Anti-poverty expert brings first-hand experience to the table
Years of living on margins helped Scarborough woman shape first poverty-reduction strategy
The only Toronto-area residents appointed to help Ottawa develop its first national poverty-reduction strategy both hail from north Scarborough.
But the two anti-poverty experts live worlds apart.
Retired provincial social services bureaucrat John Stapleton, 67, is an active volunteer who advised Ontario and the city on their poverty-busting plans and most recently served on a provincial expert panel on income security reform. He lives with his wife in a two-storey home near Brimley Rd. and Steeles Ave. E.
Less than five kilometres away, Bee Lee Soh, 56, pays $430 a month to live in an illegal rooming house with 10 other tenants near Brimley Rd. and Sheppard. Ave. E.
“It is so cold in my room I have to wear my coat inside,” Soh says, clutching the white and red ski jacket given to her by a friend.
“When I tell my landlord, he just says if I don’t like it, I can move. Because it’s not legal, there is nothing I can do.”
When Stapleton learned last fall he and Soh were among17 academics, community leaders and individuals appointed to the national advisory committee on poverty, he invited her for dinner. It was an eye-opener.
“I couldn’t believe it when she told me she hadn’t eaten anything else that day,” Stapleton says.
Soh, a tiny woman with long black hair, shrugs and slices the air with her hand.
“I need to save all my money for rent,” she explains.
Soh, came to Canada from Malaysia to study when she was 19 and became a citizen in 1993, working for years in lowwage jobs, unaware of social safety nets.
In 2004, when she could no longer afford her $700-a-month room on her minimum-wage job, Soh gave her landlord one-month’s notice and began looking for something cheaper. But by the time she realized she couldn’t find anything, her room was rented to someone else.
“Suddenly I was homeless. I didn’t know about shelters or Out of the Cold or anything,” Soh says, referring to the faith-based emergency hostel program.
“I knew I needed to stay warm, so I went to Tim Hortons. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. I was working fulltime with nowhere to live,” she says.
But with no sleep, Soh soon lost her job.
For two months, she moved from all-night coffee shops, hospital emergency wards and other public places to avoid spending the night on the street. For the next six months, Soh “couch surfed” and ate at neighbourhood drop-ins until someone told her about welfare. With money from Ontario Works, Soh was able to rent another room. But homelessness still haunts her and she has been unable to work full-time since then.
Soh’s eyes filled with tears when she recounted the story in Ottawa last September to Jean-Yves Duclos, federal minister of families, children and social development, during the advisory committee’s first meeting.
“He got up and hugged me,” she recalls. “He needed to hear that story.”
Soh has been telling her story since 2015 when she was one of 35 Torontonians chosen from more than 350 applicants to advise the city on its 20-year poverty-reduction strategy. The plan was approved that fall.
Since then, Soh has joined several community groups to push city council to live up to the plan’s promise to eliminate poverty in Toronto by 2035.
In mid-December, she reminded advocates at a town-hall meeting not to forget the plight of single people living in poverty.
“The government is always doing things for families, children and seniors,” she says. “But when you are single, everything is more expensive. It’s very hard. Singles are most at risk for homelessness. I know.”
Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc, responsible for the city’s poverty-reduction strategy, says it is important for governments to incorporate the experience of people living in poverty when designing policies to address the problem.
“A real key piece for us is: ‘Nothing for us without us,’ ” Mihevc says. “We all need to figure out how to do this. It’s not an academic exercise, a political exercise or a government exercise. It’s about people’s lives.”
Mihevc says he is thrilled Soh is advising Ottawa on a national strategy.
“They need to hear from people like her,” he says. “She will make an impact.”
According to the 2016 Census, there were 4.8 million Canadians living in poverty, defined as those living on less than half of the median income, or $22,133 a year after taxes.
The advisory committee will meet until September 2018 to help Ottawa craft a national strategy — in co-operation with provinces and municipalities — to reduce those numbers.
Stapleton, who wishes Soh could find more stable housing, bought her a cellphone and gave her an old laptop computer, so at least she can participate in the advisory committee’s monthly teleconferences. He hopes Soh’s participation helps the government better understand the barriers facing people living in poverty.
“I bring the policy and she brings the experience,” he says. “I think we make a formidable team.”