$5.00

‘‘As Sharp as YouCould Cut Them’’

Poverty& Inequalityin Kingston

Joanna Moon

‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’: Poverty and Inequality in Kingston

by Joanna Moon

© November 2010 by the Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation Office of the

Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul (Kingston) and the Kingston

Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction.

Cover photo: Vince Pietropaolo

Graphic on page 3: Philip Street

Joanna Moon graduated from Queen’s University in 2009 with a degree in

Health Studies and Biology, before going on to study Theology, Poverty, and

Development at Wycliffe College in Toronto. She loves to bike, drink coffee, and

learn about and act upon plausible solutions to poverty.

The analysis and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and

do not necessarily represent those of the sponsoring organizations.

The Kingston Social Audit Process

It’s a short trip from the limousine seat to the

curb.

— former businessman, now on

social assistance in Kingston

Planning for the Kingston Social Audit began in Feb-

ruary, with a team that included Julia Bryan, Pamela

Cornell, Alice Gazeley, Tara Kainer, Elizabeth Macdon-

ald, Joanna Moon and Jamie Swift. St. Lawrence Col-

lege nursing student Cynthia Jones was invaluable in

organizing and keeping track of the schedule. The

committee arranged for a team of ‘‘rapporteurs’’ who

spent a day in late April listening to the voices of peo-

ple in poverty. The team was comprised of Sister Una

Byrne of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de

Paul, Pamela Cornell of the Thousand Islands Monthly

Meeting of Quakers, Mira Dineen, Rabbi Daniel Elkin

of Temple Beth-Israel, Rev. Mary Gibson of St.

George’s Cathedral, Craig Jones of the John Howard

Society of Canada, Tara Kainer, Pastor Mark Kotcha-

paw of the Bethel Church, journalist Ann Lukits, Rev.

Elizabeth Macdonald of Sydenham Street United

Church, Joanna Moon, author Larry Scanlan, and

Vikram Varma of the Community Foundation for

Kingston & Area.

This group divided into pairs and visited the follow-

ing organizations whose co-operation proved invalu-

able. They were generous in the use of their space and

in facilitating connections to our informants.

• Bethel Houses

• Elizabeth Fry Society

• Frontenac Community Mental Health Services

• Gathering Place

• Katarokwi Native Friendship Centre

• keys

• Kingston Community Health Centres

• Kingston Community Living

• Kingston Frontenac Public Library

• Kingston Interval House

• Kingston Literacy

• Lunch By George, St. George’s Anglican Church

• Martha’s Table

• Peers of the Roundtable

• Sydenham Street United Church Food Voucher Pro-

gram

• St. Vincent de Paul Society

• Town Homes Kingston

• Zion Seniors Complex

Special thanks to those whose generous financial

support made this publication possible: Sisters of

Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, Town Homes

Kingston, Home Base Housing, Justice and Peace

Commission (Anglican Diocese of Ontario and

Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston), Alice and Ray

Gazeley, and Sydenham Street United Church. And

also thanks to Jamie Swift for editing, Irene Casey

and Tara Kainer for proofreading, and Steve Izma for

typesetting.

Foreword

To Be Poor in Kingston Is To Be PunishedBy Lawrence Scanlan

[S]pend time in soup kitchens and it becomes

clear what the homeless need: shelter. Shelter

from their storms.

As I make my rounds of the places where the

poor of my town get free food and coffee, I have in

mind the book that James Agee and Walker Evans as-

sembled after spending a month in 1936 with poor

sharecroppers. Agee’s prose in Let Us Now Praise Fa-

mous Men is almost biblical, while Evans’s black-and-

white photographs reveal sadness, exhaustion and

hunger, and fear that tomorrow might be worse than

today. The hollow-cheeked young look as beaten as

the old.

What the two men compiled was a social audit,

and late in April, I did something similar. At the end

of my day of listening to the poor of Kingston, I won-

dered: were Evans and Agee as spent and rattled as I

was? Did the word forsaken come to them as it came

to me?

The social audit was the brainchild of isarc, the

Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition. This

spring, in 26 communities across Ontario, hundreds

of journalists, clerics and academics fanned out. In

Kingston, I went to hot lunch programs at two

churches, a drop-in for people with mental health is-

sues and a church-run halfway house.

I wished I had a photographer to capture the

faces, or a tape recorder the voices. But few would

have confided had I come waltzing in with equip-

ment; these street people had to trust me, and I had

to trust them. Were they lying to me? Maybe. But they

had no reason to lie.

* * *

M., 58, wears oversize glasses, and her hands cup a

coffee mug in the upstairs hall at St. George’s Angli-

can Church. Prescribed lsd by a psychiatrist in 1970,

she hears voices, hallucinates and craves quiet but

lives in public housing with paper-thin walls where

music blares and drugs are dealt in the small hours.

‘‘It’s the luck of the draw who your neighbours are,’’

M. tells me. ‘‘It’s getting worse and worse. I’m

numbed out.’’

When she complained about noise, neighbours

threatened, then assaulted her – twice. When they

burgled her apartment, she began to lock things in-

side. Locked boxes within locked boxes.

M. was abused as a child and hoped lsd would

help. Nope. She married a man who had also been

abused; they met at a dance and were drawn to each

other. M. entwined fingers to illustrate. When they di-

vorced in 1989, M.’s life unravelled.

M. understands the absurdity of yearning for old

age and smiles as she refers to turning 65 – meaning

better housing, discounts and an old-age pension – as

‘‘the promised land.’’

Her idea to help address her housing crisis, and it’s

a sound one, is to have government put people like

her in existing apartment buildings – maybe two or

three in a twenty-unit building. ‘‘Don’t put us all to-

gether,’’ M. pleads. ‘‘Don’t make ghettos.’’

* * *

Among the poor I interviewed, housing and health

(physical and mental) ranked one and two as pressing

issues. These people are sick of shelters, of being

robbed by their fellow poor, of ‘‘the circuit’’ – roving

from shelters to food banks to soup kitchens. You can

only stay in a shelter for about 10 days, so the poor

ride the bus to the next shelter in the next town, and

the one after that. Cattle circle when anxious; we

make the poor do the same.

I talk to three men: one was a former dj, one did

1

time in prison, one had worked on oil rigs. All had led

middle-class lives before a house fire, cancer, divorce

or other calamity.

‘‘Every day is a crisis,’’ the dj says. Cruisers stop

him on the street. Black people complain of being

routinely pulled over (dwb – Driving While Black),

but there’s also wwp – Walking While Poor.

It’s hard to disguise poverty. The giveaways are

bad teeth, lousy shoes and a backpack. Being poor

kills dignity and self-respect, never mind happiness.

But not always. One young man who blinks like

Gordie Howe is pleased with his digs: ‘‘I like what I

got. It’s nice and peaceful.’’ I’m made to wonder just

what he had before, that a room at the Fort Henry

Motel can beckon so.

A woman in a grey toque, Kelly, is 49 and has been

going to soup kitchens since she was 25. She is devel-

opmentally challenged yet strikingly articulate.

‘‘If I could help you,’’ I ask her, ‘‘what could I do?’’

‘‘Create awareness,’’ she says. ‘‘We’re living in

Third World conditions in a rich country.’’ She asked

nothing for herself, only help for her kind. This is true

generosity.

* * *

R. worked at the post office for 20 years but resigned

in 2003 after a squabble over sick leave and has been

couch-surfing and living in shelters ever since.

She is angry and bitter. ‘‘Get me an apartment,’’

she says through tears. ‘‘I go to Detox when I haven’t

been drinking just so I can have a place to stay.’’

Sometimes she steals groceries to trade for booze or

drugs to dull the pain of childhood abuse. Self-medi-

cating is a constant refrain this day.

R. feels worthless, and many nights she wonders if

not waking up in the morning would be the best

thing.

‘‘Who would miss me?’’ she asks. I have no answer.

* * *

At Sydenham Street United Church, I meet J., a car-

penter who had a very good life until he spent his sav-

ings on an experimental cancer drug that failed; this

after seven operations in 19 months. He keeps his

smile, but he finds it demeaning having to ask for ev-

erything – even soap.

M. worked as a hospital porter but lost his job,

then his wife and, effectively, his two young kids.

‘‘Things are getting worse and worse,’’ M. says. He

lived in a house with two embattled alcoholics; the

husband would smash the telephone so the wife

couldn’t call the cops. For M., there was no shelter

from the storm; the storm raged inside his so-called

shelter. What he wants and desperately needs is a

room of his own.

* * *

At the Peers of the Round Table Support on Bagot St.,

two women joke about holding the Kleenex box for

each other. It’s taken them 40 years to learn to laugh

at their depression – and their housing.

