Recession Relief Coalition

The Recession Relief Coalition is a Toronto-based national coalition of more than 230 organizations across the country concerned about the recession’s impact on Canada's most vulnerable people. The Coalition, formed in December 2008, is dedicated to keeping Canada's governments accountable to Canadians by ensuring that the needs of those suffering from the recession's effects are adequately addressed.

The situation we're responding to:

The recession has been forcing increasing numbers of people deeper into situations of unemployment, homelessness, and poverty, while the not-for-profit social service agencies that these people rely upon strain to meet this increased demand. Private donations and funding from philanthropic organizations have fallen dramatically, leaving organizations with less money to provide services to even more people. A persistent lack of affordable housing, inadequate social assistance, and overly restrictive Employment Insurance regulations, are just a few of the longstanding issues that are making the current situation worse.

The desperate struggles of those hardest hit by the recession are inspiring increased activism around issues of poverty, labour, health, human rights, housing, food security, and equity (among others) as people attempt to redirect their governments’ attention from bailing out corporations to serving the public interest.

The Coalition aims to support and work in collaboration with groups and organizations campaigning in pursuit of complementary objectives.

For more information and to learn more about what we've been doing, visit us online:

Facebook group: http://tinyurl.com/recessionrelief

Ning group: http://recessionrelief.ning.com

Declaration sign-up page: http://www.socialplanningtoronto.org/recession_relief_fund.html.