Community Asks
Updated: November 6, 2016
Investing in social infrastructure is just as important as building physical infrastructure (such as LRT, roads, sewage). Social infrastructure is all our community resources combined. Our social infrastructure is the organizations, services, people and networks that support the health and wellbeing of our communities. Ottawa’s social infrastructure includes important services we need like housing, childcare, public transit and community services. Strong social infrastructure helps us have healthy communities and wellbeing for everyone.
Budget Asks from Making Voices Count
We are asking City Council:
- Social Infrastructure – Immediate Support: Provide a two-year additional funding envelope of $500,000 per year in the 2017 City Budget for city-funded community social service pressures.
- Social Infrastructure - Long-Term Investment: Commit to working with community social service partners in developing a long-term social infrastructure investment plan. Our plan would address multiple and complex needs of a growing and increasingly diverse Ottawa population. Our plan would showcase Ottawa as a compassionate city, putting health and wellbeing of people first, especially those who are marginalized and in need. It would include:
- Funding for social services that keeps pace with funding to other important City services
- Meaningful public consultation to inform the plan.
- Establishment of an Evaluation Framework to track our plan’s performance in addressing growing and changing community needs.
- Affordable Transit: Our City makes funding the Low-Income Transit Pass (LITP) a priority, so that the LITP is available to all low-income residents starting no later than January 2017. Qualifying for the pass would be based upon the Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO). The transit pass fare would be no more than $41.75 per month and there would be a discounted single fare rate for those who cannot afford a transit pass.