One, in a pink sweater, describes how the para-

noid tenant upstairs let the bath overflow and flooded

her out. She had gone up in her nightie to kick the

guy’s door and to tell him what’s what.

‘‘There’s no conspiracy,’’ she told him. ‘‘There

hasn’t been a conspiracy since Kennedy.’’

Poverty and mental illness go together. You’re un-

stable, so you can’t get a decent job, so you’re poor, so

you eat and sleep badly, which only depresses you fur-

ther.

* * *

Last stop are two halfway houses for men recovering

from addiction or incarceration. Bethel Church is do-

ing what government should be doing, and the two

men I talk to are as grateful as rescued dogs. The one

man had rebounded from a determined suicide try;

the other was 62-year-old Pat Kincaid – distinguished

by his blue eyes, Wild Bill Hickok hair and moustache,

and the nicotine gravel in his voice. A former biker

who spent most of his life in prison, he’d been out a

year, staying clean and sober.

What triggered this new path was the death of his

kid brother. Suddenly, his nieces and nephews needed

him. Kincaid is a reminder to all who would give up

on lost souls that no one but the ‘‘lost’’ can make that

declaration.

Neatly attired in black shirt and blue jeans, Pat

Kincaid knows that little separates ‘‘citizens’’ (like me)

from ‘‘outlaws’’ (like him). ‘‘Your wife might leave

you,’’ he says. ‘‘Your son might die.’’ One domino

could topple another, and another.

Kincaid was the brewmaster at Collins Bay Peni-

tentiary. With potato peels, ketchup, yeast from bread

and a few bags of sugar, he could make six batches of

2 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

moonshine in 24 hours. The guards would find two,

say ‘We got ‘em!’ and the lads would get pie-eyed on

the other four. ‘‘Everybody was happy,’’ Pat recalls.

‘‘Nobody shanked anybody.’’

* * *

What a day it was, of light and dark. I marvelled at

how these men and women struggled, how the small-

est kindness lifted their spirits, how some managed to

create a sense of community. Still, to be poor in this

country is to be punished; they are made to walk and

walk and walk. I was struck by how little they ask for,

how little we think of them – in every way. And these

are just the visible poor: not seen were those with

several low-paying jobs and who are one illness, one

separation, one stroke of bad luck away from this

God-awful merry-go-round.

There are powerful data to show that the homeless

and underhoused die well before their time (from

poor diet, exposure, untreated chronic illness), that

our patchwork of shelters and emergency services is

far more costly than decent subsidized housing, and

that volunteers and charities serving the poor are be-

ing stretched to the very limit. The ‘‘system,’’ dare I

call it that, is a disgrace.

Every politician should do a day-long social audit

within a month of taking office. City councilors, may-

ors, reeves, mps, mpps and mlas should all listen,

first-hand, to the poor. The first step to easing the suf-

fering is to educate those in office. Second step: put

poverty eradication on the political agenda. Hit-and-

miss charity never did cut it, and the privatization of

poverty – while cutting taxes – has come at a colossal

cost.

* * *

Lawrence Scanlan is the author of A Year of Living

Generously: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Philan-

thropy, published in 2010 by Douglas & McIntyre.

Foreword / 3

Poverty and Inequality in KingstonBy Joanna Moon

Personal Preface

The title of this short report is inspired by

something the late Robertson Davies once said about

the small city where he attended university and set

his first three novels. Kingston, observed the eminent

man of letters, was a place where ‘‘the social divisions

were as sharp as you could cut them’’ (Fetherling,

1993).

I love Kingston, warts and all. I was born here,

raised in Peterborough and came back here for my

undergraduate education. But it was during the year

after my 2009 graduation that I really fell in love. I

had spent four years in the ‘‘Queen’s Bubble,’’ a lovely,

insulated little universe. Though thankful for those

idyllic years, I am so glad that I was able to break free

of its confines to discover Kingston proper.

What I discovered about my city was both sadden-

ing and disturbing but also encouraging and com-

pelling. I discovered that my city is sharply divided

along lines of income and privilege. I discovered that

social issues have plausible solutions but those solu-

tions are not readily acted upon.

I also discovered that there are absolutely beauti-

ful people from every walk of life, that these people

have stories to tell, perspectives to share. I discovered

a myriad of organizations working hard to project the

voices of people living in poverty1 and to facilitate op-

portunities for healing our social divisions. This is the

Kingston I love.

From 2009 to 2010, aside from working as a cof-

fee shop barista, I was lucky enough to be the intern

1 Note on Terminology: I have chosen not to use the terms ‘‘the

poor’’ or ‘‘the homeless’’ because people in these situations are

not static, homogenous masses defined by their income or hous-

ing status. We can go from wealth to poverty overnight, so peo-

ple in poverty should not be classified as one big group that

needs to be treated as a project. Instead I will use terms like

‘‘people in poverty’’ or ‘‘people experiencing homelessness.’’

at Bethel Church. My focus was compassion and so-

cial justice. I set out to inform myself and my church

about the issues faced by Kingstonians, and to encour-

age learning and serving opportunities for the mem-

bers of my church. Along with Bethel pastor Mark

Kotchapaw, I helped with isarc’s Kingston social au-

dit. I also volunteered to write this report because I

believe that the stories I have heard need to be

shared. This report on Kingston’s real and perceived

social cleavage, is a synthesis of the Kingston Social

Audit findings and recent reports on poverty in

Kingston. The overarching theme is the real and per-

ceived dichotomies in Kingston. I believe that this sort

of community self-examination can help us to view

each member of our community as inherently valu-

able. Only then will we see real change.

A ‘‘Social Audit’’

On April 22, 2010, a dozen Kingstonians, in-

cluding community and faith leaders, fanned out

across the city to take the pulse of that part of our

community that is generally voiceless. We spoke

with low-income people where they live and where

they go to seek help from Kingston’s array of volun-

tary services. This ‘‘social audit’’ was part of a prov-

ince-wide effort organized by the Interfaith Social

Assistance Reform Coalition (isarc). We applaud

the courage of the people who spoke with us. Be-

cause of the stigma they face, their participation is

all the more appreciated. The names that appear in

the following pages have been changed, unless the

participant gave us permission to use their real

name.

isarc began its social justice work in 1986, born

out of the hope that faith groups could contribute to

new public policies based upon greater justice and

dignity for Ontarians marginalized by poverty. Over

the following 24 years, isarc facilitated four sets of

4

community consultations. It published the results in

1990, 1998, 2003 and now in 2010.

Back in 1998 the atmosphere in Ontario had been

so poisoned by poor bashing and punitive attitudes

that many were afraid to speak up at public hearings.

In 2003 isarc decided that all future audits would

use the ‘‘United Nations Human Rapporteur’’ model

(see details at www.isarc.ca). This model was used in

oppressive countries, with hearings generally held

where people were accustomed to gather. Media were

not invited: government was not notified. This en-

sured safety and confidentiality.

Thankfully, fear was not as evident in the 2010 is-

arc Social Audit as it was in 1998 and 2003. But peo-

ple still felt more comfortable speaking when they

knew that confidentiality would be maintained.

Kingston was one of 26 communities to participate

in the 2010 Social Audit. The organizations and indi-

viduals contributing to the Kingston social audit are

outlined in Appendix A.

A City Divided

Kingston was first settled by Europeans as a military

and trading post. Fort Frontenac’s remains still sit

near the mouth of the Cataraqui River, overlooked by

the early nineteenth-century Fort Henry across the

river at the strategic juncture of Lake Ontario and the

St. Lawrence. While the city continued as an impor-

tant military centre, its primary role evolved over the

years. Commercial port, marine service, prison capi-

tal, administrative centre.

During the Second World War, Kingston became

an industrial centre, with the building of the DuPont

and Alcan plants. It has since developed into an insti-

tutional town, driven by the service and tourism in-

dustries. Kingston is home to three major post-sec-

ondary institutions, a major military base (the largest

employer), two hospitals and nine jails. The pic-

turesque downtown attracts thousands of tourists

who take in the lovely waterfront, quaint shops and

fine dining. However, Kingston has always been ‘‘a

town fractured along class lines’’ (Swift, 1995). The

main street, Princess Street, has traditionally been the

dividing line between the ‘‘haves’’ and ‘‘have-nots.’’

Originally, people would drift in from the poor farm-

land north of the city, and congregate in the north

end. They were joined by the families of prisoners.

In the 1960s, middle-class districts resisted the de-

velopment of public housing in their neighbourhoods,

though the consensus was that the city desperately

needed it. Calvin Park residents strongly opposed the

proposal for 112 public housing units, with one angry

resident going so far as to suggest that the proposal

implied ‘‘substandard housing for substandard peo-

ple.’’ Although North End residents also objected to a

proposal to build 300 units in Rideau Heights, they

held less political sway than the mostly well-educated

and wealthy residents of Calvin Park (Harris, 1988).

