The name “Mesopotamia” derives from a Greek term meaning “land between the rivers.” The Royal Ontario Museum’s latest major exhibit, which opens on June 22, takes this literally, as visitors flow between painted representations of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on the floor.

Presented by the British Museum and rounded out with pieces from institutions in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World covers 3,000 years of human development in the cradle of urban civilization. Most of the 170 artifacts on display have never been shown in Canada.

There are a lot of chefs in the kitchen for the Canadian premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, a triptych set in three time periods that tells the stories of amateur actors (played by real actors) involved in staging performances of the story of Christ. Three different Toronto independent theatre companies, all with reputations for innovative staging and creation in their past work, each tackle one of the three acts. Ordinarily, such a complicated arrangement would be to a show’s detriment, but not in this case. While you need to be prepared for a marathon of theatre (the show runs four hours, incluing two intermissions), you’re certainly going to get your money’s worth.

“A cross between Woodstock and the Algonquin Round Table,” is what Michael Redhill called it. Dorothy Parker grinding out an electric cover of “The Star Spangled Banner”? Well, not quite. Rather, Redhill, the literary curator for Luminato 2013, was describing A Literary Picnic, the annual festival’s celebration of storytelling, creativity, and the written word.

The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Liberal finance minister Charles Sousa, speaking about the 2013 budget.

Every policy proposal comes with unmentioned fingerprints—buried reports or past choices, or in some cases in Ontario, the legacy of Mike Harris. When you take a closer look at many particular policies, you find they are correctives to budgets of yesteryear.

Such is the case in the draft Liberal budget, with a series of proposed changes to Ontario Works. On the table are a series of adjustments to the benefit structure of Ontario Works that will increase overall benefits and bring it more closely in line with the Ontario Disability Support Program.

They’re the first changes of their kind since the early Harris government, and their impact on Toronto residents will be significant: an estimated 91,800 Ontario Works recipients live in the city.

The policy recommendations included in the draft budget aren’t particularly new—they were contained in a 2004 report by then-health minister Deb Matthews. That this is coming nine years later may reflect new premier Kathleen Wynne’s more left-leaning tendencies, and the fact that the minority Liberals will need to secure support for this budget from the NDP if it’s to pass, and they are to stay in power.

Among the policy changes announced today:

Ontario Works and ODSP recipients can now keep their first $200 of earned income each month, before the social assistance benefits they receive get scaled back. After that, recipients have benefits reduced at a rate of 50 cents for each dollar they earn.

Under the old policy, if a single adult earned $400 of income in a given month, the $606 maximum total they could receive from Ontario Works would be reduced by $200 (50 cents on each earned dollar); that recipient would wind up with $806 for the month. Under the new policy, the same individual would have their first $200 exempt, meaning they would only see their benefits reduced by $100, and take home $906 in that month. The cost of this change is projected to be $65 million a year.

Put another way, this change is an effective increase in Ontario Works funding for anyone on OW who earns a small amount of income, and creates an incentive for recipients to get a foothold in the workplace.

Ontario Works recipients who are self-employed will now have their earnings treated the same way as those who are not.

Currently people who are self-employed see every dollar they earn reduce their social assistance benefits by an equal amount—not 50 cents on the dollar, as described above, but a dollar-for-dollar reduction. This policy dates back to the early Harris years, when that government was concerned that self-employed residents wouldn’t be honest when they reported their earnings; they essentially legislated a prediction that these residents would only tell the government about half their income.

However, with the increase in freelance, casual, and contract work, this policy will finally be changed. Instead of treating self-employed residents with suspicion, they too will see their social assistance benefits reduced at a rate of 50 cents for every dollar earned.

The asset limits for individuals on Ontario Works will increase from $606 to $2,500 for individuals, and from $1,043 to $5,000 for couples.

One big problem with Ontario Works is that its restrictive structure makes it difficult for anyone to climb out of poverty while relying on its benefits. By limiting liquid assets (including cash, bank deposits, and RRSPs) to only $606 for single adults, Ontario Works guarantees its recipients live on a week-to-week budget and cannot save for larger expenditures (like a security deposit on an apartment). The increase is designed to give OW recipients more flexibility in saving and planning ahead.

