By Ala Abdulkarem
Published March 2022
Fatima is a 39 year old woman who came to Canada in 2018 with her husband and two daughters.
Fatima came to The Working Centre with a lot of concern and a sadness in her eyes. It had been 3 months since she stopped working and she had no income, and the weight of her commitments was overwhelming her.
Fatima had stopped working on September 7 because she had suffered an injury to her leg and she had a letter from her family doctor that she had to stop working for 6 months. At that time, she applied to short-term disability through Manulife and after negotiations for 6 weeks, her claim was denied with advice to apply to WSIB. She proceeded to apply and after another 6 weeks, her claim was denied. As well, her landlord was now requiring the late payment of the rent.
We proceeded to apply for EI sickness benefit, which she had not known about, explained the reason for the late application, included the medical certificate, and in four days she received her Access Code. When we tried to make the reports, the website denied access. The next day we made a phone call to Service Canada and explained that this was an emergency because she had three months without receiving income and that her landlord was charging her for the delayed months. That is when she mentioned that her husband had left in August. Being a single mother made her situation more dire. The agent was very supportive of this situation, included a note in her file, placing an emergency alert and told her that in 24 hours she would receive a response to her claim. This call was very successful, as she managed to receive $5,093 for the 11 weeks behind schedule.
We discussed that the sickness benefit was for up to 15 weeks, at which point she could work in a different position that did not require strain on her leg, and she could switch to EI regular benefit while she looked for another job. We referred her to a Working Centre employment counsellor to support her job search process.
After finishing the call with Service Canada, we asked if she had filed her income taxes, to which she replied that she did not know, that her ex-partner was the one in charge of that. We checked on Canada Child Benefit, and updated her marital status as separated so that she would receive more money as a single mother. While discussing CCB with the CRA agent, we asked her if Fatima had completed her income taxes, which had been completed for the year 2020 but she was missing the year 2018 and 2019.
We helped Fatima file her 2018 and 2019 taxes, resulting in a refund of $1,629, as well as $701 through GST and $1,620 through the Ontario Trillium Benefit.
We contacted three food banks where she could go to collect food, and gave her a list of places she could go to access daily meals.
Next we applied for OESP, doing a manual income verification because her income had changed compared to the previous year. She was eligible for a $75 monthly credit applied to her hydro bill.
We also discussed community housing as an option, and Fatima learned that she is entitled to Special Priority Status for her situation, which means she would get to the top of the housing list.
It has been three months since Fatima first reached out to us. We are now at a point where a very challenging and stressful time for her is smoothly coming to an end. Fatima is feeling much better now.