The proposal eventually went through, resulting in

the continued ghettoization of the North End, where

600 units were built. As North End residents feared,

the construction work was substandard, the buildings

isolated from major commercial centres with few ser-

vices available to residents (Harris, 1988). In 1973, a

North End resident and mother on social assistance

explained the ghettoization this way:

‘‘South of Princess one finds the waterfront parks,

historic buildings, suburbs, shopping facilities, univer-

sity grounds, medical facilities, single-family

dwellings, private clubs, expensive high rises and cul-

tural activities. North of Princess there is a waterfront

cluttered with industrial debris, oil storage tanks, rail

lines, coal piles and the city dump. The general area

lacks planning, has inadequate parklands, ugly ill-fit-

ting new apartments, sub-standard housing, less than

imaginative schools, no concentrated shopping area,

strip development, antiquated sewers, and generally

speaking a ‘seedy look’ ’’ (Spark, 1973).

By the early 1990s the pattern of poverty was

shifting. When the recession hit that year, many peo-

ple found themselves out of a job. Welfare recipients

were becoming scattered across town. The North End

nearest to downtown was rapidly becoming gentri-

fied. And although Princess Street is no longer such a

clear geographical boundary, the city is still very

much divided. Robertson Davies’s assessment of

Kingston’s class divides is still painfully true – they re-

main as sharp as you could cut them. The average in-

come of the most affluent area of town is $161,000,

while the average income a few blocks away is

$39,000 (City of Kingston Planning and Development

Department, 2006).

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 5

A Safety Net Or Sticky Web?

Poverty – and the problems faced by people caught up

in its tangled web – are complex, the problems inter-

related. During my year as an intern and particularly

when working on the Social Audit, I asked ‘‘What do

you think is the biggest issue facing people in

poverty?’’ The most basic answer was ‘‘Well, a lack of

money!’’ This is, of course, the definition of material

poverty, and all of the other answers that I received

somehow lead to or stem from it. The stories we

heard on April 22, 2010, show clearly that poverty is

not a simple equation, the outcome of a specific set of

decisions. Nor is it the cause of an inevitable fate. The

maddening part of the poverty web is that one issue

tends to lead to another, which leads to another,

which leads back to the original issue.

One example that is far too common is the denture

scenario. Someone is unemployed, on social assis-

tance and has terrible teeth from years of inadequate

dental care. The government will pay to have teeth

extracted but not pay for dentures. This person would

like to return to the workforce but would need den-

tures before anyone would seriously consider hiring

them.

The ‘‘working poor’’ almost never receive benefits,

which means that any dental work they need must be

paid out-of-pocket. While dental care for people on

social assistance has improved in the last six or seven

years, with budget increases for Ontario Works (ow,

the basic welfare system) recipients from $75 to $600

per adult per year, this still does not cover dentures. It

does nothing for prevention, only urgent care. Rick,

interviewed at Kingston Literacy, is a 48-year-old man

who has struggled with drugs and crime and now

lives on the Ontario Disability Support Program

(odsp, with benefits higher than ow). He is hoping

to find work doing construction, but he, along with

Tanya from Martha’s Table and Donna from Kingston

Literacy, knows that he must first fix his teeth. The

Kingston Community Health Centre hears from peo-

ple who have not eaten solid food in years because

they have no teeth. Dental health was ranked as the

worst service in North Kingston neighbourhoods

(Melles & Cleary, 2010). Most dentists in Kingston

have reached their required quota of osdp recipients.

Tanya added that Kingston is a difficult city for

people who do not have a higher education, saying

that there are too many institutions and a lot of what

she called ‘‘inbreeding,’’ what academic specialists call

‘‘internal labour markets.’’ By this she means that if

you don’t have good connections, you’re going to

have a hard time getting a job.

Since the 1990s there has been an increasing di-

chotomy in Kingston between skilled and unskilled

labourers, creating a dual-labour market containing

‘‘the kind of people who work selling hamburgers at

McDonald’s on the one hand and the university peo-

ple on the other, with not much in between’’ (Swift,

1995). The two largest labour force groups in

Kingston are those in the highest bracket ($60,000+)

and those earning minimum wage (Mayor’s Task

Force, 2007).

While there are all kinds of reasons that people

end up struggling with a low income, the most imme-

diately apparent factors are low-wage jobs and inade-

quate social assistance.

The elephant in the room during virtually every

discussion of poverty in Kingston is inequality – the

glaring gap between the privileged and the poor. The

basic annual tuition at Kings Town School, one of the

city’s many small private schools, is $8,360. That is

well above the $7425 annual income for a single per-

son on Ontario Works.

While this is one example of the glaring di-

chotomies that exist within Kingston, social assistance

rates have dropped dramatically since 1992. The rates

for ow and odsp have plummeted by 36 per cent and

20 per cent respectively, leaving most recipients be-

low the poverty line, however defined (National

Council of Welfare, 2010). In 2009, 13.4 per cent of

Kingstonians lived below the Low Income Cut Off

(lico). Eight out of ten were ow/odsp recipients

(United Way, 2009). There was a 1 per cent increase

to Social Assistance rates in 2010 – unlikely to make a

significant difference in the lives of people on social

assistance.

Even applying for social assistance is onerous,

punitive and humiliating. You need to prove that you

have lost everything and have virtually no assets.

Rather than helping people to get by in a tight spot,

our social assistance system requires that you hit rock

bottom, and stay there.

Tammy is a single mother with social anxiety dis-

order. We met her at Town Homes Kingston. Tammy

6 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

was on social assistance after the birth of her first

child when she was 19. She managed to get off ow,

finish her education and land a good job managing

two stores downtown. However, her life crumbled a

few years later when her partner became abusive,

leaving her with social anxiety disorder, two kids and

no place to live. She explained that each time you re-

apply for ow, you need to go through an intense, hu-

miliating, hour-long phone application process before

meeting with a staff person. The authorities require

extensive documentation at the appointment, and if

you are unable to present the necessary papers, you

must return with them. Tammy would like to go back

to retail work, but finding day care for her kids out-

side regular business hours is difficult. ow will only

cover childcare from accredited providers operating

from 9–5. She does not want to lose the medication

she receives through ow, as she would never be able

to afford her prescriptions on her own. At the end of

our meeting, Tammy said that she was on her way to

an ow appointment, where she would be ‘‘assessed’’

to see if she was ready to return to work. She didn’t

know what that would entail, but wasn’t thrilled with

the idea that she may be forced to return to work

even though she is still very anxious around people

and does not have childcare for her sons. Although

she knows the system intimately, she does not trust it.

Jack Watson, a tattooed, muscular man, simmer-

ing with anger, was interviewed at Home Base Hous-

ing. Jack, like Tammy, harbours feelings of distrust to-

ward the social assistance system. He says ‘‘you apply.

You get. They forget.’’ Jack ran a successful landscap-

ing business in Oshawa, but became entangled with

drug use and lost everything. On ow, Jack struggles

to get by. He spends $386 on rent, $100 on cable/

phone, $100 on cigarettes, $100 to eat. ‘‘There’s no

haircut, no a**wipe, no razor, no hope.’’ He refers to

ow as a ‘‘cookie-cutter system’’ and is frustrated with

the bureaucracy, saying ‘‘stop the paper work; listen

to the f***ing community.’’ He feels the futile nature

of life on social assistance and uses the treadmill anal-

ogy – ‘‘it’s taking everything I have now just to stay on

it.’’ He hopes to get onto odsp, as he feels the in-

creased income would at least give him a fighting

chance. He explains how having no money puts you

outside the mainstream. ‘‘You just can’t leave your

house broke. You have to be able to get a coffee some

days. Otherwise you give up. On ow it just isn’t hap-

pening.’’

The gap between the average incomes of people

on ow and odsp is about $5000 for a single person.

Deborah, a petite, middle-aged woman we met at

Town Homes Kingston said, ‘‘There’s a big difference

between what people get on ow and what they get on

odsp. If you’re on ow, you really have to watch what

you do and what you buy. I understand that disability

is for life, but so is ow for a lot of people. I can’t

work, so I can’t improve my situation that way. And it

seems that if your illness isn’t visible, the government

won’t put you on odsp.’’

The split-level welfare system does not mean that

disabled people don’t struggle. ‘‘odsp doesn’t allow

for the many expenses associated with serious ill-

ness,’’ said Alicia, a diabetic whose late husband had

struggled with a tangle of health difficulties. ‘‘It

doesn’t cover life insurance or mortgage insurance,

and the rules don’t permit having a contingency fund

for emergencies. Even a pre-paid funeral is considered

an asset.’’

