South Etobicoke Community Legal Services in Ontario

Transcription

1 South Etobicoke Community Legal Services Toronto, Ontario, Canada INTRODUCTION/HISTORY South Etobicoke Community Legal Services (SECLS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free legal services to low-income people in the South Etobicoke area of Toronto, Ontario. SECLS is one of 77 legal clinics across the province. Each community in Ontario is served by its own community legal clinic. The idea for SECLS came in At that time, a group of community workers and residents organized to seek funding for a legal aid clinic to serve the Lakeshore communities of Etobicoke (Mimico, New Toronto and Long Branch). After the group recruited new members from other parts of South Etobicoke and agreed to serve a wider area, the Ontario Legal Aid Plan granted funding for a legal clinic. On January 27, 1986 SECLS opened its doors to the public. The clinic is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors elected from the community. Board members are elected by the SECLS membership at the Annual General Meeting. SECLS Board members come from a wide variety of cultural and occupational backgrounds. They share the clinic s mission of protecting and promoting the legal welfare of community members by offering services through a network of volunteers and staff members, so that language, financial hardship or disability will not act as barriers to accessing justice. THE COMMUNITY WE SERVE SECLS serves the area south of Eglinton Avenue, west of the Humber River and east of the Etobicoke Creek. This area is now part of the City of Toronto and was formerly the south half of the City of Etobicoke. 1 1 In 1998, six municipalities (Etobicoke, East York, North York, York, Scarborough and Toronto) and the regional municipality of Metropolitan Toronto merged to form the amalgamated City of Toronto.

2 South Etobicoke has a wide variety of residential communities divided by highways, rail and hydro corridors and industrial areas. These communities include Mimico, Long Branch and New Toronto along the shore of Lake Ontario; Stonegate and the Kingsway along the Humber River; and the East Mall and West Mall communities along Highway 427. Although South Etobicoke is ethnically diverse, it has remained a predominantly English-speaking community. An ever-growing part of the population is made of up people from Eastern Europe, East and South Asian, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Etobicoke has a rich history that can be viewed on the Etobicoke Historical Society s website at Etobicoke s low income population continues to grow and of that low income population a large proportion is elderly. Indeed, over 11% of the low income population is made up of females 65 years of age or older, a percentage which is the highest in Ontario. Our elderly male low income population is also higher than in most other communities. Originally, our clinic was located in a store front office on the Lakeshore. Over 10 years ago we moved to a more centrally located office in South Etobicoke. Not only are we now closer to many of our clients, but we are situated beside the Kipling subway station that serves as a hub for buses, the subway and the Go Train. We also share our location with Service Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, with both offices serving as a source of our clinics clientele. SECLS STAFF We have five full-time employees who are funded by Legal Aid Ontario (LAO). These five positions are: Lawyer-Director, who is responsible for all aspects of clinic services and provides casework, advice and outreach services to clients as well as working closely with and reporting to the clinic s Board of Directors; Staff Lawyer, who carries out casework, conducts legal research, provides summary legal advice, and represents the clinic in the community through work groups and public education; Community Legal Worker, who is responsible for initiating community outreach programs such as organizing client groups, lobbying, advocacy for reform and 157

3 public legal education as well as providing casework and summary advice services; Client Services Manager, who is responsible for the efficient administration and co-ordination of services to clients and who acts as the head of our case management department. and Administration and Financial Manager, who is responsible for administration and co-ordination of clinic operations and who is also responsible for bookkeeping and the preparation of financial and statistical reports. Former SECLS staff members include individuals who are presently, a law professor, and the Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada, as well as a past president of the Canadian Counsel of Refugees and a past small claims court judge. In addition to LAO funded staff we also have two staff funded by the Toronto Employment and Social Services Investing in Neighbourhood program. One works at the front desk as an intake worker and the other arranges for workshops to be given to the community and other agencies, as well as serving as an assistant on our disability case management team. Finally we have been very fortunate to have had the benefit of volunteers, law students, and students from community college placements to help us meet the demands of the community. WHAT WE DO In Ontario, Legal Aid offers a bifurcated system. Legal Aid Ontario provides certificates to members of the private bar to compensate them when they assist clients with family, criminal and immigration issues. LAO also funds legal clinics to offer help in poverty law areas such social assistance, workers' rights, tenants' rights, some areas of immigration law, Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS), and disability law. We provide summary advice and represent members of our community in the aforementioned areas of law at tribunals and occasionally in the courts. We refer those callers who need help in areas of law that we do not practice to Legal Aid Ontario or to other government and non-government agencies. 158

