The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

5 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,D ecem ber 20,2018 insidehalton.com For a Free consultation call oakville: 905.842.2022 ToronTo: 416.644.3999 Denied Disabled Benefits? I canhelp. My teamof experienced lawyers can help youwith: •Disability Claims Short-TermDisability, long-TermDisability, CPPShort-TermDisability, long-TermDisability, CPP •Car accidents •Slip and Falls •Wrongful Dismissal Injured? injurY and emploYment law I don't get paid unless I getYoumoneY. oFFiCeS in oakville and ToronTo eMail: sspadafora@slspc.ca delmanor.com (905) 469-3232 1459 Nottinghill Gate, Oakville The best of the holiday season from our family to yours. Oakville's Meals on Wheels has cut ties with the Mississauga Halton Local Health Integration Network after being asked to limit service to clients with disa- bilities or low incomes. Until the end of March, the local LHIN was a major funder of Oakville's Mealsfunder of Oakville's Mealsf on Wheels organization. A service agreement on the LHIN's website shows it sup- plied $116,581 of Meals on Wheels' $303,588 annual budget from 2015 to 2017. In a Dec. 7 interview, Meals on Wheels board chair Bob Griesbach ex- plained that the LHIN want- ed the agency to focus on cli- ents below a certain income level, or who were living with a disability. Meals on Wheels, however, wanted to continue serving anyone who needed meals and could pay for them. "Our feeling is that we would like to support people and help them stay in their homes, regardless of the reasons they need support," he told the Oakville Beaver. "We were finding that with the LHIN changing these rules, there were going to be a number of our customers we would not be able to sup- port ... We provide both food and a visitor." The LHIN offered to re- new its agreement with Meal on Wheels for 2018, and the organization declined, said Griesbach. Michelle Nichols, Meals on Wheels' manager of cli- ent services, said that con- tinuing to accept LHIN funding would have had afunding would have had af detrimental effect on cli- ents. "It would have limited our ability to offer a variety of meal choices, made access to service more difficult, and reduced our opportuni- ty to provide the daily safety and wellness checks that have become so important to many individuals served as well as their caregivers," she wrote in an email. The LHIN is now funding the Victorian Order of Nurs- es Mississauga to provide meals in Oakville. LHIN communications strategist Corinne Ton That did not re- spond to phone and email re- quests for an interview. Now, Meals on Wheels is looking for new sources of fi- nancial support while also trying to reduce administra- tion expenses. "We are very definitely looking for additional sup- port," Griesbach said. "A year from now, if we did not (find new funding), we would be hard pressed to keep going." Meals on Wheels is cur- rently sponsored by the United Way Halton and Hamilton, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 486, Halton Region, Oakville Communi-Region, Oakville Communi-R ty Foundation, the May Court Club of Oakville, the Kiwanis Club of Oakville, Chemtec International and the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar. In addition to its change in funding, the organization also recently changed its name - from "Oakville Kiwa- nis Meals on Wheels" to "Oakville Meals on Wheels." Griesbach says having "Ki- wanis" in the name led some potential donors to believe that the agency was fully funded and did not need ad-funded and did not need ad-f ditional support. Nichols said the changes have confused some clients, who believe the agency has shut down. "We continue to operate in Oakville and are provid- ing the same quality of ser- vice to our clients as we have been for the past 42 years," she wrote. "We want you to know that we are still very much active in Oakville and have no plans to discontinue our service to present or fu- ture clients." OAKVILLE MEALS ON WHEELS CUTS TIES WITH MISSISSAUGA HALTON LHIN Oakville MP John Oliver delivers a meal to senior Barbara Whitehouse, while joined by Oakville Kiwanis Meals on Wheels executive director Jacqui Gardner on Sept. 8, 2016. Metroland file photo SAIRA PEESKER speesker@metroland.com NEWS