There are also quirks in the odsp system that frus-

trate and harm the people who depend on this form

of social assistance. Janice Horvath, a single mother,

explains that odsp deducts child support payments

but does not deduct income up to $200 or a gift of up

to $5,000 a year, unfairly affecting the children of sin-

gle mothers. In addition, odsp recipients are not eli-

gible for discretionary benefits, such as disconnection

fees for utilities, high chairs or new mattresses.

Kingston is one of the few Ontario municipalities

where ow recipients are eligible for these funds but

odsp recipients are not.

As difficult as it is to secure social assistance, it is

equally difficult to get off the system. The disincen-

tives to getting back into the workforce include dol-

lar-for-dollar clawbacks on paycheques and the loss of

drug cards and other benefits. The classic Catch 22 in-

volving medication and employment is that people on

ow or odsp may want to find a job, but are unlikely

to find one that would pay for the medication they

now receive free. We heard many stories of people

finding it difficult to disentangle themselves from so-

cial assistance even though they were more than will-

ing to work. People wanted to know if odsp or ow

had an interest in keeping them out of the workforce.

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 7

Another young woman named Tammy said that when

she asked for suggestions about finding a job, her ow

case worker simply shrugged and told her not to

worry about it. ‘‘I was disappointed and unimpressed

with that attitude. Isn’t it their job to help me get off

social assistance as soon as possible?’’

The apparent disconnect between those on assis-

tance and those who work is not as clear cut as it may

seem. Many people on social assistance have a strong

desire to work, and many people who never thought

that they would be on the system suddenly find them-

selves there. Jack Watson expressed this truth simply,

poignantly and from life experience – ‘‘It’s a short trip

from the limousine seat to the curb.’’

Andy Simmons (his real name) spent years help-

ing people in poverty while working for a Kingston

social agency. He highlighted the crucial issue of atti-

tudes and stereotypes: ‘‘People’s attitudes need to

change.’’ He feels that both the people on social assis-

tance and social assistance officials have to shift their

attitudes toward one another. There is a trend for

people to see case workers as auditors or inspectors,

and for case workers to think their job is to police sys-

tem cheaters. Those in need of assistance are often

looked down upon. For example, Andy said that wel-

fare workers have been known to refer to women as

smows – Single Mothers on Welfare.

Is Work Working?

Many people in poverty are employed. But jobs are of-

ten sporadic and poorly paid. Kingston’s unemploy-

ment rate increased significantly with the 2008 reces-

sion. From 2000 to 2008, local employment increased

by about 2.5 per cent per year, but from June 2008 to

June 2009 it fell by 4.7 per cent. Employment Insur-

ance beneficiaries increased by 47.5 per cent from

April 2008 to April 2009 (Coward, et al., 2009).

Education is a huge factor in determining employ-

ment opportunities and wages. But there are huge

discrepancies in education levels in Kingston. It

means a lot whether you can send your children to

Kings Town School or whether they attend Frontenac

Public School on Cowdy Street, where many children

depend on charity breakfast programs. And those

with any familiarity with the school system are aware

of the class differences between ‘‘qe’’ and ‘‘kc’’ –

Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute

and Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute.

A third of Rideau Heights residents have not fin-

ished high school, more than three times the Kingston

average (Melles & Cleary, 2010). There is a direct link

between education level and income. The average in-

come in 2005 for people with a university education

was more than double the income for people without

a high school diploma (Jackson, 2009).

Education plays another role in Kingston’s job

market. Andy Simmons is frustrated about local peo-

ple being unable to get jobs because of competition

with university students. There was a time when the

Kingston manufacturing sector offered work to young

working class people who lacked formal credentials.

That has changed. The niches traditionally filled by

Kingstonians with limited education are increasingly

inaccessible (Swift, 1995). Even for people with years

of experience in their field, such as Jack Watson with

28 years in the landscaping business, it is difficult to

compete with young, eager students.

Those Kingstonians who are able to land jobs in

the lower portion of the hourglass job market still

struggle to make a living. The ‘‘working poor’’ lack

benefits such as dental and optical care. There is an

acute lack of affordable housing and childcare. Then

there is the stress of working full time and still not

having enough money to pay the bills. Craig Jones,

Executive Director of the John Howard Society of

Canada and one of our Kingston social auditors, put it

this way: ‘‘The proliferation of the working poor –

those with full-time jobs who cannot meet the basic

necessities of life – is surely one of the most damning

indictments of contemporary capitalism.’’

The difficulties faced by Kingstonians looking for

employment that provides a living wage are rooted in

issues that are also encountered by other Canadians.

Unionization rates are linked to poverty rates. Coun-

tries with the highest unionization rates have the low-

est poverty rates, and vice versa. Canada is among the

countries with low unionization rates and relatively

high poverty rates (Raphael, 2010). Only 28 per cent

of workers in Ontario are unionized, which leaves the

majority of workers without a collective voice in ev-

erything from bargaining for better wages to enforc-

ing labour standards (Gellatly, 2010).

Labour standards cover wages, working condi-

8 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

tions, hours, vacations and so on. They are meant to

provide a minimum set of working conditions to allow

people to live decent lives. But these standards have

been deteriorating over the last three decades as a re-

sult of labour market deregulation. The Ontario gov-

ernment has inadequately funded enforcement of the

Employment Standards Act. Employers often deny

their employees basic benefits, sick pay, overtime pay

or pensions. However, rising unemployment makes it

difficult for people to leave substandard jobs (Gellatly,

2010).

Another root cause of the proliferation of the

working poor is an inadequate minimum wage. On-

tario’s minimum wage is the highest in Canada at

$10.25 per hour. Yet a single mother in Kingston with

one child, working full time at a minimum wage job,

would be earning $19,792 annually, nearly $4000 be-

low the Statistics Canada poverty line for a medium-

size city.

The difficulties of the working poor also cause ten-

sions between this group and those on social assis-

tance. Andy Simmons suggests that ‘‘the lower middle

class is the poor’s worst enemy because they are just

making ends meet and resent having to pay into so-

cial services such as welfare.’’

That’s why it’s crucial to address poverty and in-

come inequality. One way to close the widening gap is

through a living wage. While the minimum wage in

Ontario is the highest in Canada at $10.25 an hour, a

person working at full time hours over a year is still

left with an income that falls short of the poverty line.

A living wage, on the other hand, is set by cities and

attempts to match wages to the actual costs of living

in a particular municipality. In April of this year New

Westminster, B.C. passed a living wage by-law, the

first of many cities across the country working to

achieve a living wage.

In 2010 the Kingston Community Roundtable on

Poverty Reduction partnered with the Kingston & Dis-

trict Labour Council to introduce a living wage in

Kingston. A municipal by-law would set a wage

‘‘floor’’ above the minimum wage for workers who

work directly for the city, for firms that receive con-

tracts from the city and for firms that receive eco-

nomic development money from the city.

A Roof Overhead?

When asked ‘‘If you could change one thing to im-

prove the lives of people living in North Kingston,

what would it be?’’ the number one response from

people living there was to improve the quality and af-

fordability of housing (Melles & Cleary, 2010).2 In-

deed, affordable housing has long been an important

topic in Kingston politics, resurfacing in 2010 when

the federal government offered to sell land in Bar-

riefield to the City for a dollar, provided that it was

used for affordable housing. Many of the upper mid-

dle-class residents of Barriefield, on the east side of

the causeway, organized vociferous opposition to hav-

ing affordable housing built in their neighbourhood,

fervently denying that their objections had anything

whatsoever to do with social class. Affordable housing

advocates pushed back with equal vigour. The result

was bitter recrimination and yet another setback for

affordable housing in Kingston. The controversy re-

calls the ugly memories of the 1960s public housing

debates that reflected Kingston’s persistent social

cleavages, ‘‘as sharp as you could cut them.’’

Ontario has not had its own affordable housing

strategy for nearly two decades. Ottawa downloaded

affordable housing to the provinces in 1996, and two

years later the provincial government followed suit by

downloading the responsibility to municipalities – the

level of government with the least capacity to support

this expensive undertaking. The capacity to finance,

design and implement effective housing initiatives has

been dramatically eroded (Wellesly Institute, 2010).