4 Our Board of Directors determines how best to allocate our scarce resources. Over the years, our focus and priorities have changed. For example during the 1990s, our clinic opened a larger number of immigration files. We also represented more people with employment insurance issues. The demands on these services were overtaken by pressures to take on ever increasing disability cases and tenant eviction cases. However, requests for LAO to fund new caseworkers to deal with the continuing demand on our services have been denied. Therefore, the Board of Directors, with input from staff and the Director, made a decision to prioritize cases in which tenants were being evicted, social assistance recipients were facing the loss of benefits, and disability applicants were being refused benefits. Our core areas of practice are labour-intensive, but it is our ability to resolve many multilayered cases that fulfils our community s most pressing legal needs. For example, we are often faced with clients who have had the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) or Ontario Works (welfare) terminate their benefits because of their immigration status. While the client is trying to resolve the income maintenance problem, he or she will be unable to pay rent and as a result his or her landlord will begin the eviction process. Often, language difficulties will exacerbate the client s predicament. As a community clinic, we are connected to the agencies and supports in South Etobicoke. As well, our caseworkers are familiar with the various areas of the law, which allows them to attack the root of the problem. Besides casework and summary advice, SECLS provides public legal education to our residents and members of the broader community. We are actively engaged in law reform activities, frequently in cooperation with other agencies and community organizations, as well as social justice groups outside of our catchment area. One of our most significant achievements over the past year was the record number of intakes, number of people served, number of brief services, number of files opened, number of appearances made and number of agencies contacted. Not only did our numbers increase from last year s record total but the increases were substantial. For example the total number of advice files, brief service files and referrals climbed over 3,000 for the first time. That represented an increase of over 20% from last year s all time record. The number of files opened increased to over 170, a full 33% above last year s record. The increase in service was virtually across the board in all of our areas of law. Probably our greatest achievement, however, was the satisfaction levels we reached. Despite our heavy work load, our client surveys were virtually all positive. 159

5 WHAT WE HAVE DONE SECLS has led successful rent strikes and litigated successful whole building rent abatements; represented the first successful refugee claim based on domestic violence; and administered the original Tenant Duty Counsel Program that provided tenants with on the spot assistance when they attended at the Court and later on at the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal. While we have had great success in appellate cases, our most satisfying and best achievements often have been negotiations and tribunal victories that maintain housing and social assistance for residents who are vulnerable and disabled. We have, for example, managed to maintain housing for numerous tenants who suffer from severe mental illness. We have also been able to acquire or preserve immigration status for clients who are similarly disabled. In addition to legal cases, we worked with the Daily Bread Food Bank and the local community health centres (LAMP and Stonegate Community Health Centres) on a "Community Speak Out" event. We held a community barbecue during the summer and provided an opportunity for participants to air their views about the political system and the problems facing low income people. We videotaped what they had to say and prepared a short video with their comments, which we distributed, to the candidates for the provincial election and to community groups. We also held a public screening of the video in conjunction with an all-candidates' meeting and repeatedly urged people to participate in elections, failing which their needs would be ignored. Another recent example of the level of cooperation in our community can be a seen from a fire that disrupted one of the apartment buildings near our Lake Shore. A fire in the spring of 2009 forced the building to be evacuated. Extensive damage was done to the third floor. Units on other floors suffered varying degrees of damage, but for the most part escaped with little or no damage. Our clinic and other agencies met with many of the tenants at a location where the city had evacuated many of the tenants. At the outset, we provided the tenants flyers about their legal rights and we also spoke to tenants individually. One week after the fire, our clinic went to an all-agencies meeting hosted by one of the larger non-profit organizations in the community. Representatives attended from all the major agencies including LAMP Community Health Centre, Daily Bread Food Bank, Housing Help, a large women s organization, the Salvation Army, and the Shelter and Housing Division of the City of Toronto Unit. After brain storming for a few hours, the 160