The cost of this change is projected to be $11 million annually.

Protestors unfurl a banner before being removed from the council chamber. Photo by Desmond Cole.

Toronto City Council has rejected a proposal for an emergency debate on homelessness. This morning as their meeting was getting underway Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) asked his colleagues to consider adding the issue to the meeting’s agenda. After a series of impassioned speeches in which many councillors across the political spectrum expressed concern about the state of homelessness in Toronto, but differing views on how urgent the situation is, council voted 24-20 in favour of Vaughan’s motion, short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass. One of the municipal government’s committees will look at the issue soon—but not soon enough, said many today, as we are in the midst of a harsher winter than we’ve seen in a while.

After the vote frustrated observers, many from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, shouted at councillors, condemning their decision. Council’s speaker, Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston), immediately ordered a recess, and had the council chamber cleared. Dozens of police and security officers had been on standby in and around the council chamber, prepared for this eventuality.

Photo by jeff caires from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Clarke also set a March 7 deadline for council to act, saying that OCAP and its partners are prepared to “open up” Metro Hall, the municipal building at King and John streets, to shelter the homeless with another sit-in. “We will ask all decent-minded people in the community to come with us, with homeless people, go to Metro Hall, and open it up as a shelter,” Clarke told reporters.

During council’s discussion deputy Mayor Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre) dismissed advocates who claim there is a crisis in shelter access: “That’s hearsay. We don’t make decisions based on hearsay. We’ve got expert staff who are telling us there’s occupancy in the shelters.” He and several other councillors said that staff have assured them that there is a sufficient number of beds.

This is a point on which there is a great deal of disagreement, however. Victory Lall, a registered nurse with Health Providers Against Poverty, cited concerns about overcrowding and unsanitary conditions she hears from clients she refers to shelters. “It is evident that our city is in a state of homelessness emergency,” she said today, adding that front-line workers are seeing grave access issues. Some councillors are also concerned that the information they have been receiving from staff is incomplete. “The shelter system is packed to the gills,” Vaughan said when he introduced his motion, citing one shelter in his ward that is supposed to house 37 people, but which on a typical night nears 70.

Councillor Jaye Robinson (Ward 25, Don Valley West), the chair of the Community Recreation and Development Committee—the committee which will be looking into this issue in more detail—has pledged to obtain more information from City staff on shelter occupancy and report back to council.

Protesters sit outside Mayor Rob Ford’s office to demand better shelter access. Photo by Sarah Roebuck.

Protesters, led by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, have occupied the lobby outside Mayor Rob Ford’s office. They are demanding that City staff use contingency funds and public facilities to boost Toronto’s emergency shelter capacity. About 40 protesters have set out blankets, protest banners, and musical instruments, to represent a makeshift shelter. They say they plan to stay until they get an acknowledgment from councillors or City officials that shelters are over capacity.

For weeks, housing advocates have been decrying deaths of homeless individuals and criticizing officials for providing what they say are misleading figures on shelter capacity. Despite claims from several organizations that they cannot secure beds for their clients, however, staff with Shelter Support and Housing insist shelter beds are available.

OCAP organizer John Clarke told us he’s been in contact with several councillors, but so far none have agreed to address those gathered just outside their offices on the second floor of City Hall. “I do appreciate that we’ve just shown up,” Clarke told us, “but this is not a trivial matter. You’d think by now that some token voice of social conscience would have put in a phone call.”

A staff person from Mayor Ford’s office stepped out and briefly addressed the crowd. “If you have a message, I’m happy to convey it on your behalf,” she said, noting that the mayor was “out in the the community attending events.” (He was at the auto show when the sit-in began; he later went to the national blind hockey tournament.) Clarke replied that the City should immediately release $3 million in shelter contingency funds and open up additional beds for the homeless.

Clarke has also asked that councillors and police not to disrupt the peaceful protest. Security officials have told the group the building is open to the public until 9:30 p.m.