One in two Kingston tenants spends over 30 per

cent of their income on housing and are therefore

technically at risk for homelessness. This is double the

national average (United Way, 2009). One in five

Kingstonians pays more than half of their income on

housing. We spoke with Dave, 34, at The Salvation

Army Gathering Place. He struggles with paranoid

schizophrenia and depression and spends two-thirds

2 North Kingston is not synonymous with ‘‘Rideau Heights,’’ the

stereotypical north end neighbourhood. Five neighbourhoods

comprise North Kingston – Inner Harbour, Williamsville,

Kingscourt, Markers Acre and Rideau Heights. While Rideau

Heights is the neighbourhood with the lowest average incomes,

education levels and labour force participation rates, residents

of the North End as a whole emphasized the need for more af-

fordable and adequate housing (Melles & Cleary, 2010).

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 9

of his odsp cheque on rent. He would like to have

more money available for his daily expenses, insisting

that he is ‘‘not speaking from greed. Hey, I’ve got a

roof over my head. I’m living as a responsible adult.

But if someone is paying rent, shouldn’t the govern-

ment be more supportive?’’

In 2009, Kingston had Ontario’s highest rental cost

($1,327) for a three-bedroom apartment (United Way,

2009). Julia spoke to us at Kingston Literacy and veri-

fied this alarming statistic from her own experience.

She says that ‘‘rent here is horrible. You can’t get a

three-bedroom for less than $1,200, up from about

$750 three years ago.’’ This 22-year-old woman is ex-

pecting her second child. Five hundred dollars will be

deducted from her monthly ow cheque when she

gives birth because she will no longer be considered a

single parent. (She’d been a single mother.) She and

her partner are on a two-year waiting list for a three-

bedroom unit with Kingston Housing, but in the

meantime are paying $725 plus electricity for a two-

bedroom apartment. While heat is included, her

daughter’s tiny bedroom is always overheated, and

the living room is usually too cold.

It is difficult to get accurate numbers of homeless

people in Kingston because not everyone without a

home ends up in a shelter. Many find themselves

couch surfing or staying in motels. However, it is

known that shelter use has increased recently, with

service providers agreeing that couch surfers may well

outnumber shelter users (United Way, 2009). In 2009

there were 83 beds available in six homeless shelters

that are increasingly busy during the winter months.

While shelters do their best, overcrowded facilities are

not good places for people to live, especially when

they struggle with mental and/or physical ailments.

During the 2003 Kingston Social Audit, rapporteurs

heard the story of a man with terminal cancer who

went to the hospital several times a week for treat-

ments, returning ‘‘home’’ to the shelter where he al-

most certainly died on one of the plastic mattresses

on the basement floor (Justice & Peace Office, 2003).

The waiting lists for affordable housing in

Kingston are absurdly long, always hovering around

1,000 applicants. Wait times for families are between

six and twenty-four months, two years for seniors and

four or more years for single people (United Way,

2009). At Kingston Literacy we met Wendy, 39. She

recently moved out of an apartment that was full of

mould and vermin and is now living in a more expen-

sive apartment. Because she is unsure that she will be

able to pay the utilities that are not included in her

rent, she has applied for subsidized housing. She

learned that she may have to wait six years for a one-

bedroom apartment.

Housing affordability has also been affected by in-

creasing energy costs, up 50 per cent over the past 10

years. Rents have also risen faster than inflation,

while tenant incomes have virtually stagnated

(Wellesley Institute, 2010). The presence of university

and college students in Kingston also has a direct im-

pact on the affordable housing situation. Students, es-

pecially from an elite institution like Queen’s, can af-

ford exorbitant prices for housing and landlords are

eager to rent to them rather than to people in poverty.

Te n a n t s fortunate enough to get into affordable

housing in Kingston know how lucky they are. ‘‘Home

Base Housing is a big-time godsend. Having these sup-

port workers is unbeatable. There’s a lot more of them

needed all over the place. I’m just glad and thankful

that they’re here,’’ said Jack Watson. Others we talked

with, including a middle-aged woman who emigrated

from Iran eight years ago, were grateful to Town

Homes Kingston. Deborah, a single mother living in

rent-geared-to-income housing, explained that it has

‘‘helped a lot to live in affordable housing. People [on

Ontario Works] can’t survive if they’re paying high rent.

They have to choose between one thing and another.

Wi t h my housing, my rent is low and I have enough

money left over to buy food and pay other expenses.’’

In 2007 the City of Kingston received $6.62 mil-

lion from the province of Ontario to be used for af-

fordable housing. Of this grant, $500,000 was allo-

cated to emergency shelters, $920,000 was allocated

to the Social Housing Capital Reserve Fund for unex-

pected capital costs, and the rest was set aside for the

creation of new affordable housing. Twenty-three

units were approved, with a price tag of nearly $2.5

million.3

3 Thirteen of these units are Interval House transitional housing

units, nine are associated with the John Howard Society and

are located on Montreal Street, and the final unit is located at

the Cataraqui Co-op on Elliott Ave. Decisions will be made by

the City Councillors about how to use the remaining funds

(about $3.2 million). There are a number of projects vying for

10 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

Conditions in some private housing units can be

abysmal. Joan, a good-natured, 28-year-old woman

we met at Community Living Kingston, has serious

breathing problems that are exacerbated by the

mould in her apartment. When the landlord ignored

her complaints, she called the City’s Property Stan-

dards officials and her landlord was ordered to clean

the mould. It never happened. Others spoke about

drafty windows that required heating to be left on,

which increased humidity and the growth of mould.

People living in poverty are not always aware of

their rights, and many lack the self-confidence to as-

sert them. Yet housing standards regulations tend to

be complaint-driven. And, as Joan’s experience re-

veals, they are not always effective. Gabrielle, who we

met at the Central Library, described a culture of fear

that affects relations between landlords and people

living in poverty. She lives in a small, two-bedroom

apartment with rotting window frames. Her winter

heating bills are unnecessarily high, but like many

other tenants, she does not dare complain to Property

Standards for fear of landlord retaliation. Mandatory

inspections from the City might fix these issues, but

municipalities lack the resources and, often, the polit-

ical will to take on entrenched interests.

Realtors talk of ‘‘location, location, location.’’ But

those who live in stigmatized districts know that this

cuts both ways. Kingston’s North End has always been

where people in poverty have tended to live. This

ghettoization was re-enforced in the 1960s when resi-

dents of more affluent neighbourhoods resisted the

construction of subsidized housing in ‘‘their’’ districts.

So big public housing projects went up in what be-

came known as Rideau Heights. It seems that middle/

upper class neighbourhoods fear subsidized housing,

assuming that people in poverty all behave in obnox-

ious ways. Could it not be that people in poverty can-

not afford to move away from those who do cause

disturbances? Tellingly, more than half of the people

interviewed for a 2010 community needs assessment

for North Kingston said that they would live some-

these funds, but three of the four projects under consideration

have budgets that are larger than the available $3.2 million, in-

cluding the Barriefield project. An additional 260 units have

been completed or are under construction, funded by the Af-

fordable Housing Plan, a provincial initiative (correspondence

with Jim de Hoop, July 2010).

where else if they had the choice (Melles & Cleary,

2010).

People who live in the five neighbourhoods that

make up North Kingston account for 20 per cent of

the population of Kingston. There is a wide range of

average incomes and educational backgrounds, but

the average income is 22 per cent lower than the city

average. (Melles & Cleary, 2010). The gap between

the average income in the Heights to the next poorest

area is $14,000 year, with 35 per cent of people in the

Heights living in poverty.

Ghettoization is reinforced by a lack of transporta-

tion, employment opportunities and services. Andy

Simmons describes a typical story. A single North End

mother who drops her children off at school would

then have to spend 45 minutes getting to a potential

workplace – if she could find work. Just having a

North End address can be a problem. Andy described

an experiment in which researchers distributed a hun-

dred identical resumes to fast food restaurants. Half

had a North End address, half had a West End

Bayridge address. All 24 callbacks were to the

Bayridge address.

More mixed-income housing would help. Joanne,

interviewed at Town Homes Kingston, said that the

stigma associated with living in ‘‘a project’’ disappears

when one lives in mixed income housing. Indeed,

stigma and stereotyping emerged throughout the So-

cial Audit as important issues confronting people liv-

ing in poverty. Uninformed assumptions are harmful

and unfair.

