OCSA calls for sizeable 2024 investment in home and community care to allow sector to pay staff equitably and meet skyrocketing demand for services

(Toronto, Ontario. December 12, 2023.) The Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA) urges the provincial government to make a significant investment in home and community care in the 2024 Budget to allow the sector to compensate their staff fairly, and to meet the increasing demands for services as Ontario’s population ages.

In their pre-budget submission, OCSA recommends that the province commit to an investment of $533 million to fortify and stabilize the home and community care sector. It suggests the $533 million investment be structured as follows: 

$290 million to increase service providers’ operational budgets by 3% and service volumes by 3% this year to meet growing community need and to build a comprehensive basket of home and community care services in each community across the province.  
Up to $77 million for retroactive pay increases to prevent wage disparities from worsening as a result of Bill 124 arbitration awards
$116 million in increases to keep pace with increases in other sectors and start closing the gap between the sectors. 
Approximately $50 million to apply the permanent $3 an hour PSW wage increase to all hours of work not just direct care hours.

“We acknowledge and are grateful for the government’s substantive investment in home and community care in the 2023 budget,” noted Deborah Simon, CEO of Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA). “Unfortunately though, our sector is facing a perfect storm - a health human resources crisis due in large part to wage inequity between sectors, as well as skyrocketing demand for services. Without significant financial investments and dedicated strategic planning over the next few years, this storm will continue to worsen, and many vulnerable Ontarians will be denied the services they rely on to live well and safely at home and in their communities.”

In the last budget, the province allocated $18 million for community support PSWs and other community support staff were allocated wage increases of 2%. Home care staff also received increases of 3 and 4.6%. While OCSA is grateful for these increases, they are still a considerable distance from the 11% increase awarded to hospital nurses and the 8% increase for emergency medical services, and therefore exacerbate the wage gap and prevent services providers from being able to recruit and retain the workforce they need to deliver these critical community healthcare services.

“We know that the majority of elderly Ontarians and those experiencing disability prefer to receive care at home,” says Simon, “And with Ontario’s 80+ population projected to more than double by 2040, the government needs to take urgent action to ensure that the home and community care sector is adequately funded and resourced to provide Ontarians with healthcare where and how they prefer to receive it – at home and in their communities, and delivered by trained professionals.” 

To read OCSA’s full pre-budget submission, click here.  For further information, please contact Rhiana Alfadili at OCSA at rhiana.alfadili@ocsa.on.ca.  

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