Halton has one homeless person. One that’s visible, anyhow. I saw him last week, about a block from our home in downtown Burlington, wearing a worn plaid jacket and pushing what looks like a jogging stroller filled with his things.
Poverty in Burlington? The fourth best place to live in Canada, according to this month’s MoneySense survey. One of the wealthiest cities in Ontario — where our average income of $111,307 tops Toronto’s ($87,823), and Hamilton’s ($77,009). Say it ain’t so.
It’s hard to convince people it is so. And it’s our mothers and grandmothers who largely bear the brunt of poverty, a shameful fact to think about on Mother’s Day, when we pause to celebrate the contributions of women in our lives.
According to tabulations from Community Development Halton (CDH), based on Statistics Canada’s 2006 census, female lone-parent families have the highest rate of poverty, after recent immigrants. In Halton (which covers Burlington, Oakville, Milton and Halton Hills), 22% of single mothers with children live at or below the low income level. In Burlington and Oakville the rate is higher — a shocking one in four.
And these aren’t the stereotypical irresponsible teenagers who got themselves into trouble. Rather, these are largely women between 35 and 45 “who did not expect to be left with their children,” says Dr. Joey Edwardh, executive director of CDH, who spoke on poverty in Halton at a community meeting last week.
Statistics Canada estimates a parent with one child needs about $25,867 annually to live in Halton. Ontario Works, our welfare system, provides $14,553.
“That’s criminal,” said Edwardh. “There is no evidence that links Ontario Works to the cost of living. Thus the choice ‘pay the rent or eat.’ This money is not spent on ‘beer.’”
Further, more than 41% of Ontario children living in poverty have one parent working full-time, full year. These aren’t deadbeat moms and dads who refuse to work.
FOODBANK USAGE UP
They’re the working poor, and these families with children are the heaviest users of the nine foodbanks in Halton (yes, nine), where usage is up 40% because of the economic downturn, said Edwardh. More than 1,800 families, up 300 from last year, use these services. The wait list here for social housing is five to 10 years long.
“We see people leave our community and go to Toronto because we haven’t developed the social services to allow them to stay,” said Edwardh.
Those who do stay are largely shut in, invisible. In Halton, 13% of people with physical challenges live in poverty; 10% of children under 18 live in poverty; 9% of seniors over 65 live in poverty, and 13% of seniors over 75 — most of whom are women — live in poverty.
Though the rate of poverty is relatively constant, said Edwardh, poverty is deepening, becoming more feminized, and more racialized — 17% of visible minorities in our community also live in poverty.
The Ontario government’s Poverty Reduction Act — passed last week — is a step in the right direction she says, but it needs to go further. CDH has three goals for reducing poverty: Ensure livable incomes; invest in social services; and develop good paying, long-term jobs. To get there, taxes must go up — a suggestion that will be difficult for many people, especially the well-heeled in Halton, to stomach.
The conventional wisdom is lower taxes will kick start the economy. Edwardh says raising taxes to invest in critical programs — such as child care — will do a better job.
Edwardh points to the Quebec experience, which offered child care at $5 a day. Women entered the work force in droves — earning an income that was taxed to pay for the program.
POVERTY COSTS ALL OF US
She also points out that poverty costs every Ontario resident close to $3,000 per year.
The economic argument is a clever one — probably the most compelling to this audience. There is always the moral argument. No one should live in poverty in one of the richest communities in one of the richest countries in the world.
That so many do, and so many mothers, grandmothers and children do, is a shame and a responsibility we all share.
2 Comments
1 is too many… Now lets talk about the real poverty.
The people who struggle from month to month. Can’t pay their bills.
Don’t have cable tv or a phone. Don’t have enough money to buy the healthier foods to feed their kids.
Haven’t had their eyes checked in years cause they can’t afford $75.00
Go without medical drugs cause they have No bennifits.
If you make 10,000 or 100,000/yr we are expected to pay for eye tests, other medical things too. Its time that we start thinking of the lower income in this town. Base things on peoples wages.
It’s time we had MORE AFFORDABLE homes be it a small townhouse or 1 2 and 3 bedroom apartments. The waiting list for lower income apartments for a single person is 12 years. If you have kids its 7-10
they need help more. This is where we need to be thinking.
There is a lot more than 1 homeless person in Burlington,let alone all of Halton. I started Burlington’s first food banks in the early 80′s and ran it for 21 years. People living in poverty come in all sizes and shapes ages and gender religions and countries of origin and socio and educational status.
I have seen people with Masters degrees and persons just out of prison. Single parents the working poor
most of whom are severely under employed. People with disabilities who must try and supplement their incomes as well as seniors on the lowest fixed income who lose their disability status as soon as they become seniors. Ridiculous? You bet.
IN the 90′s the Conservative govt. took it upon themselves along with many other traavesties to reduce the govt. incomes of these persons by 22.6% I believe it was. Today each time the childrens income cheque is raised it is clawed back. I no longer do this work so I am not completely up to date. But it would not be difficult to do.
Given that single persons even seniors have to wait up to 12 years for an apartment. There are too many stupid solution preventing rules in place to proceed fast enough to reduce this humongous group of people.
I am solutions oriented and I believe a fast and cost effective measure for some on this list or who should be in rent geared to income could benefit immediately if rent supplement is given now. I am considering those single persons living in a small apt. already who can’t move one way or another and certainly not to a new place no money. Some live in very low rent 2 bedrooms which cost less than 1 bedrooms so no need to turn them down as there are precious few places at these rates. One of the reasons so cheap is no elevator. So for a few hundred a month quite a number of persons are taken care of. Experience tells me that hydro is low in these situations and the allowance of outside lines (clothes) which snap back against the wall when not in use would cut hydro even further. How does $30.00 mo sound?