April: when everything changes

[orthodoc]

@Dana - Thank you for explaining further. As always, you shed light on the subtleties of the situation.

Not being allowed to rent out a spare room, and yet facing a tax (or eviction) for having a spare room, makes no sense. Especially where a child is sharing time between two households. That is frankly insane, and I agree with you on that. In PA, people on disability are permitted to share housing. Marriage is a disadvantage because the non-disabled spouse is expected to support the disabled spouse, and benefits are cut. But sharing of housing is virtually required unless there's significant SSDI (disability benefits related to years of previous work). If someone becomes (or has always been) disabled at a young age, without much work experience, SSI benefits are utterly inadequate to manage independently.

From what you've said, I take it that the government is trying to evict those with spare rooms and move overcrowded families into those houses? Is there any attempt to move the smaller families into the previously overcrowded housing? (I know this only addresses the issue of homelessness and not the issues of uprooting longtime, possibly disabled tenants, or having children change schools, etc. - all of which are important issues.)

I do understand your point regarding entire areas becoming inaccessible to people with lower incomes. I'm not advocating that extreme; my concern has been the difficulty faced by long-term lower-income residents of a city like Toronto who find themselves increasingly unable to meet the property and school tax burden (if owners) or rent increases. These families are forced to move to smaller cities or towns. It creates resentment and, I think can fairly be said, an injustice, that, after losing their homes of 30+ years, they are required to support others who are new to the city in living where they had their lives, their neighborhoods, their memories.

I know change is inevitable. It's also painful to those who don't have a choice, and in this I completely sympathize, no matter who it is.

I also appreciate your comment that many cuts and changes are coming to bear all at once. That makes for a very different picture. I hate, especially, to think that benefits for caregivers are being cut. That has to be the most short-sighted, inhumane policy possible.