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For the past nine years, Tom Cooper has served as Director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction - a collaborative organization formed to tackle the City's unacceptable levels of poverty. Through the Roundtable's work, Tom has engaged governments at all levels to invest in poverty reduction initiatives and worked to give people experiencing poverty a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. He's advocated for social assistance rates that reflect the real costs of living, fought to end to predatory lending in Ontario and helped co-found the Ontario Living Wage Network - an initiative of 30 Ontario communities endeavouring to address working poverty. Tom, was involved in helping to establish Ontario's first basic income pilot: a critical research project testing whether providing a basic income could stabilize housing, improve health and enhance social inclusion opportunities for low-income residents. That pilot project was pre-maturely cancelled last summer by a new government, and Tom continues to advocate on behalf of 4,500 pilot participants for a political or legal resolution. In 2017, the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction was recognized with the national 'Leadership in Poverty Reduction Award' by Vibrant Communities Canada for "stellar leadership in advancing poverty reduction".