Here's A Letter Sent To Us From A Woman Whose Sisters Could Soon Be Homeless In Peterborough
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 1:19PM The letter is unedited. Here it is in its entirety...
Back in December the furnace stopped working in the apartment my 2 sisters rent. One sister has a part time job that she struggles to get hours at, and was recently laid off from the second job she had. The other sister is on assistance as she has a disorder that doesn't allow her to work.
They told the landlord about the furnace and he did not fix the problem. At Christmas time it was 13 degrees in that apartment in the morning on a good day. Due to the landlord not fixing the furnace, they had to spend the little money they had between them for the month on space heaters and bills and did not feel obligated to pay the rent, since the Landlord Tenant Act states the landlord must provide certain vital services and the provisioning for heat is one.
When the hydro bills for December and January came in, as you can imagine, they were large, too large for 2 young struggling girls. They were unable to pay the bills on time, didn't know they could call and make payment arrangements, and the hydro was cut off.
When my younger sister called her assistance worker, she was told they couldn't help her because the bills were in my working sisters name. They gave her a number to call the Housing Resource Centre. So, my working sister called them and had to leave a message. They returned her call later that afternoon and asked her some questions about her situation and her work situation. As soon as she told them how much money she had made in the last 4 weeks, which was around 260.00 they told her she did not make enough money for them to be able to assist her?!?! To out astonishment she was TOO POOR to receive help from the people we were told could help her with emergency funding.
My sisters are in the process of filing a T2 abatement of rent and moving out of that apartment. My working sister was forced to file for assistance, she is not happy about it either. The hydro has been re-connected now and they are leaving.
My concern is, how was she too poor to receive help in her situation? She works and contributes to this community as much as possible. She certainly still has to pay taxes that go towards these community programs right? Never has any run-ins with the law....how? Why?
Why was she literally forced to file for assistance? Left with no other options or people who would help those girls for a month to figure out the situation? It makes me very disappointed in this Community.
She is working hard to find more work and to get out of a bad situation, it would have been nice for the Housing Resource Centre to not turn their backs on her.
Thanks for listening, please help me make people aware of this horrible situation.
*Also, just so you know, Welfare only pays my sick sister 595.00 a month. If you think about that, that is supposed to cover rent/housing, heat/hydro, and food/hygene items for one person each month. Welfare will only allow 368.00 each month for payment towards rent, that leaves 227 a month to pay for heat (enbridge), hydro (PUC) and buy groceries. When the heat and hydro average payments are factored in, she received $2.90 a day to spend on food/hygene. Is it just me or does anyone see a problem here?? Welfare told her she needs to find a more affordable apartment....anyone have an apartment she can rent for less than $200 a month?
—Samantha Payne
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Housing Resource Centre, Samantha Payne in Economy, Education, Health, Home, Housing
Reader Comments (5)
Samantha, what is the landlord's name?
I would rather not call out the landlord publicly until I know the status of the girls T2 and if he can be charged for not providing the provision for heat for over a month.
SHAME! It is very sad that slum-lords in this city get away with charging so much for their apartments. It is also very sad that people living on assistance/welfare get treated so poorly. Until we all stand up for each other and demand our rights, nothing will be done.
Write a letter to your city Councillor and to Jeff Leal and Dean Del Mastro! It is their job to fight for the rights of their constitutes.
It is terrible that there are landlords such as your sisters in our community! I hope that there is something that can be done to get the landlord to be responsible for provide the services needed. It does sounds like it would be a good idea for your sister to get welfare assistance as she is not making much even though she is working- that's what it is there for. I hope it all works out for them.
OW needs to get off their asses and actually inspect living spaces for people who are applying. This would not only help people get the assistance they actually need, but could maybe help with the trend of OW funding drug dealers in this town. I have been in this town for years and as a marijuana smoker, I have been to some pretty shady spots to get my herb when I cant find from my trusted friends. 99% of the time its an individual or couple who are on assistance, scamming OW most of the time for more money, and not doing a damned thing to contribute. I see people and families playing by the book nonstop, and getting screwed over all the time, but the scammers get everything they need. If these social workers would actually do something productive and go to the homes of people they are supporting they could monitor things and see what people are doing with the money.
OW needs to wake up and stop funding lazy drug dealers and start giving the money to people who ACTUALLY deserve it.