A Glaring Paradox: Hunger in the Midst of

Plenty

Year after year, the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox &

Addington Public Health Unit publishes figures on

what it costs to eat a healthy diet in the area. And,

year after year, the figures show the same result. It is

clearly impossible to have a basic, healthy diet on so-

cial assistance. This is especially true for ‘‘single per-

sons considered employable.’’ But it’s also true for a

family of four in which the breadwinner works full

time at a minimum wage job.4 Given the high costs of

4 Full time work is becoming harder to find. Today’s labour mar-

ket is increasingly characterized by ‘‘contingent’’ – part time, ca-

sual, contract, temporary – work

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 11

renting a three bedroom apartment (an unaffordable

47 per cent of income) and after budgeting for a

healthy diet, the family has $485 left to pay for all

other expenses – transportation, clothing, telephone,

web access, childcare, household and personal care

items from toilet paper to toothpaste, entertainment

and so on (kfl&a, 2009)

Tammy confirmed these findings, explaining that

her social assistance income means that she needs to

go to the food bank. One can only get food from

Kingston’s main food bank once a month, so she also

goes to the Salvation Army. However, none of the

available food services offer food that is suitable for

bag lunches for her boys at school, and allergy needs

receive little attention.

According to the 2009 Report Card on Hunger, the

Partners in Mission Food Bank saw a 35 per cent in-

crease in new clients that year. Lunch by George, the

St. George’s Cathedral’s meal program, served 24 per

cent more meals in 2009 than in 2008. Martha’s Table

served about 315 more meals per month than in

2008. The Food Sharing Project, providing nutritious

meals and snacks to school children, added five new

schools to their program, feeding roughly 3,800 chil-

dren each day (Food Providers Networking Group,

2009). Given the significant increases in new food

bank and meal provider clients, it is clear that the di-

vision between those who use food provision services

and those who don’t is a false dichotomy. In the wake

of the recession, many people who used to donate to

the food bank are now relying on it.

People panhandling on the streets of downtown

Kingston are often assumed to be homeless. Many do

in fact have their own places but are unable to afford

rent and adequate food. While some coin-droppers

may feel duped when they discover that they are not

actually helping ‘‘the homeless,’’ it is a sad truth that

people leave home in the morning and spend time on

the streets before buying groceries. Food banks and

meal providers are available, but some do not feel

comfortable in those settings, preferring to buy their

own food even if it costs them their dignity. Either

choice involves the sacrifice of some dignity.

Ontario’s Ministry of Community and Social Ser-

vices established a Special Diet Allowance (sda) to

assist people who need particular foods due to health

conditions. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

(ocap) argued that since social assistance rates are

insufficient to provide a healthy diet, all recipients are

virtually guaranteed to be malnourished and should,

therefore, be eligible for the sda. With the help of

sympathetic health professionals, about 20 per cent of

social assistance recipients soon qualified for the sda.

However, instead of seeing this sudden increase in

sda recipients as an investment in preventive health

care, the government discontinued the program. Peo-

ple receiving the sda at the time of cancellation may

be ineligible for a promised new program . . . should

one be initiated.

A Universal Health Care System, But Not

Universal Health

One crucial consequence of living in poverty is high

levels of stress and anxiety. One can only imagine the

stress associated with constant financial insecurity,

the struggle to find your next meal or the inability to

provide for your children. Nearly half (44.2 per cent)

of people interviewed for the North Kingston assess-

ment said they were stressed frequently or very often

(Melles & Cleary, 2010). Poverty leads to depression

and loneliness and, sometimes, anger.

‘‘We were made to get along, to be together, and

it’s a truth that’s medically attested,’’ writes Kingston

author Steven Heighton in his 2010 novel Every Lost

Country. ‘‘Love and dance and connection strengthen

every bodily system, while isolation, rage and sadness

poison them with cortisol.’’

Research shows that prolonged stress greatly in-

creases the production of cortisol (or hydrocortisone),

which damages the immune system and various or-

gans. This leads to a myriad of health issues that of-

ten land people in the Emergency Room. Along with

these physical realities, there are psychosocial expla-

nations for the effect of poverty on stress. Many well-

controlled studies have shown that low social status,

lack of friends and early life trauma are key contribu-

tors to stress that erodes health (Wilkinson & Pickett,

2009).

Stress is also closely related to depression, often

with debilitating results. Anita was interviewed at the

Kingston Central Library. She lives in subsidized hous-

ing, loves to sing and play her recorder, and uses a

motorized wheelchair. This became necessary after

prescription drugs negatively affected her mobility –

12 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

she was first prescribed anti-depressants when she

was eleven years old.

People living in poverty lack the resources to deal

with the multiple health problems they so often face.

They are discharged from the hospital with little fol-

low-up care and no money to buy prescribed medica-

tion. Chronic illnesses like diabetes or high blood

pressure are difficult to deal with at the best of times.

Health care within shelters is a particularly grim issue

because shelter workers lack training to deal with

dialysis, post-amputation care or clients refusing care

for mental illnesses.

Most people who shared their stories during

Kingston’s Social Audit struggle with poor health.

Their ailments ranged from Sandy’s food allergies,

hormone imbalance and depression, to Bill’s cancer,

to Colleen’s diabetes. Poor health among poor people

is a clear example of the web-like nature of poverty.

One problem leads to another, which leads to another,

which leads back to the original issue. It is hardly sur-

prising that inadequate housing and food, coupled

with a lack of benefits and drug coverage, lead to

poor health outcomes. It also makes perfect and sad-

dening sense that unhealthy people are less able to

work at steady jobs.

These trends are confirmed by the findings of the

North Kingston Community needs assessment. Only

about a third of the people interviewed for the assess-

ment ranked their physical and mental health as good

or excellent, well under the national rates of 60 per

cent (physical) and 75 per cent (mental). More than a

third ranked their dental health as poor. Smoking

rates were more than double the national average,

and almost 60 per cent of people interviewed were

being treated for a chronic illness. Of that, 60 per

cent, about two-thirds, were being treated for a men-

tal health concern (Melles & Cleary, 2010).

Kingston Community Health Centre staff explain

that we need to focus on community-based preventive

care. Juanita, a single mom who would really like to

return to work, needs her ow drug card for anxiety

medication. She feels that every Canadian should be

eligible for a drug and dental plan if their income is

below a certain level. This seems fair, does it not?

Prison Town

One of the unique characteristics of Kingston is the

concentration of federal penitentiaries. Kingston has

nine prisons and approximately 2,600 inmates. But

Kingston’s only half-way house was recently shut

down after a spasm of not-in-my-backyard neighbour-

hood revolt. Recently released people who wish to

stay in Kingston have few affordable, supportive

housing options (Scanlan, 2010). During the Social

Audit we spoke to a number of people who had spent

time in jail. These people include Corinne, inter-

viewed at the Elizabeth Fry society, and Dave inter-

viewed at The Gathering Place. Their needs are no

less pressing or important than anyone else’s, yet soci-

ety tends to treat them with disdain.

Should Ottawa succeed in implementing its so-

called ‘‘tough on crime’’ policies, Canada’s incarcera-

tion rates will increase. This will have consequences

for the re-integration of prisoners in Canada’s prison

capital, since prison is widely known to cause crime.

The culture within prisons may also worsen if the

idea of making life sentences without the chance for

parole moves forward. ‘‘Lifers’’ would have nothing to

lose and there would therefore be more violence

(Scanlan, 2010). This would negatively impact the in-

mates, causing more stress for prison staff. This will

trickle down into the wider Kingston community. For

twenty years Bridge House offered low-cost, short

term accommodation and support for women and

children visiting family members incarcerated here. It

closed in 2010.

Kingston lacks adequately funded services, pro-

grams, upgrading and training that can keep ex-pris-

oners out of prison. This problem will only increase as

the volume of inmates increases. Despite the fashion-

able emphasis on ‘‘public safety,’’ there is a deficit of

political will to help people re-integrate into the com-

munity. Moreover, when the families of inmates move

to Kingston, we can expect more pressure on already

stretched social service providers.

One of the biggest issues facing inmates and ex-

cons is the sense of judgement they feel from the rest

of society. Inside, there is ‘‘no attempt made to ac-

knowledge that these men are human beings,’’ says

Tanya Hill, a veteran of thirty years with the John

Howard Society (Scanlan, 2010). As another worker

from the society says, ‘‘no person should be defined

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 13

by his or her worst act.’’ Pat Kincaid, interviewed at

the Bethel Houses, has spent much of his life behind

bars and feels that little separates the ‘‘citizens’’ and

the ‘‘outlaws.’’ ‘‘Your wife might leave you,’’ he says.

‘‘Your son might die. You people are just like me.’’ All

it might take is for one domino to fall.

Welcome to Canada?

The Social Audit heard many stories from newcomers.

People who emigrate from their home countries and

come to Kingston often find themselves struggling

with poverty, social isolation, discrimination and a

host of other issues.

