The Latest

Basic Income in Practice: Reflections from the Ontario Basic Income Pilot

The Ontario Basic Income pilot project is just over a year into its three year mandate and, it’s clear, from the emerging narrative of pilot participants, the provincially-funded program announced in 2017 is already changing lives and restoring a sense of dignity. In Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay, Ontario 4,000 people are now enrolled in this social policy experiment to determine whether providing a basic income enables low income participants to maintain housing, eat better, stay healthier and engage in work.

In May, Hamilton hosted the 17th annual North American Basic Income Congress. The 2018 Congress was organized in collaboration with McMaster University, the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, Low Income Families Together (in Toronto), and other partners. The Congress brought together basic income pilot participants, academics, politicians, researchers, community allies, and academic champions of the basic income concept from across the globe. 

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What We Heard About Poverty in B.C.

The Government of British Columbia’s recent release of What We Heard About Poverty in B.C. means the province is one step closer to having a poverty reduction strategy. The Report reflects public input, gathered between October 2017 and March 2018, that will shape the provincial strategy. Some of the common themes are summarized below.

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London For All: Making Progress and Meeting Targets One Year In

In May, United Way Elgin Middlesex reported that it had met 27 of its 112 targets as part of London’s anti-poverty strategy, London For All, just one year since starting its work. United Way Elgin Middlesex is the lead agency implementing London’s strategy. The United Way brings together partners to implement plans, ensures evaluation and accountability, reports back to the community, and meaningfully involves folks with lived experience of poverty in all aspects of the project.

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Getting the Most out of Your Vibrant Communities – Cities Reducing Poverty Membership

Vibrant Communities - Cities Reducing Poverty (VC – CRP) is a national collective impact movement aimed at reducing poverty through the place-based efforts of multi-sector roundtables and the alignment of strategies at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels.

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Living SJ Announces Eight Social Innovation Projects

In May 2017, Living SJ and the Province of New Brunswick announced a funding agreement of $10M over five years for Greater Saint John to test and implement innovative ways to end generational poverty. Saint John has a child poverty rate of 30%, the 2nd highest amongst urban centres in Canada. With a Collective Impact initiative involving more than 100 local partners, their goal is to identify successful strategies that can be scaled and replicated in an effort to put an end to children being born into poverty across New Brunswick.

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The State of Cities Reducing Poverty: Have Your Say

When I joined Tamarack in March, my first major project was to write a State of Cities Reducing Poverty paper. I don’t think I fully anticipated how challenging this would be. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the Vibrant Communities – Cities Reducing Poverty (VC – CRP) network, having been a member for several years while I was director of the Windsor-Essex poverty reduction strategy. Well, it turns out there’s quite a big difference between having a general understanding of the network and trying to capture its overall impact on poverty reduction in Canada.

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