Whenever Kelly Lawless thinks about using drugs, she jingles her house keys.

“Without a doubt, having my own home, my first home, was — and is — the strength in my recovery,” said Lawless, 48, a former “homeless and helpless crack addict.”

After a 28-year addiction, Lawless is going into her fifth year without using drugs, she told more than 200 leaders from non-profit, labour and social justice groups who packed a recent provincial election gathering at Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity.

“That’s what housing can do for a person like me,” she continued. “I needed a sense of community and belonging and I found it through decent, permanent and affordable housing.”

As Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne, Green party Leader Mike Schreiner and representatives from the Progressive Conservatives and NDP watched from the front row, Lawless and other anti-poverty activists called on all parties to make Ontario a fair and equitable place where everyone belongs.

Ontario for All, a coalition of more than 70 organizations, wants the leaders to commit to policies and programs that reduce gender, racial and income inequality, and create pathways to prosperity for almost two million Ontarians living in poverty.

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Lawless credits affordable housing and the support of addiction counsellors and social assistance workers for helping her escape homelessness, enrol in university and become a powerful advocate for people living in poverty.

“I truly hope that others are given housing,” she said, looking pointedly at the politicians. “Because housing transformed my life … I have dreams and I have goals and I am fulfilling them.”

Anti-poverty activists have spent the past 15 years pushing the Liberal government to rebuild Ontario’s social safety net after an era of punishing cuts under the previous PC government of Mike Harris.

They dread a return to the austerity of the 1990s, when the Harris Tories slashed welfare rates by 22.6 per cent, cancelled the construction of 50,000 affordable housing units and froze the minimum wage at $6.85 an hour for eight years.

That is why they are focused on ensuring all parties in the June 7 election continue to strengthen supports for the province’s most vulnerable residents.

Pedro Barata, vice-president of United Way Greater Toronto, praises progressive policies under the Liberals, including a provincial child benefit introduced in 2007, anti-poverty legislation in 2008 and a series of minimum wage increases, including next January’s hike to $15.

Full-day kindergarten, introduced in 2010, pumps more than $1.5 billion annually into education for young children, while free college and university tuition for students from low- to moderate-income families helps 220,000 young adults access higher learning, he noted.

Changes to Ontario’s punitive welfare rules allow people on social assistance who find part-time jobs to keep some of the money they earn, accept financial gifts and build savings, he added.

But the most promising development for people in poverty who cycle in and out of welfare from precarious, low-paid jobs is the growth of social programs outside welfare, Barata said.

The Ontario child benefit, drug and dental coverage for children, and the promise of a portable housing benefit funded through the federal-provincial housing strategy are helping to build a pathway out of poverty, he said.

“The nature of the labour market means work on its own is not going to provide that pathway, and that is why these kinds of income security reforms are so important.”

Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats are building on that idea by proposing affordable dental care for all Ontarians in a sweeping $1.2-billion program for about 4.5 million adults and seniors who are without workplace or pension coverage. It would be free for individuals with incomes under $30,000.

The Liberals’ pre-election budget offers a more modest $800-million drug and dental program for working-age adults and seniors not covered by workplace plans, worth up to $700 a year for a family of four. The Greens also support this program.

Meanwhile, PC Leader Doug Ford is promising $98 million to help about 100,000 low-income seniors get free dental care through public health units, community health centres, Aboriginal Health Access Centres and mobile public dental buses.

Affordable, high-quality child care — key to a mother’s ability to enter and remain in the workforce and a proven measure to fight child poverty — is another social program all parties have addressed in their platforms.

Ontario is plagued by long wait lists for licensed spots, fees topping $20,000 a year for infants, and a lack of fee subsidies for low-income children.

The Liberals, NDP and Greens are proposing to invest billions of dollars in new licensed spaces and lower parent fees.

