Legal Clinic in Mount Forest Confederate

After a few weeks wondering whether our presence in the Forest would be picked up - the Confederate called to coordinate a time for an interview. The article does a good job of capturing the scope and purpose of the Northern Boundaries Project. We thank The Confederate for taking the time to report on this great initiative and helping spread the word in the community. The story can be found on page 13 of the June 18, 2008 edition of The Confederate.

Arthur - Gateway to the North

Arthur is a community of about 2100 and located at the crossroads of Highway 6 and Wellington County Road 109 around 35 minutes north of Guelph. It describes itself as the Gateway to the North and has been proclaimed as Canada's most patriotic village due to the large enlistment of local men and women during the two World Wars.

Arthur is currently undergoing a summer makeover! In addition to the construction on the highways that Devin has touched upon, particularly at the aforementioned crossroads, a brand new Library and Medical Centre are currently being built just off George Street, the main thoroughfare through Arthur. Both are scheduled to open in September/October 2008. We visited the current town Library which kindly agreed to house our posters and has two computers offering free internet access. The Librarians informed us that these are extremely busy, particularly after 3pm when the school day ends. Happily, the new Library will have 6 brand new computers with internet access when it opens in the fall.

While we are in Arthur, we are based on the 2nd Floor of the Wellington County Learning Centre (WCLC) at 179 George Street. This is an invaluable non-for-profit organisation which has served residents of Wellington County for 20 years. Although based in Arthur, the WCLC (http://www.thewclc.ca/) serves all of Wellington County apart from in the City of Guelph, which is served by Action Read (http://www.actionread.com/). The WCLC offers a large number of programs for adults and youth, including small group programs which are run out of the office in Arthur and one-on-ones which can be done anywhere in the county.

The adult programs are funded through the Ontario Ministry of Training, Skills and Universities Skills Investment Branch and the youth programs are funded through United Way. All programs offered through the WCLC are learner-centered and tailored to each individual's short and long-term goals. The adult programs include help with literacy, numeracy and computer training. In addition, the WCLC offers the Academic Career Entrance (ACE) and General Education Development (GED) programs. The ACE program is an adult upgrading certificate program for adult students seeking admission to a post secondary college program or an apprenticeship who either did not receive their Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or have an OSSD but are missing the couses required for post secondary admission whereas the GED is recognised by colleges, apprenticeships and employers an an equivalent to an OSSD.

The WCLC also provides a number of valuable services to low-income residents in Arthur. They have 5 computers located on the second floor of their building, which have free internet access. They also are the only place in town where you can fax documents – usually for free – and photocopying which is 10 cents/page.

Mount Forest - "High, Happy, Healthy"

June 10th and 11th the Legal Clinic attended its space in Mount Forest (herein referred to affectionately as 'the Forest') for the first time this summer. The town's motto "High, Happy, Healthy" is clearly visible from the water tower as one approaches from neighbouring towns.

We are using space located in the town’s old post-office, on the second floor. On weeks in the Forest, we will be one day in an office used pre-dominantly by the Rural Women’s Support Program (RWSP) – a wonderful program run by one of our partner agencies, Women in Crisis. RWSP is a program designed to bring all the programs and services that Women in Crisis offers to the County. Our partnership with RWSP seems most suited given our shared goal of increasing accessibility of services to people who live in the County and have no means of traveling to Guelph. We thank them for allowing us to use both their Palmerston and Mount Forest locations.

What one will immediately notice on their way up Highway 6 from Guelph towards the Forest is the incredible amount of highway improvements that has begun for the summer. The trip up to the Forest generally takes an hour. With the improvements underway, Richard and I discovered that our commute has been extended by 50% and takes closer to an hour and a half. For regular travelers to, from and in Toronto our complaints may fall on unsympathetic ears, however, this is the North of Wellington County where inconveniences such as this are not as routine as morning and evening traffic to and from the Core. I wonder how this will affect low-income persons attempting to travel to Guelph to access services. With up to 50% increase in travel time to Guelph cab fares will no doubt be substantially increased as travelers sit in traffic. Precious dollars spent filing up one’s tank with gas to attend an appointment in Guelph won’t go as far either as people find themselves sitting in traffic, idling. I suspect volunteer driving services may not be able to shuttle as many people around as they would have before if travel-times are substantially increased by these delays.

