Speaker Bios

Tom Cooper (he/him) is Director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction and has helped coordinate Hamilton’s poverty-reduction advocacy for the past decade. Tom is one of the co-founders of the Ontario Living Wage Network as well as the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters. Tom brings an understanding of income security, food security and housing challenges faced by low-income community members and has connected people with lived experience of poverty through collaborative partnerships with governments, non-profits, and many other communities. He is passionate about Basic Income, having been involved in the rollout and subsequent advocacy related to Ontario’s first basic income pilot project. Tom is a graduate of McMaster University and holds a certificate in public policy analysis from the London School of Economics. He is also a Continuing Education instructor at Mohawk College.