6 group drafted an information sheet that was delivered to all the tenants and was uploaded to the City of Toronto web site. As a group, we also organized fundraising and distributed the money to the most desperate of the tenants until they returned to their units several months later. Presently, the City of Toronto and various developers wish to revitalize an important part of South Etobicoke on Lake Ontario. This new development will involve the destruction and renovation of many low rent apartments. We are concerned that some of the affordable units will disappear entirely and many of the new apartments will be priced beyond the means of those who now live in them. As a result, we are working with sister agencies to ensure that the revitalization follows the City of Toronto s plan and maintains the same number of affordable units that currently exist. On a broader scale, we are collaborating with several organizations and legal clinics to lobby local, provincial and federal governments to open up their purse strings and create more affordable housing in Ontario, in general, and in Toronto, in particular. In the same vein, we have been working hard with other groups to promote poverty reduction in the province. To this end we joined others in making submissions to the Social Assistance Review Commission. This Commission was responsible for examining social assistance in Ontario and providing the government with a concrete action plan to improve the system for the people who need it. As well, we joined with other organizations to object to the decision to eliminate provincial funding for the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit. We organized community events, held workshops to educate the public and promoted the signing of petitions to demand a change in this decision. We are also members of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, an organization that stands at the forefront of those who are challenging the new immigration legislation and the changes to Interim Federal Health coverage for refugees. HOW WE DO IT We receive almost all our funding from Legal Aid Ontario and we operate on a small fixed annual budget. We have not received any new funding for new positions since our inception. Since the demands on our services are always increasing, our funding is never enough to meet all the needs of our community. In particular we have been limited in our ability to represent members of our community at Tribunals and in Court. As a result, we develop innovative ways to make the most effective use of the money we do receive. 161

7 For example we collaborate with the Student Law School at Osgoode Hall Law School (CLASP), our sister clinic Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS) and our Ontario Works office. Due to this cooperation we were able to significantly increase the number of clients who received representation, rather than just self help advice. Our local Ontario Works office helps prepare the first stage of appeal, the internal review request, of failed applicants for Ontario Disability benefits. They file the internal review with the Social Benefits Tribunal (SBT) and then send the appellants to our office to complete the rest of the process. In the past year, the law students from CLASP met with and prepared over 20 South Etobicoke appellants in our office for their SBT hearings. They then represented them at the SBT. In addition, we have a working agreement with our clinic neighbours to the east, PCLS in which we refer meritorious wrongful dismissals/cpp cases to them. In the past year, we sent 20 people to PCLS. In return, they send a small number of conflict of interest cases to our office. In addition, the two additional staff members we hired through the Investing in Neighbourhoods program have aided us in increasing the time spent by LAO funded staff in assisting clients. They have done so by sharply reducing their time spent on administrative matters/reception. Specifically these new staff members have allowed our client service manager to take over case management of our ever increasing disability appeal work and our caseworkers to spend more time representing clients. Our accomplishments would not be possible with out our membership in the larger provincial network of community clinics. With the help of our Association the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario (ACLCO), we collaborate with our sister clinics, sharing our knowledge, strategies and planning. For example, the clinics are all part of an intranet that allows us to discuss our legal problems, in real time, on e- lists. We are all blessed to have a provincially run Clinic Resource Office, staffed with lawyers who store and organize unreported tribunal decisions, provide memos regarding legal problems and help with appellate work. On a local level, we have monthly meetings of inter-clinic groups in all of our areas of law. Caseworkers from various clinics in the Greater Toronto Area gather to discuss changing laws, experiences with bureaucrats and tribunals, consult about cases, and prepare strategies for law reform. Finally on a community level, we participate in interagency meetings. We network with other agencies in South Etobicoke individually and collectively to coordinate our services. We also offer workshops to agency workers and to clients of those agencies. 162

8 THE FUTURE We have not been able to obtain additional funds to add resources, which would enable us to provide more services directly to the people of south Etobicoke. Indeed we, like many other non-profit organizations, are under pressure to find budgetary savings while maintaining the same level of service. Despite these challenges, we continue to plan ways on how to achieve our goals and priorities. To that end, we are presently joining with the ACLCO and our sister clinics to prepare a Strategic Plan to serve as a blueprint for the clinic system s success in the future. In addition, we are looking forward to working with LAO to implement a new data maintaining computer program that will further enhance our ability to serve our community efficiently and effectively. To learn more about our clinic, visit South Etobicoke Community Legal Services 2012 Citation: (2012) 1:1 C.J. Poverty Law