report says.

As a result of Bardeau’s case, the city is reviewing the program and will report to council in November, said Anna Fiorino, a manager with employment and social services.

“We are definitely looking at making our eligibility criteria more transparent,” she said. “And we will be seeking more input and feedback from the community.”

Public consultations are scheduled for Oct. 20 at Metro Hall.

In the meantime, OCAP wants city staff to immediately stop “discriminatory” practices such as deeming the special diet allowance, child benefits and service dog stipend as “excess income” when calculating eligibility for the program.

Since the stabilization fund is based on income and need, any excess income reduces eligibility, says the group, which partnered with the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario on the report.

“It is reprehensible for (the city) to label the money that people on social assistance receive to manage their disabilities, to buy food or to raise their children as ‘excess income,’ and then expect them to redirect that money towards emergency housing costs instead,” says the report, titled “The Destabilizing Reality of Toronto’s Housing Stabilization Fund.”

“This is especially true in the current context where social assistance rates keep people well below the poverty line,” it adds.

When Bardeau applied for help to buy furniture, her monthly income included $1,834 from the Ontario Disability Support Program, $926 in child tax benefits and $406 in special diet allowance for herself and her children, who suffer from food allergies. But since the child benefits and special diet allowance counted as excess income, she was eligible for less than one-third of the $1,500 she requested.

OCAP doesn’t know why she was initially denied any help because it’s not clear how the city calculates payments, said Yogi Acharya, the report’s author.

The policy posted on the city’s website doesn’t mention that the maximum allowed for a new bed is $300 for a twin and $500 for a double, he noted. Nor does it say the fund only pays for new beds in the case of bedbug infestations.

“You can’t make a reassessment argument if you don’t know how they are calculating your payment in the first place,” Acharya said.

The city’s housing stabilization fund was set up in 2013 after the province eliminated the community start-up and maintenance benefit (CSUMB), a program that helped people on social assistance with moving costs, rent arrears and other housing emergencies.

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About half of the $114 million annual CSUMB budget was included in a new provincial fund aimed at giving municipalities more flexibility to fight homelessness.

When anti-poverty activists complained the CSUMB was being downloaded to municipalities with less money, the province provided some transitional funding.

But as a city staff report noted at the time Toronto’s emergency homelessness prevention fund has “fewer resources and a funding cap, in contrast to the open-ended, cost-shared nature of CSUMB.”

It’s not clear how many municipalities created funds to replace the CSUMB after the download, said Jennefer Laidley of the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a provincial legal aid clinic that helps those on social assistance.

“If this is happening in Toronto where the fund actually exists, what’s happening in other municipalities?” she said. “This is the problem with downloading and local flexibility. It’s impossible for anyone to get a handle on what is actually happening across the province.”

There were 24,575 applications approved for help under Toronto’s fund in 2015, down from 29,456 when the fund was set up in 2013, according to city staff, who say the drop reflects falling welfare caseloads. As a result, just $24.8 million of the $28 million fund was spent last year.

But OCAP says lack of knowledge about the fund and the tight eligibility criteria are to blame.

Although city statistics show less than 10 per cent of applications are denied because of excess income, Acharya notes many families and people with disabilities receive much less than they need.

“The average payment was $609 in 2013,” he notes. Maximum amounts available were $1,600 for singles and couples and $3,000 for families with children.

While the average payment increased to about $900 in 2014, Acharya says this falls far short of what most applicants request.

“OCAP has raised an important issue,” said lawyer Jackie Esmonde of the advocacy centre. “The way that the city of Toronto is administering the fund could be challenged as violating the Ontario Human Rights Code, because it specifically disadvantages people with disabilities and families with children.”

Councillor James Pasternak, chair of the city’s community development and recreation committee urged staff to review the program after meeting Bardeau in June.

While he called OCAP’s charge of discrimination “a strong word,” he agreed changes are urgently needed.

“We have to reduce the red tape to make it easier to get,” he said in an interview. “People shouldn’t be penalized because they are getting other benefits.”