Living in poverty is getting harder.
Paul Chislett of the Windsor Workers Education Centre has close contact with many people who live well below the poverty line.
“It's very dire," says Chislett.
He says the rates need to go up substantially, immediately.
“We've been talking about raise the minimum wage, raise the rates for social assistance for years and years of this, now seems to be a good time to pull this off," says Chislett.
That's at the heart of consultations taking place across Ontario right now.
Minister of Community and Social Services Helena Jaczek was in Windsor Monday night asking for input on the province's Basic Income Pilot Project.
“The theory is if people have a guaranteed amount of income each year, it will give them the security to know that they'll be able to pay the rent, buy food, all the essentials," says Jaczek.
Today 8,900 Ontario works recipients in Windsor receive about $8,000 or about $670 monthly.
“The rates, they make life very, very tough,” says Jaczek. “There's certainly, we welcome the input in terms of the rates that we hear at each one of these consultations."
The city's director of employment and social services tells CTV News under the pilot, recipients would get roughly double that amount.
The province has budgeted $25 million a year over three years for the pilot, which would involve studying some who receive the higher benefit versus a control group who did not.
New democrat Windsor-West MPP Lisa Gretzky is the new party critic for social services.
She supports the concept, but will watch the pilot closely for how it rolls out.
