In our community, as I said, many people live in poverty. A single person on Ontario Works, the support program that's run by the Province of Ontario, which we support, receives $8,000 a year. It is not sufficient. A basic income guarantee or a basic income project that the province is looking at could double that and provide additional supports for people. Part of that is about not only including an additional income piece but also supporting housing opportunities. We've talked here about the housing first piece. Once you have housing, funding support for individuals to look at other things helps them.
For the City of London, it is about an assurance, and we've looked at this, that people who live in poverty can choose their way, with supports, to rise out of poverty. The social assistance system, while I'm responsible for it in my community and I believe strongly in the support it provides, creates a reality where people make choices within a system. They don't make choices within a system that gives them money or supports them to make their own choices.
We try to do that within our system, but I will tell you that our systems are bureaucratic. I probably shouldn't say that out loud, but they are. They are bureaucratic and rules-based and driven by guidelines and the realities. A basic income allows people to take the money that they receive and use it to be supported in ways that they want to use it. It just doesn't address people who are on Ontario Works, or the Ontario disability support program. It looks at providing supports for other people, people who are providing supports for children at home, or people providing supports for elderly parents, or people who are in that sandwich generation of having to do both at the same time. The broader piece is not just around social assistance. It's about providing supports of income to people who need it and could benefit from it.