Meanwhile, the PCs are offering a child-care tax rebate to cover up to 75 per cent of the cost of licensed and unlicensed care, including nannies and babysitting. However, critics have said the tax measure will do nothing to increase licensed spaces or improve quality. With about two million children under age 15 covered by the plan, critics have said, $389 million budgeted for the rebate wouldn’t go far.

A similar approach informs the Tories’ response to the minimum wage.

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A year ago, the Liberals introduced extensive new employment standards legislation, along with a $15-an-hour minimum wage, to better protect low-wage and precariously employed workers. Under the new law, Ontario’s minimum wage jumped to $14 from $11.60 in January, and will rise to $15 in January.

While the NDP and Greens support the new wage law, the PCs would cancel next year’s hike and instead eliminate provincial income taxes for minimum-wage workers. Ford says the move would save workers about $800 a year. But many minimum-wage earners don’t pay provincial income tax due to basic deductions available to all employees.

Although the Ontario Chamber of Commerce decried the minimum wage hike as a job killer that would cripple small business, Toronto jewelry manufacturer and wholesaler Anita Agrawal supports it.

“I own one of the so-called ‘mom and pop’ shops you keep hearing about and I can tell you I can’t afford to pay people less than the minimum wage,” said Agrawal, who employs seven full-time staff at her Best Bargains outlet in Dundas Square.

Loyal and trusted staff help her company make money, she argued. And because she pays above the minimum wage, Agrawal said she doesn’t have to worry about competitors poaching her best workers.

Agrawal, who also teaches international business at Centennial College, sees the effect of low wages and precarious employment on students, especially those who are recent immigrants trying to break into Ontario’s job market.

“Having to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet takes a toll on their physical and mental health,” she said. “I see it in the classroom.”

For those out of the workforce, after more than a decade of talk about welfare reform in Ontario, the Liberal budget allocated $2.3 billion over three years to begin a major overhaul recommended last fall by a government-appointed working group of experts, advocates and Indigenous leaders.

By embracing most of the working group’s 10-year “Roadmap for Change” strategy, the Liberals say they are committed to simplifying welfare rules, reducing reporting requirements and building a culture of trust and collaboration between recipients and front-line staff.

But the Liberals fell short of adopting the working group’s recommended rate hikes for the next three years, totalling 22 per cent for people relying on Ontario Works and 15 per cent for those receiving Ontario Disability Support Program benefits.

Instead, the budget funds annual increases of just 3 per cent a year, leaving about 950,000 people on social assistance trapped in deep poverty. Ontario currently spends $9 billion a year on the program.

Pauline Bryant, 55, struggles to survive on $721 a month — the maximum Ontario Works benefit — and says the Liberal government’s anti-poverty measures are “too little, too late.”

The Toronto woman rents a room in an apartment for $550 a month, which leaves her less than $200 for food and other necessities. It is why she is part of Put Food in the Budget, an advocacy group that has been dogging Wynne and the Liberals to raise welfare rates for a decade.

Bryant says she doesn’t trust the Liberals and is “absolutely worried” a PC government under Ford would tear up the few gains that have been made over the past 15 years.

“We are pleased the Greens are supporting our call for an immediate increase to social assistance in line with what the government is paying people on the basic income pilot project,” she said. “But nobody votes for them.”

The pilot project, launched a year ago in three Ontario communities, is testing whether unconditional payments of up to $17,000 a year for low-income adults and up to $23,000 for people with disabilities helps precarious workers and improves health and education outcomes.

At least the NDP is supporting the government-appointed working group’s call for a 22 per cent increase to Ontario Works, Bryant said.

But with Ford’s PCs leading in the polls, Bryant said she wishes the NDP “would talk a little bit louder” about poverty.

Barata and the Ontario for All coalition hope all parties support the gains and don’t take the province backwards.

“Poverty hurts all of us. It hurts economically in terms of not maximizing people’s potential,” he said.

“It hurts us financially because if you don’t invest now, you will pay much more down the line in terms of health care and criminal justice costs. And it hurts everyone’s quality of life.”

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