Zoë Dodd of AIDS Action Now told us she is frustrated that many councillors haven’t spoken out on cuts to shelter and housing services in the recently-passed 2013 budget. “It’s really hard to advocate to the province [for more shelter resources] when the City is in denial about the crisis,” she says, adding, “Some of the people dying are really well known to us, to the community.”

At time of publication we were unable to reach any councillors at City Hall for comment.

Public Works looks at public space, urban design, and city-building innovations from around the world, and considers what Toronto might learn from them.

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsarkasim/4179898853/"}Tsar Kasim{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/pool/"}Torontoist Flickr pool{/a}.

May 6, 1986. Real Madrid wins the 15th UEFA Cup. Robert Palmer and Whitney Houston are topping the charts with “Addicted to Love” and “Greatest Love of All,” respectively. And back here at home, a TTC meeting approves this motion [PDF]:

“3. Advise the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto that the Commission is willing to administer a Reduced Fare Program [that is, for low-income earners], if Metropolitan Council deems such a program appropriate and adequate funding can be found to overcome any revenue shortfall which would result to the Commission.”

Fast-forward 26 years. North Americans still don’t care about soccer, Palmer and Houston are headlining in rock ‘n’ roll heaven, and the metropolitan council and its mega-successor still haven’t deemed such a program appropriate or found adequate funding. In fact, it’s definitely the latter, since it’s unlikely that the terms “adequate funding” and “TTC” have ever been used in the same sentence except by hipsters ironically waiting for streetcars.

The idea was revived in 2010 and rejected as too costly, although the staff report on the idea did suggest slyly that the TTC would be happy to sell ticket-agent priced Metropasses to Social Services, who could resell them to their clients at any price they wanted.

Numerous other jurisdictions provide discounted transit fares for folks who might otherwise be afoot.

Calgary, for example, offers a slightly-less-than-half-price “Low-Income Monthly Transit Pass” to people with an income a certain amount lower than the federally-set low income cut-off (poverty to be confirmed through presentation of CRA Notice of Assessment). Calgary Transit recently extended the program to kids between the ages of seven and 18.

It’s estimated the Calgary program costs around $4 million annually. The kids’ discount is expected to add another $2 million.

Six million dollars is obviously a drop in the bucket in a city where the mayor uses the word “literature” without rolling his eyes and the streets are paved with oil-sands loot. The conventional wisdom seems to be that such a move wouldn’t be affordable here in the Rust Belt North.

However, discounted bus rides aren’t just an OCAP-placating, Sun-comment-troll-enraging freebie. There are social benefits.

Cheaper fares for the indigent won’t do much to ease gridlock, of course, since the target market is largely unwheeled. But a 2010 report [PDF] found that cheaper transit allowed low-income earners to enjoy new luxuries, like leaving the house to see family, or to buy groceries.

And if your heart isn’t of the bleeding variety, consider that a discounted pass also permits people to get to school and work more readily, advancing their bright future as, yep, taxpayers.

The likely cost for a Toronto program hasn’t been calculated, but it’s worth noting that the Calgary price tag is based on the assumption that every individual getting a discounted pass would otherwise have paid full freight. More realistically, some proportion would have relied on friends, stayed home, or jumped a turnstile instead of shelling out an additional $50 a month, meaning the real cost is probably less.

Various kinds of discounted fare programs are already in place across the country, from Victoria, to Regina, to Hamilton. Even Waterloo, Halton, and York regions have them.

And in Toronto we already have cheap fares for seniors and students, who could well be retired captains of industry or basement software tycoons respectively, for all we know. But they have larger, more organized lobby groups than the just plain poor.

The TTC remains famously cash-strapped, of course, so prudence is warranted. A pilot program with a cap on the number of participants (as is currently underway in York Region) would be a good way to start.

Surely we can scrounge a few bucks for a test drive without busting the bank?

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_kevino/3590752330/sizes/z/in/photostream/"}Mr Kevino{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

For Chloe Brown, finding adequate housing in Toronto has been a stressful and anxious experience. The Toronto-based youth has moved 10 times in the past three years, and finding affordable shelter means having to make tough choices.

