TORONTO - Organizations that provide social services to the public say they can't meet their responsibilities because of a lack of provincial government funding.
That message will be delivered Tuesday at Queen's Park, when an expected 1,500 social workers plan to demonstrate in an attempt to get the government to fix a funding system they say has been ineffective since the mid-1990s.
Bobbye Goldenberg, executive director of the Family Counselling Centre of Cambridge, says every social service agency in Waterloo region has a waiting list. Some, such as those for children's mental health counselling, are over a year long.
"When people call in, that's when they need the counselling,'' she said. ''If they have to wait for months, that doesn't serve their needs.''
Goldenberg said she just can't hire enough staff to see everyone that needs help. She said she's been forced to dramatically reduce the scope of some services, such as those for low-income families.
Rob Howarth, a co-ordinator with Toronto Neighbourhood Centres, says he's compiled research that shows Goldenberg's problem is one that affects agencies across the province. Social service agencies typically count on the government for about 54 per cent of their total funding.
On average, according to Howarth, almost one in five employees at community and social service centres are working part-time or on a voluntary basis. He says that in London and Ottawa, that number has climbed to over 40 per cent in recent years. He says those numbers are the result of a change in the way money is doled out by the government.
"There's been a general move away from giving stable money to organizations to fund their basic operations towards a more of a shorter-term project funding model,'' he says.
Howarth says Ontario should return to the old model of funding social service agencies in a more general manner, though what used to be known as "core funding.''
Under that model, agencies would get a set amount of money that they wouldn't have to re-apply for each year. Then they could decide how to best spend the money for themselves.
Since the mid-1990s, said Howarth, the government has been cherry-picking programs to fund, leaving others in the lurch. And once a year is up, agencies have to apply for funding for their individual programs all over again.
"That's causing problems for these organizations,'' he said, because regulations over how money can be spent have become so strict.
At a family service agency, for example, surplus money originally destined for domestic violence counselling can't be put into another program, even if it's desperately needed there.
Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur said she recognized there was a funding problem.
"We're investing in different areas of social services to help (fight) the underfunding problem,'' she said.
Meilleur also said the government is working to loosen the rules over funding so that agencies don't feel handcuffed by pre-determined budgets.
The legislation is outdated and we need to modernize it,'' she said, adding that a key component of the new rules would be greater flexibility as to how government money can be spent.
