Hamiltonian portrays basic income despair
Jessie Golem wants to put a face on some of the 4,000 Ontarians whose hopes for a better life have been dashed by the Ford government’s cancellation of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot.
For the Hamilton photographer, her latest photo series is deeply personal: She was among those participating in the program, initiated by the previous Liberal government before it was cancelled by Premier Doug Ford.
“I was furious, obviously, and devastated to hear that the Conservative government broke their election promise and lied and prematurely cancelled the pilot without any justifiable reason whatsoever. They’re not even able to cite any sort of sources or data to justify why they were cancelling this,” Golem said.
The pilot program — aimed at helping people escape the treadmill of social assistance — was available to residents in Thunder Bay, Hamilton, Brantford and Lindsay, giving $16,989 annually for a single person and $24,027 for a couple, with a 50 per cent clawback for any earned income.
“For me personally, it affects my survival. I was depending on that money. I had previously been working up to four jobs and exhausted and non-stop working and ... just barely managing to scrape by. It was an extremely frustrating existence,” Golem said.
The Ford government cancelled the program in July, despite promising to keep it alive during the recent provincial election campaign. The threeyear project began in April 2017.
Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod has said the province scrapped the pilot “in order to focus resources on more proven approaches.”
She has characterized it as a “disincentive” for people to find jobs.
The minister has also said the province will wind down the pilot with a “lengthy and compassionate runway.”
A group of citizens in Lindsay are slated to hold a news conference Monday to announce a legal challenge to the decision to end the program.
Golem, a freelance photographer and member of Photographers Without Borders, decided to use her skills to document people like her who have had their hopes shattered.
“It’s not just me, there’s 3,999 other people who are directly affected by this and they have stories too.
“They’ve been using Basic Income to go back to school or start businesses or move into safer living or get themselves out of poverty.
“I keep on hearing these stories and honestly, it’s the most heartbreaking photo series that I have ever done.”
Called Humans of Basic Income, Golem had initially planned for a 30-photograph series of participants holding up
a small cardboard sign describing their personal plights.
She’s since decided to expand that number — she’s heading to Thunder Bay soon to gather more — and is now aiming for 100 photos.
Laurel Knight, 50, of Brantford said she has lived in a motel room for several years, working in a coffee shop where her hours are reduced during the summer. She came close to renting an apartment but is glad she didn’t because she’d be locked into a lease she can’t afford.
“This year, I took some vacation days, whereas normally I wouldn’t be able to do that. I was able to buy an unlimited bus pass. That was a big thing,” Knight said.
Knight said she was insulted after she wrote the premier a letter and received a “generic reply.”
In Hamilton, there were 1,000 recipients of the pilot.
James Collura, 28, of Ancaster called the pilot project’s cancellation “extremely disappointing,” noting he was using the basic income program to rent work space to start his own business while holding down another job.
“The basic income pilot allowed me to have the psychological and financial freedom to explore where I could be the most effective in society. I wasn’t using it to survive, I was using it to thrive,” said Collura, who expects to open his business in the near future.
“It (the pilot) is an investment in people. If we combine something like basic income with an education ... I think people can really start to live their potential rather than living paycheque to paycheque.”
Golem is promoting the photo project through a Facebook and Twitter account, using the hashtag #humansofbasicincome.
And while Golem said she accepts that people have legitimate objections to the pilot project, she said cancelling it partway into its three-year mandate means valuable data of possible solutions to reducing poverty are being lost.
— With files from The Hamilton Spectator