The Latest

Poverty in Calgary: A Picture of the Incidence and Experience of Low Income in Calgary and Area

Vibrant Communities Calgary (“VCC”) is pleased to release a statistical collation of the incidence of low income in Calgary and area. Statistics Canada’s Census 2016 afforded the organization an opportunity to complete this in-depth investigation which VCC hopes to replicate on a regular basis. Additional sources of information included the Government of Alberta’s Open Data program and the Community Data Consortium, to which Vibrant Communities Calgary holds membership. Here is the Report.

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It Takes A Village

“It takes a village” is a phrase that I’ve heard repeated at different fora and conversations in the western world. I heard it used again by Allison Hewitt on the Social Innovation & Poverty Reduction Strategy panel at the recently concluded ‘Cities Innovating to Reduce Poverty’ Eastern summit that took place in Mississauga from September 18 to 19, 2018 and it got me thinking deeply about the original meaning of the phrase and how it applies to the work that attendees at this summit do.

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Highlights from Cities Innovating to Reduce Poverty: Eastern Summit 2018

The Cities Innovating to Reduce Poverty Eastern Regional Summit took place in Mississauga from September 18 – 19th bringing together 206 learners from more than 29 cities and communities from across Eastern Canada. This included government and public sector staff, elected officials, community agency leaders, and interested residents collaborating to learn from one another on how we end poverty in Canada.

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Municipal Candidate Education Campaign from Grey Bruce Counties

Municipal elections will take place across Ontario on October 22, 2018.

While voter awareness and education will be a key activity for many Cities Reducing Poverty partners this fall, the Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force is changing the focus and asking - how well are the 300+ candidates aware of and educated about local poverty issues?

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The Power of Questions

I’m coming around to the idea that you can, in fact, respond to a question with another question, and still find valuable answers buried within.

Hear me out.

At work, our Founder and Director of Vibrant Communities, Paul Born, encourages me to continually ask questions, even if it means creating version eight or nine of a document I’m working on! Sure, this often feels like an endless cascade of twisting, turning questions, but this technique gets at the heart of the messy, imperfect work of poverty reduction. It reminds us that there are multiple ‘right’ answers to the complex questions we’re tackling.

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The State of Cities Reducing Poverty

How has the Vibrant Communities – Cities Reducing Poverty (VC – CRP) network contributed to poverty reduction in Canada? In seeking to answer this central question, the State of Cities Reducing Poverty paper highlights the network’s numerous and varied impacts.

As the paper documents, the VC – CRP multi-sector model has helped facilitate community leadership on poverty, including among mayors and municipal councils, the business community, and people with lived and living experience of poverty. The network has also led and contributed to significant policy and systems changes in domains such as living wage, transportation, housing, and financial empowerment.

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