MEDIA RELEASE: Sudbury Anti-poverty Activists Back in Court October 6

Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty (S-CAP) Supporters arrested in Bartolucci’s office appear again in court on Monday, October 6th. Community Start-Up Benefit Still Not Restored!

The S-CAP 9 (now reduced from the S-CAP 11) while appear in court again this coming Monday (October 6th) at 9:30am at Tom Davies Square. The S-CAP 11 were arrested in November of 2012 for converting the waiting area of the office of at that time Liberal Cabinet Minister and Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci into an emergency homeless shelter to dramatize what the impending cut to the vital Community Start-Up Benefit (CSUMB) would lead to. This brief court appearance will be immediately followed by a media conference and the release of an important statement from the S-CAP 11.

The arrest of the S-CAP 11 was part of a wave of protest across the province against the cut to the CSUMB. While these protests were not successful in getting the CSUMB re-instated they did force the Liberal government to put an additional $42 million into the municipally administered Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative (CHPI). This did allow for more of the needs of people living with poverty to be addressed but there are now a patchwork of different policies and funding levels across the province and people’s needs are not being met as they were under the CSUMB. There have been a number of problems in the Sudbury administration of CHPI that have created difficulties in the lives of people on social assistance that S-CAP continues to have to fight. This same $42 million had been put again into CHPI for this year but there is still a burning need to restore the provincial CSUMB. On October 16th S-CAP and the Raise the Rates campaign will be marching again to the Provincial Building to demand that the CSUMB be restored.