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Tax returns used as unlikely weapon in fighting homelessness
From The Globe and Mail:
It wasn’t part of Joyce Lissimore’s original game plan to help solve homelessness through the power of tax returns.
But that was an unintended consequence when the 69-year-old retired teacher decided to start helping people with their taxes three years ago as part of her volunteer work at Trinity United Church in Port Coquitlam.
“A lot of people have been able to get enough money for the first and last month’s rent that they couldn’t before,” said Ms. Lissimore, who started working with Trinity nine years ago on its food-bank program, then became an outreach co-ordinator, and then started doing tax returns.
She had 23 people contact her after her first year to say they’d been able to get housing as a result of the refunds she got for them. She guesses the number could be up to 40 by this year.