“It comes down to choosing between paying rent and going to school,” says the Ontario Works recipient who had to stop attending Humber College due to the cost of balancing tuition and rent.

Brown, who has been homeless, lived on the street, and has hit and bounced back from what she describes as rock bottom, says that secure and safe living conditions are a necessity for the livability and sustainability of a city, but feels that all levels of government have failed in making this a priority.

“Affordable housing is not just an investment, but a lifeline.”

Brown has a clear message about potential changes being discussed in regards to the city’s low-income housing: don’t forget to think about the tenants first. That same message was echoed by a collection of politicians, community activists, social-housing tenants, and concerned citizens gathered at the Toronto Reference Library on Tuesday to discuss ideas concerning the future of Toronto Community Housing‘s scattered single-family homes and its repair backlog.

Organized by the Social Housing Working Group, including chair Councillor Ana Bailão (Ward 18, Davenport); members Alan Redway, a former MP and minister of state for housing from 1989 to 1991; Bud Purves, chair of the TCHC; and Jim Pimblett, a partner at strategy consulting firm nD Insight, the group was keen to hear ideas, and according to Councilor Bailão, had no preconceived notions or priorities going in to the meeting.

Earlier this year, Bailão was chosen to lead the task force in the wake of a controversial proposal advanced by the mayor to sell more than single-family homes owned by TCH, and use the proceeds to help put a dent in what’s estimated to be $750 million of needed repairs. About 2,600 residents live in those homes, and with TCH’s long-waiting list, many are concerned about the outcome of Ford’s proposal. Bailão is spearheading consultations this summer; the results of the task force’s findings are expected to come before city council in the fall.

Jamal Binwalee, a young father of a three-year-old and four-year-old child, shares the insecurity of not knowing what will come next when it comes to adequate and affordable housing. Though Binwalee’s home is currently funded by Toronto North Support Services, as of March 2013 he will be back on the hunt for a home that he can afford as his funding expires. A Chicago native, he had high hopes of what life would be like in Toronto, though he feels let down by the reality.

“This is potentially the greatest city in the world, and we are squandering the opportunity,” Binwalee says. “There is a dramatic disconnect between the policy makers and the people who live there [in Toronto Community Housing].”

Twenty-five-year-old Christine Myles, who lives in public housing in the Cataraqui community of Scarborough, agrees.

“People can’t put forth ideas for action if they aren’t in touch with the reality.”

Though six months pregnant, Myles recently spent hours cleaning up in her community, raking and piling up garbage filled with needles, in order to rebuild some pride in her area. It’s a start, though modest, in revitalizing an area she describes as troubled by issues of prostitution, drugs, domestic abuse, people living with mental health issues and not receiving care, and run-down, mold-filled housing.

“Yes, you can house people, but what happens once they are housed?” she asks. “What about the souls of the people?”

“There’s no one idea that’s better than another, we’re here just to listen,” says Bailão. “We want to involve people, we want them to be part of the process, we want our citizens and stakeholders to have a say in what we include in the report.”

By the end of Tuesday’s six-hour session, a few things were clear: those participating do not agree with the sell-off of TCHC housing, though they agree that the repairs need to be dealt with immediately (a sentiment shared by housing experts). There were also cries for more help from the provincial and federal government, something that TCHC chairman Bud Purves isn’t banking on.

“We’ve heard a lot of ideas about getting more money from government, and we would certainly welcome money from the government when and if it comes,” says Purves, with an emphasis on the if and when, but adds that nobody has mentioned anything to him about federal or provincial funding.

Other ideas that were floated at Tuesday’s meeting include introducing progressive, municipal taxation directed at community housing; transferring ownership, management and/or operations of community housing to a co-op or a private corporation; endorsing Bill C-400, a private-member’s bill advanced by NDP MP Marie-Claude Morin that calls for the establishment of a national housing strategy; involving Habit for Humanity in repair work; and starting from the ground up by building new units.

Members of the working group said will take these suggestions into consideration as they prepare the report they’ll be presenting in the fall.