The Latest

Will Alberta Win the War on Poverty?

If you’ve been paying attention to the news from Alberta recently, you’ll know that some significant changes have taken place with regards to poverty in the Wild Rose province.

On February 26, Statistics Canada released the results of the Canadian Income Survey and announced that Alberta's child poverty rate was cut in half between 2015 and 2017, falling from 10 per cent to five per cent. This means that 44,000 fewer children are living in poverty. Over the same two-year period, poverty rates for children of single mothers dropped from 36 to 17.6 per cent.

The significant drop in child poverty occurred largely because of federal and provincial tax benefits, including the Canada Child and the Alberta Child Benefit — a policy proposal introduced by former PC premier Jim Prentice and later enacted under Rachel Notley’s NDP government.

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Cities Reducing Poverty Policy Digest: May 2019

This is the May 2019 edition of the Cities Reducing Poverty Policy Digest, which aims to provide you with timely poverty-related policy updates and resources from across Canada.

Key highlights include the release of the Federal Government’s Homelessness Strategy, release of the 2019 Federal and Ontario budgets, and new Living Wage calculations for several Canadian cities.

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Lessons from PEI's Poverty Reduction Plan

The Government of Prince Edward Island launched a poverty reduction action plan for all Islanders last November. The action plan makes important commitments such as:

• Developing a Poverty Reduction Act and identifying responsible parties
• Monitoring key indicators such as the number of Islanders experiencing poverty and attachment to employment to measure progress
• Convening a poverty reduction council comprised of community and government leaders
• Large increases to social assistance rates
• A new 211 help line for individuals and practitioners to find available services
• And more

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Calgary’s Community-Driven Poverty Reduction Strategy

Enough for All, Calgary’s community-driven poverty reduction strategy has undergone a refresh and has evolved to be Enough for All 2.0. Since its inception in 2013, hundreds of Calgarians and many organizations have been a part of reducing poverty in the city. Yet, poverty is the day-to-day reality of more than 120,000 Calgarians. To reduce poverty in Calgary in a meaningful and measurable way, it will be necessary for citizens, community organizations, businesses and governments to come together and act.

The original strategy was developed through an extensive community consultation in 2012-2013. It was adopted unanimously by City Council and the United Way of Calgary and Area’s Board of Directors in 2013. Since then, there have been many organizations and hundreds of people actively engaged in the implementation of Enough for All. Vibrant Communities Calgary was appointed the steward of the strategy to act as a backbone organization to guide the implementation of the strategy – with the community remaining its collective ‘owner’.

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Ending Chronic Homelessness in Kawartha and Haliburton

Significant progress has been made in the City of Kawartha and County of Haliburton in ending chronic homelessness. A new report shows that to date, they have reduced chronic homelessness by 51%.

Housing and Homelessness is a key priority of Kawartha-Haliburton’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. The poverty reduction effort is a joint initiative between the City of Kawartha and County of Haliburton, and is comprised of:

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Engaging People with Lived/Living Experience in Poverty Reduction

Multi-sectoral collaboration between governments, businesses, non-profit organizations, and people with lived/living experience of poverty has been recognized as a core principle of effective poverty-reduction work since the establishment of Vibrant Communities in 2002.

People with lived/living experience deeply understand the realities of poverty. Their stories and experiences serve as powerful tools for building compassion, and for disrupting and clarifying a community’s understanding of its root causes and scope. The invaluable expertise of these individuals adds strength and resiliency to poverty-reduction work, and their first-hand knowledge of systemic barriers is invaluable in co-creating innovative solutions to overcome them.

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