When I heard today that the City of Calgary was starting to reduce red tape associated with city services (one of Mayor Nenshi’s campaign promises) I assumed that they would start with the Low Income Transit Pass, since we have heard from so many Calgarians about how challenging the process can be to navigate. Red tape for people in poverty means hours spent filling out forms to prove they are poor enough to access services - hours spent in a well-meaning but misguided system that takes valuable time and energy, VCC takes the view that people living in poverty likely have enough challenges to contend with and consuming hours of their time every month to prove how poor they are seems like a wasteful way to spend time for everyone. However, if you ready this Calgary Beacon article http://www.calgarybeacon.com/2011/01/city-of-calgary-begins-roll-out-of-new-online-services-designed-to-reduce-red-tape/ you will learn that in fact Developers are the first group to have their needs addressed, not people living in poverty.

I was going to write a little example of how the process works and how troublesome the eligibility requirements are but instead I would like to share with you an email that I received this week. It is from a concerned citizen named Christopher who has kindly given me permission to share his concerns with all of you, the email was addressed and sent to Mayor Nenshi and I was CC’d on the email.

Mayor Nenshi,

Congratulations on getting elected as mayor!  My wife and I were pulling for you and were really glad it worked out.  I fondly remember hearing about one of your first speeches where you challenged city employees to do better, to cut red tape and inflexible rules for Calgarians.  I agreed wholeheartedly with these comments and it is why I’m emailing today. 

My wife and I volunteer through a local non-profit with a new immigrant family.  This program matches immigrant families with Calgarians so that we can learn about other cultures and so we can assist our new friends with the adjustments of living in a foreign land.  This week we discovered that the City of Calgary offers low-income transit passes for low income Calgary residents.  This was news to our ears since the family that we volunteer with are government assisted refugees and are on assistance that amounts to about $18,000 per year for a family of 3.  When I looked up the eligibility requirements for this program, I could see right away that this family earned well below the income eligibility of $25,516.50 for a family of 3.  I soon realized as well that our family did not have a tax return to provide to Calgary Transit (CT) so I phoned CT to see what other documentation we could provide.

The call centre representative at CT was absolutely adement that this family had to provide line 150 of their 2009 tax return or their 2009 Notice of Assessment or they would not qualify for this low-income pass.  I explained to the rep at CT that this was a problem as this family only moved to Canada in March 2010, so they could not provide a tax return for a year when they did not live in Canada… yet to no avail.  I was told there is simply no way around this, the family must provide this document or they will not receive this assistance. 

Now I understand why these rules exist.  I commend the city and CT for offering this low-income pass in the first place and it makes sense that proof of income must be presented.  What I do not understand is why a family who makes such a very small income must endure paying $90/month for each adult and $54.25/month for each child and why they can not show other documentation to prove this income.  The adults in this family can not work until the end of the first year as they MUST get a solid handle on the English language or they will never get be able to secure good jobs so they can provide for their families.  The government of Canada will actually claw back earnings if they work too much in the first year.  There must be another way that they can provide proof of income. 

Can you please take a further look into this issue and let me know what you think?  Poor families in Calgary who deserve to participate in this program and CT needs to show a bit of compassion on this important issue.

Regards,

—

Christopher