Highway Improvements – a hassle for Richard and I. A potential new barrier low-income persons in the County may now be forced to deal with.

On a more positive note, we were delighted to be approached by a reporter from the Mount Forest Confederate last week. We spent some time with him answering questions and explaining why the Clinic had set up the County offices and what we hoped to achieve. We look forward to seeing an article in the next edition of the Confederate!

Richard and I were a bit perturbed to discover a number of our posters we had put up had either been removed or covered up from various ‘event boards’ doted around the town. Although we try to find room for everyone’s postings, others appear to simply take the easier route and simply take-down or cover-up postings they deem unimportant… In our conversations with other County agencies we’ve come to learn that one of the biggest challenges faced by service providers is getting the word out there that they are there to help. Even if you can do this, people may still simply assume you cannot assist them with their particular issue and may still not come to see what you have to offer. I suspect this will be an ongoing logistical issue: ensuring our posters remain up so that people actually see them and know we are in their communities and encouraging people to feel comfortable enough to come and ask how we can help. The former can be addressed with a health supply of posters; the latter may prove more of a challenge.

Legal Clinic in Minto Express

We were pleased to see the Minto Express had decided to pick up the press release Richard had sent announcing the Clinic's presence in the County this summer. Although 'free legal advice to all low-income persons, a service never before offered in your community' seemed like front page news to Richard and I, we were humbled to find it located on page 7. We are nevertheless happy it found its way into the paper at all and will take this as a sign that we have much to learn about the values and beliefs of smaller, rural communities as this will likely be important if we are to deliver our services effectively.

Palmerston - Days 3 & 4

Last week was our first time this summer in Palmerston. Palmerston is the most westerly of the towns that we are based in this summer and is about an hour from Guelph.

Last Tuesday, we spent a marathon day in all four of the communities where our temporary summer offices will be open. Starting in Arthur and ending the day in Palmerston, we put up posters throughout all four of the towns to advertise our forthcoming presence in these towns. We had an especially good reception in Arthur where all of the businesses with the exception of TD Bank permitted us to put up posters on the High Street before we placed some more in some of the places out of the town centre, including the Arena and Community Centre.

From Arthur, it was on to Mount Forest where after a short stop again at the Arena, we put up posters at our office at 102 Main Street (the Old Post Office and a beautiful old building), the laundrette and then on a number of handily placed notice-boards throughout the town centre. Walking along the Main Street – which doubles as Highway 6 – we noticed an office for Gary Schellenberger, the Conservative MP for Perth-Wellington. We went in and met with his Assistant and provided information about the Legal Clinic and the temporary office that we are opening in Mount Forest for the summer. We then continued to poster throughout the town, including the LCBO, Trellis (former the Community Mental Health Clinic), the Victoria Order of Nurses (VON) office and the Louise Marshall Hospital.

Next, it was back to our old stomping ground of Harriston. The High Street, Arena, LCBO, Library and of course, the Early Years Centre were extremely welcoming and supportive and readily agreed to put up our posters.

Then it was onto Clifford, a small town about 10km northwest of Harriston which lies on the Wellington County boundary. We put up posters here advertising our presence in Harriston in the Post Office and the Library/Medical Centre.

Our final stop of the day was Palmerston. After visiting our office at the Rural Women’s Support Program on King Street, we then went onto Main Street and put up posters at all the usual haunts: the LCBO, Library, Laundrette and the main posterboard in town. Finally, because Help is Close to Home, it was great that Palmerston’s very friendly Home Hardware agreed to house a poster as well.

On Wednesday, we spent most of the day in our office in Palmerston. We were delighted to see that the press release that we sent to the Minto Express found its way onto page 7 of this week’s edition of the paper, just underneath the report of the Minto 4-H Dairy Club’s meeting about the ‘Udder Health’ of cattle. We then came back to Guelph via Moorefield and Drayton, two small communities in the heart of Wellington County. Unfortunately, each of these towns are probably 15-20km away from the nearest Legal Clinic temporary summer office in Palmerston and Arthur respectively but that did not prevent an outstanding response from both towns to our efforts to put up posters advertising the Legal Clinic. Every single place that we visited readily agreed to house our posters.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, we will be in Mount Forest, the place with the cheapest gas in Ontario!

