WELFARE TESTS DISCRIMINATE, CRITICS CHARGE

Local News - Forcing people on welfare to be tested for literacy skills and
screened for drugs is discriminatory and will only reinforce stereotypes,
says a Kingston advocate for the poor.

Evelyn King, of the Low Income Needs Coalition, says mandatory testing will
do nothing to help people find jobs.

"Having to take these tests is punitive," she said.

"I agree with education, but I don't agree with the part where if you don't
take it, you're cut off."

King said applying for welfare in Ontario is becoming such an ordeal that
many people are opting to live on the streets.

"Yes, the number of people on welfare is going down, but the number of
homeless people is increasing," she said.

"Just ask the shelters. They are all full and you can't get a bed."

Welfare recipient Mike Braumhour, 40, knows the frustrations involved in
getting social assistance. It's a difficult process he says has become even
more demoralizing with the new mandatory testing.

He was on welfare for three years before he was able to get a job in his
trade as a construction worker. The job lasted for only six months and then
he was back on welfare.

To qualify for assistance this time, Braumhour, who didn't make it past
Grade 5, had to write the literacy test.

He failed it.

"I find it so insulting," he said, adding that he didn't need a
government-administered test to tell him that he isn't an educated man. To
do the kind of construction work he wants, he doesn't need more education,
he says.

"I'm happy with the kind of work I do in construction and I don't want more
education S I mean, I'd like to, but it doesn't always pay the bills," he said.

"That's my business, not the government's. I just want a job.

"Pardon the expression, but I'm being screwed."

Braumhour, who receives $520 a month in welfare, said he doesn't have a
problem with improving himself to get a job but, like King, he disagrees
with the government's decision to make testing for literacy compulsory. He
took the test because he didn't want to end up on the street.

"If I don't get my cheque, I'll be kicked out of my home and I'll be out on
the street," he said.

"I'm not a lawbreaker. I don't have a criminal record. This is totally
against my rights. If I had any money, I'd probably sue them."

The city's commissioner of community services, Lance Thurston, disagrees.
He says the tests are meant to identify people whose level of literacy is a
barrier to getting a job.

"There's enormous value in the assessment," he said, "S because literacy is
the basis from which everything is built."

Thurston said he hasn't heard of any concerns about the testing from people
trying to get welfare.

"As far as I know, it's been good," he said. "I mean, it's a fairly benign
thing." Literacy testing for welfare became mandatory in January.
Compulsory drug testing is expected to start in two or three years.

In the last year, the number of people in Kingston on welfare has dropped
between 25 and 30 per cent to 3,300 recipients. In 1998, there were as many
as 5,000 people in Kingston receiving social assistance.