Every fall for the past six years, Raise the Rates has challenged participants, including politicians, celebrities and chefs, to live on provincial welfare rates for one week. In 2017, after subtracting rent and other basics like bus fare, that meant $19.
But with recent rent increases, participants this year would have only $5.75 to spend on food for the week.
“This year we can’t possibly ask someone to voluntarily live on $5.75 a week for food,” organizer Kell Gerlings said during a news conference announcing the 2018 challenge.
I feel like the poor people could have told you this one. I know groups like this often mean well, but I feel like there’s a lack of listening to poor people implicit in these events.
“We can’t ask anyone to do this voluntarily but we can sure force them to by necessity.”
I suspect that might be the point, though.
It’s a non-profit advocating for change that’s been doing this for six years so they’ve had pretty much all the kinds of coverage they’re going to get on this event – the same articles every year about how hard it is, the same coverage they’ve always had. Cancelling it because it’s literally impossible to feed yourself for what we expect poor people to feed themselves on is a great way to get new coverage and point up the urgency of the situation.
The article even points out that part of Raise the Rates’ platform is rent control:
Raise the Rates is calling for rent controls to stop landlords from raising rents between tenancies, as well as increases to income assistance.
I mean…I’ve seen more coverage of this issue because of the cancellation than I’ve seen the last few years events like this have been in operation. Once Gwyneth Paltrow spent like half her “eat like a poor person” budget on limes, I feel like that exercise was pretty well over.
Welfare challenge cancelled because participants could face starvation
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