Nasreen, a petite, middle-aged woman arrived

from Iran eight years ago. She and her family left Iran

due to persecution based on their Baha’i religion, but

it soon became clear that they had exchanged reli-

gious discrimination for poverty. She says she has

found Kingston socially cold and lacking in immigrant

services. Her husband, an environmental engineer,

now works at a fast-food outlet. Nasreen sought help

from an employment agency but was told to change

her name as a solution for her difficulty in finding a

job. The stresses associated with being an immigrant

have left a permanent scar. Her son tells her that she

has become a different person since moving to

Canada. She has lowered her expectations of life and

finds it hard to rationalize the changes that have oc-

curred. Although she has an open and friendly de-

meanour, the immigration and integration process has

stolen some of her joy.

Another recent newcomer explained that health

care is not immediately available to immigrants, and

private health care is expensive. Immigrant families

sometimes just take the risk and do without insurance

for the three-month waiting period. Childcare is ex-

pensive and can be harder to obtain informally for

newcomers who often lack family or a network of

people they can count on for free childcare.

Another major issue facing immigrants is a lack of

Canadian work experience and the fact that their

qualifications often are not recognized in Canada.

There are some fast-track programs, but the majority

of available jobs are low-end, instead of allowing peo-

ple to use their expertise. According to Statistics

Canada, newcomers are more likely to be forced into

part-time jobs for which they are overqualified and

underpaid (Statistics Canada, 2009). The problem of

unfair low wages is particularly pertinent to immi-

grant women. Racialized women earn 15 per cent less

than non-racialized women workers, and a whopping

47 per cent less than non-racialized men (Block,

2010).

Attitudes towards newcomers are often hostile.

People boldly proclaim that immigrants are not wel-

come and that they are stealing jobs from Kingstoni-

ans. Immigrants often have to go to bigger cities in

order to get appropriate and adequate support and

services. This is not to say that there is a complete

lack of support in Kingston for newcomers. Immigrant

Services Kingston and Area provides invaluable ser-

vices, and immigrants are offered a wide array of edu-

cation, health and community supports, including

English conversation circles, potlucks and esl book

clubs. However, these services are most readily avail-

able to people living in the North End but are needed

all over the city.

Addiction

Addictions do not necessarily go hand-in-hand with

poverty, but the prevalence of drug use is understand-

ably higher in populations who feel the need to self-

medicate the wounds inflicted by a difficult life. Over

the last couple of years the Kingston Detoxification

Centre has seen an increase in demand for addiction

services and an increase in the length of client stays

(United Way, 2009).

The cause-and-effect relationship between poverty

and addiction is complex. Tanya, a 51-year-old

woman interviewed at Martha’s Table who is about to

become a grandmother for the first time, explained

that she ‘‘had a good upbringing’’ – she took plenty of

lessons including piano, figure skating, horseback rid-

ing, skiing and golfing, and spent her summers at

camps for ‘‘rich kids’’ and at the family cottage. How-

ever, using hard drugs in middle school and high

school led to hard drug use, with those habits escalat-

ing after her three-year marriage ended. She reached

out to her family for help but was rejected. Tanya

contracted Hepatitis C and now lives on odsp, and in

subsidized housing. When she was interviewed, she

had been clean for three-and-a-half months. Tanya’s

14 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

story seems to be a classic case of addiction leading to

a life of poverty.

On the other hand, Corinne grew up in a Toronto

social housing project and started sniffing glue and

drinking when she was 10 or 11. Drugs and alcohol

have dominated her life. She turned to hard drugs af-

ter the death of her partner of 10 years. In Corinne’s

case it seems that she hardly had a fighting chance,

having been born into an impoverished situation

where she was introduced to drug use before she hit

middle school.

According to health care providers at Street

Health, Corinne’s story is much more common than

Tanya’s. In any case, one of the most hurtful effects of

substance abuse is social stigma. We often make as-

sumptions about people caught in addiction’s down-

ward spiral. This only alienates people in need of ex-

tra support and attention. Tanya is the first to ac-

knowledge that drug use is terrible but says that ad-

dicts need more community support. ‘‘They need peo-

ple pulling them off the street and telling them they

are loved.’’

Drug and alcohol dependence are simply the most

physically harmful and least socially acceptable addic-

tions. If we are completely honest with ourselves, all

of us are addicted to something, whether it be work,

education, the approval of others or shopping. Those

who do struggle with drug and alcohol addictions

have solid services in Kingston, including Street

Health and the Ontario Harm Reduction Distribution

Program which are crucial. Without them, drug-de-

pendent people would suffer more than they already

do. However, we need to recognize that people strug-

gling with addiction need unconditional support from

their community, not rejection and disgust.

The Elephant in the Room

We don’t like to talk about inequality. Donating a jar

of peanut butter to the food bank makes us feel good.

Inequality makes us uncomfortable. That is perhaps

why reports from organizations like the United Way

and the Mayor’s Task Force politely skirt the issue. It

is, however, a reality.

Income inequality in Kingston is stark. The differ-

ence in average income between our richest and poor-

est neighbourhoods is no less than $120,000 (City of

Kingston Planning and Development Department,

2006). Ontario wide, the earnings of the richest ten

per cent of Ontario families in 1976 were 27 times

those of the poorest families. A generation later, in

2004, the richest ten per cent enjoyed earnings 75

times those of the poorest (Yalnizyan, 2007).

Wilkinson and Pickett’s 2009 book The Spirit Level:

why equality is better for everyone collates scholarly

studies showing that income inequality has a corro-

sive effect on community life and social relations.

They show remarkable correlations between inequal-

ity and levels of mental and physical health, drug use,

life expectancy, obesity, educational performance,

teenage births, violence and imprisonment. They con-

clude that ‘‘the problems in rich countries are not

caused by the society not being rich enough, but the

scale of material differences between people within

each society being too big. What matters is where we

stand in relation to others in our own society’’

(Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009).

The same principle can be applied to Kingston.

People at the bottom of the income scale are acutely

aware of their position, and it matters. Norm, inter-

viewed at the Salvation Army Gathering Place, knows

about status differences in Kingston. They help to

shape his identity. He says that if he had more money

he would buy nicer clothes and ‘‘live the way other

people do in Kingston.’’

Inequality is linked with low levels of trust and

this came across clearly during the Kingston Social

Audit. Andy Simmons stated that ‘‘poor people don’t

trust the system.’’ And the workers in the system often

don’t understand and trust their clients. They can get

burnt out if they don’t take time off and become hard-

ened toward the needs of their clients. Social Audit

participants expressed a general distrust of politicians

even though many realize that senior civil servants

run ‘‘the system.’’ People in poverty tend not to vote,

feeling that they have little political power and little

hope for real change. There’s also a lack of trust of

neighbours in the North End where people don’t call

911 for fear of revenge. Similarly, tenants often fear

landlords and are reluctant to call the City’s Property

Standards inspectors about serious health or safety is-

sues for fear of repercussions. When equality is not a

reality, we end up thinking that we are out to get each

other rather than taking care of each other.

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 15

What Is to Be Done?

‘‘It would be nice to be beyond the extent of strug-

gling to survive,’’ said Dave, from the Gathering Place.

People in poverty often aren’t asking a lot from

their community, but we really need to do better than

just allowing them to survive. Many people, like

Corinne from Elizabeth Fry, take responsibility for the

choices they made and don’t think the system owes

them anything at all. However, it is clear that the ex-

isting ‘‘system’’ is inadequate when vulnerable people

find themselves in difficult circumstances.

Kingston rapporteur Craig Jones is Executive Di-

rector of the John Howard Society of Canada. His or-

ganization works to rehabilitate and reintegrate re-

leased prisoners, many of whom come from low-in-

come backgrounds. He says that we need a ‘‘front-

loaded’’ social welfare system that equips young fami-

lies with parenting and nutrition skills to do every-

thing possible to break the cycle created by deprived

and tumultuous childhoods. Because Emergency

Room visits are so costly to a financially strapped

health care system, it would be more efficient to place

more emphasis on nurse practitioner training and

promote policies encouraging graduates to work in

the midst of disadvantaged populations, monitoring

health, acting as advocates, and alerting the wider

population to issues that affect these populations and

are likely to spread.

Our library shelves are crammed with well-re-

searched recommendations for policy change on ev-

erything from affordable housing to the labour mar-

ket effects of social assistance. Advocacy groups like

Ontario’s 25-in-5 Network for Poverty Reduction and

Campaign 2000 have, along with isarc, been pro-

moting policy change for years. We now have an On-

tario Poverty Reduction Strategy and even an Ontario

Poverty Reduction Act. The minimum wage has risen.

Social assistance benefits are still appallingly low.

It seems to me that technical solutions are cer-

tainly necessary. But at the same time are not suffi-

cient. As Miguel said at Martha’s Table, throwing

money at people isn’t enough. ‘‘It’s not about how

much money you give them. You can give them

$2,000 and they would still be in the same boat . . .