Day 2 - Settling in

Today has been spent getting to know more about the Ontario Early Years Centre (OEYC) in Harriston and navigating the complex system of MP and MPP constituencies in the north of Wellington County. While geographically the County is well defined, when speaking of political constituencies the question is somewhat more of a complex affair. We're hoping to learn who the local MPs and MPPs are and be in touch with them to let them know who we are and what services we provide.

We learned that the four OEYC employees here travel throughout the County and administer a number of programs in a number of the surrounding towns and villages. Of note was the Kindergarten Readiness program. This program has a half-hour parent involvement component but does also allow parents to drop their near-kindergarten-aged kids off for the remaining hour and a half of the program which would seem like a great opportunity for moms and dads to get errands done without having to bring their kids along or arrange and pay for daycare. The OEYC runs a number of other programs including programs for both parents and kids and workshops for just parents. The locations these programs run rotates around the County. Parents interested in making use of these OEYC's programs should contact the OEYC and check out the latest program calendar.

We were disappointed to learn that The Minto Express did not pick up the story Richard had sent them regarding our project this summer. I have been in touch with the Mount Forest Confederate who seems to be willing to aide us with the publishing of a 'press-release' for a nominal fee.

We did have the pleasure of frequenting Harry's for lunch this afternoon which appears to specialize in burgers and pizza. The interior looked newly renovated and Richard and I were both impressed with the atmosphere. Their menu seems to suggest that they have locations under different names located in both Mount Forest and Arthur as well. We will be sure to check them out. Regarding the triple chocolate brownies Richard alluded to yesterday: delicious, however, I greedily devoured mine and later regretted not taking my time and enjoying it.

Of other interesting note, fuel prices near Arthur were a bargain at $1.19 last week in stark contrast to the $1.29 in Guelph. I have a hard time understanding this, especially considering we are always told that transportation costs are such a large factor in gas prices. If this is so, then why are fuel prices $0.10 cheaper 40 minutes north of Guelph in a region with a low population density? Personal suspicious abound...

Stay tuned. The week of June 2, 08 we have opening week at the Palmerston location!

Day 1 - First impressions of Harriston

Harriston is the bustling centre of Minto Township. The main thoroughfare is Elora Street with Tim Hortons and the Community Access Daycentre at one end and the town centre, where we are located, towards the south.

We hope to use this blog to investigate what it would be like to live as a low-income resident in Wellington County and obviously with a focus on the four communities at which we will be based this summer: Harriston, Palmerston, Mount Forest and Arthur. We hope to explore the hurdles that they may face in accessing services that they may require, from meeting with an Ontario Works worker, to obtaining internet access, to finding childcare options. Today, we investigated some of the services on offer in the town centre.

The first place to explore in Harriston was the Library. This is open every day except Wednesdays and Sundays and it is the only place in town which provides free internet access. Patrons are asked to call ahead to book a slot as, not surprisingly, the two computers are much in demand! First-time users need to complete a form but the service is completely free. Printing is available at a cost of $0.20/page as well as faxing at $2/page sent or received. A more affordable option may be to go to the Community Resource Centre/Ontario Early Years Centre where we are located in Harriston where faxing is just $1/page. The library did, however, confirm that the Community Access Daycentre offers free computer classes to adults and the librarians will also provide help to those using the internet in the library if they are not too busy.

Next stop was the law office in Harriston called Deverell and Lemaich. An extremely busy secretary resplendent with bluetooth appeared from nowhere to inform us that they do not accept legal aid certificates and confirmed that they were the only law office in town.

We also stopped at a few other places in town. The Foodland was at the heart of the town centre and the Post Office/Home Depot was also very accessible. We popped into Harriston Bakery to grab two triple chocolate brownies and Devin will provide feedback on that soon…….