Lisa Gretzky MPP, for Windsor West

WINDSOR – Ontario NDP Shadow Minister for Children, Community and Social Services Lisa Gretzky (Windsor West) is calling for urgent investments in social services to support Ontario’s most vulnerable youth following reports about millions being spent on placing children in hotels, trailers, and other unconventional spaces:  

“Ford is spending millions of dollars more to warehouse children instead of providing them with the services they need. After decades of cuts to social services, Children’s Aid Societies are forced to house children in unlicensed places and spend up to a million dollars on a single child each year. The Ford Government’s underfunding has led to wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a band-aid solution that puts children at risk. Jade’s death was a testament to that and a wake-up call,” MPP Gretzky said.  

“Parents are burning out with nowhere to turn. They feel forced to surrender their children to the Children’s Aid Society, hoping their children get the support they desperately need. Instead, our most vulnerable youth are falling through the cracks and in some cases dying. Tax-payer dollars should be delivering real supports and services for vulnerable children and their families, not spent on housing children in places they could never call home.”