Government dishing out money isn’t enough. People

are traumatized and have deep wounds. They need

social programs but they also need one-on-one con-

tact with people who really care about them. A lot of

people never had unconditional love.’’ The whole

poverty web is very complex, and Miguel insists that

we need a profound shift in attitude. Though it may

sound romantic and naïve to some, I believe that we

need a society where people experience unconditional

love.

Stigma and stereotypes are major obstacles to this

kind of society. Craig Jones suggests that it would

help if government were to implement ‘‘aggressive

anti-stigmatization policies.’’ And change is needed at

the grass-roots level. Another of our rapporteurs,

Mark Kotchapaw, expressed it this way:

‘‘[People in poverty] do not need to just be another

budgetary item in the provincial and federal govern-

ment budgets. They do not need to be the ‘target’ of

another local organization that tosses Christmas tur-

keys and canned goods on a seasonal impulse. They

don’t need long-winded speeches made about them

and for the ‘rich’ people to pontificate about their

state. . . . They need a community with people who

can offer a hand up not just a hand out, who can be-

friend them not patronize them, who can run the

marathon with them not just dump and run.’’

Are the solutions to stigma and stereotypes top-

down and bottom-up? Maybe we need both. Maybe

we all need to realize the profound truth of what Deb-

orah said: ‘‘Not everyone can stand on their own two

feet all the time. Trying to is frustrating and upset-

ting. I don’t think poverty is anyone’s fault. It could

happen to the best of us. You can’t foresee what’s go-

ing to happen in your life. People feel that it’s their

own fault when it’s not.’’

There is good news in Kingston, where fresh initia-

tives are unfolding. The Mayor’s Task Force on

Poverty, launched in March 2007, reported seven

months later, having consulted community groups,

service providers, clients, and the public. It offered a

community action plan to address poverty (Mayor’s

Task Force, 2007). A major outcome was the forma-

tion of the Kingston Community Roundtable on

Poverty Reduction, which works to raise public aware-

ness, offer policy alternatives and set poverty reduc-

tion targets and timelines . In addition, the Social

Planning Council’s Kingston Community Profile 2009,

the United Way’s 2009 Community Plan on housing

and homelessness and the Kingston Community

16 / ‘‘As Sharp as You Could Cut Them’’

Health Centres’ 2010 community needs assessment

have all shed light on the grim situation that we saw

in our social audit. Along with this data and analysis

of needs, many organizations work tirelessly to meet

them. Throughout the Social Audit people expressed

their gratitude. The Elizabeth Fry Society, Home Base

Housing, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Harbour

Light, Martha’s Table, the Gathering Place. . . . the list

is impressive, the needs no less so.

The Mayor’s Task Force on Poverty in 2007 was

called Ready To Do Better. Even with Kingston’s won-

derful, ongoing community efforts, it is clear from the

stories we heard on April 22nd, 2010, that we still

need to do better. We need to be willing to under-

stand each others’ issues, not just in an academic way,

but in a truly empathic way. We need to be willing to

be among each other.

‘‘Being among people means being in their midst,

not outside,’’ writes Toronto social justice pastor Greg

Paul. ‘‘It means being with them, not being over them.

It means not looking away from their agony or humil-

iation, but beholding it, and having the courage to be

also wounded by their pain’’ (Paul, 2004).

Poverty and Inequality in Kingston / 17

Epilogue

‘‘It’s a Pride Thing’’By Tara Kainer

Deborah is a petite, middle-aged woman with

reddish hair, a pleasant face and a generous disposi-

tion. The purple T-shirt she’s wearing today brings out

the blue of her eyes. Despite the pain she’s in because

of recent gall bladder surgery, she smiles and breaks

into laughter easily, revealing several missing teeth. A

prominent feature is her unusually small hands,

which she uses often to push loose strands of hair

back behind her ears.

While she doesn’t dwell on the difficulties she

faces, she has educated herself about poverty and

thought carefully about its effects on the lives of oth-

ers. She hasn’t yet resolved the tension between per-

sonal responsibility and the responsibility of govern-

ments and society as a whole.

Deborah lives in a rent-geared-to-income unit at

Towns Home Kingston. She is quick to praise her non-

profit landlord. ‘‘It’s helped a lot to live in affordable

housing. People [on Ontario Works] can’t survive if

they’re paying high rent. They have to choose be-

tween one thing and another. With my housing, my

rent is low and I have enough money left over to buy

food and pay other expenses.’’

‘‘Sometimes I can’t afford what I want, but I’m

luckier than a lot of people because I have a car and

can shop at more than one place,’’ she explains,

adding that she tries to shop around for the best food

prices. ‘‘It costs a lot to take a taxi. Some bus it, but

it’s hard to lug a lot of bags around.’’

Deborah is a single mom of two children, one an

adult and the other 17 years old. She takes pride in

knowing that she’s raised them well. They are still in

school and living at home and because of her eldest’s

disability she’s still receiving income for both. While

she has many physical ailments, she was rejected the

last time she applied for the Ontario Disability Sup-

port Program.

‘‘If you’re on Ontario Works, you really have to

watch what you do and what you buy. I understand

that disability is for life, but so is Ontario Works for a

lot of people. I can’t work, so I can’t improve my situ-

ation that way. And it seems that if your illness isn’t

visible, the government won’t put you on odsp.’’

Deborah has received money from the Special Diet

Allowance and was unaware that the program had

been terminated.

‘‘Living in poverty is really hard,’’ Deborah says,

‘‘especially for women and children.’’ She feels ‘‘stuck’’

because there’s never enough money, and there are no

incentives to make any. While she knows women who

would like to work, they can’t because they can’t get,

or afford, child care.

‘‘If only the government could understand what

we’re going through, maybe they’d work harder to

make things better. Instead, they just keep cutting out

what you get. So if you work or get child support,

they just claw back your cheque. And a couple of

years ago they cut the winter clothing and back to

school allowances, which has been really hard on

people because they really depended on that money.

Now keap (Kingston Entitlement Access Program,

which returned the municipal share of the National

Child Benefit Supplement to families on assistance)

has ended. I used to get it in December so I’d have

money for Christmas.’’

When I ask if the increase in the Ontario Child

Benefit has made up for what she’s lost, Deborah

replies that the ocb is ‘‘okay.’’ And the one percent in-

crease in social assistance rates this year isn’t much,

but better than nothing. Even though she has a good

worker, she often doesn’t get what she needs. ‘‘Work-

ers pick and choose who will get things. A lot of peo-

ple who really need things won’t get them and those

who don’t really need them will.’’

18

Deborah’s belief that some people on assistance

are dishonest and play the system, surfaces through-

out our conversation. At the same time she doesn’t

blame anybody for doing what they have to in order

to survive.

Deborah says she is grateful for the agencies that

help the poor, but many don’t know about them. She

thinks welfare workers should do a better job of shar-

ing information and making their clients aware of

what benefits they can get and where else they can go

for help.

‘‘A lot of people don’t like to ask for help, so they

won’t. Many don’t want anyone to know that they’re

having a difficult time.’’ When she’s short of food,

Deborah will use the food bank but will not go to

meal programs. ‘‘I prefer to do things on my own if I

can. It’s a pride thing.’’

Volunteering at the Salvation Army has helped

Deborah put her own problems into perspective: ‘‘Be-

cause of my volunteer work, I know I’m better off

than most,’’ she says emphatically. She also appreci-

ates the sense of purpose she feels when helping oth-

ers. She has also discovered a support group. ‘‘When

I’m feeling like I’m the only one struggling, I think of

my support group. We’re all pretty much in the same

boat. Knowing that helps me get through.’’

A common thread runs through our conversation:

Governments don’t listen to the poor, know what

they’re feeling, or understand the predicament they’re

in. ‘‘People and the government need to work to-

gether. They need to talk to us and get more knowl-

edge. Why don’t they talk to people at rallies and

demonstrations? We’re not out there for the fresh air.

If they’d ask why we’re there, at least we’d feel like

we’re being heard.’’

Deborah has one idea about what government

could do if it felt so inclined. ‘‘More housing. There

need to be more options for people so they don’t end

up in shelters or on the street. They always build

places that cost too much and people can’t afford to

live in them.’’

She has hopes that some year in the future things

will get better. ‘‘What we can do is voice our concerns

and keep pushing the government to do something. I

hope they realize poverty isn’t something you can

sweep under the carpet. The problems will only get

worse, there will be no hope of a cure, and they’ll

throw their hands up and say you’re on your own. We

have to keep trying, we can’t give up. If we do, then

they win.’’

Epilogue / 19

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‘‘As Sharp as YouCould Cut Them’’

Poverty& Inequalityin Kingston

Joanna Moon