Social Planning Council of Toronto plans to launch a campaign to increase funding to community programs

After the Oct. 27 election, the non-profits will try convincing Torontonians the city’s $50 million in annual grants supporting thousands of their community programs – which range from health promotions and youth leadership groups to recreation for seniors – go a long way and deserve to be increased.

"This is possible. We can do it," John Campey, executive director of Social Planning Council (SPC) of Toronto, an independent voice for social and economic justice, linking research with community action, said Monday at city hall.

"We also recognize that it won’t happen overnight."

Monday was proclaimed Community Services Day in the city by Rob Ford in a message that praised the programs the same community organizations offer.

Campey wouldn’t comment on the apparent contradiction in the message: Ford, as mayor, had voted several times, and often without stating why, against council approval of the Community Partnership and Investment Program grants and other city grants the non-profit agencies say they use to leverage contributions and support from other governments.

The city also allows many social agencies to pay below-market rent for spaces it owns, and can issue property tax rebates or waive the cost of waste collection.

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But Beth Wilson, a senior researcher for the Social Planning Council, said needs are increasing across the city and are not being met because the agencies can only stretch their resources so far.

In 2012, a plan to cut CPIP grants by 9.8 per cent was stopped by an eleventh-hour council motion, which passed by one vote, she said, adding in 2013, an inflationary adjustment after two years without one also passed by one vote at council.

Per person investment in community-based social programs is $17.70 a year in Toronto, which a SPC report said lags behind other cities – in Calgary, for instance, the amount is $66.72 a year.

Staff of the Warden Woods Community Centre in Southwest Scarborough work with older adults in danger of being evicted from their apartments.

Colleen Phillips, a crisis intervention worker, said some of the seniors are afflicted by bed bugs and other "deplorable" living conditions the community centre often doesn’t have the resources to change.

"We are so underfunded in this area," she said.

"They need help, and help is so thin in helping these people. Our hands are tied."

Marilia Lana said her twice-weekly English conversation group at the Community Action Resource Centre on Keele Street is so successful that, after two years, intermediate-level English speakers are separated, but 33 beginners and pre-beginners must remain together.

"It’s too many people in one room," she said.

An after-school program run by the same agency in an apartment building party room has had to be capped at 35 children.

Susan Wright, working with the Toronto Arts Council since 2000, said until recently that sector was usually lucky just to avoid cuts.

Everyone got behind a campaign in 2003 to use a billboard tax to fund an increase in the city’s per capita funding to $25 a year, when it was at the $14 level.

Today, backed by council and all the major mayoral candidates, it’s headed for $25 per person in 2017, said Wright, who credited Gary Crawford, a right-leaning Scarborough councillor who is also a visual artist for helping to swing some council votes.

Municipal candidates including Olivia Chow, Erwin Sniedzins and Himy Syed, all of whom are running for mayor, attended Monday’s presentation.