Want to help your community? Abandon your comfort bubble!

By Melissa Ricci

Belonging to the Hamilton Community Foundation‘s YAC (Youth Advisory Council) has really given me a unique insight into the meaning of the word “community.”

It’s not a secret that Hamilton has its fair share of problems involving poverty. When I was younger, I would try to avoid going downtown because I thought it was scary – it was not the sheltered suburb I was used to playing dolls in. People used food banks, asked for spare change, and stayed overnight at shelters. I was terrified because it was all unknown to me and I thought I would get hurt.

When I was 15, a teacher invited me to go to the first YAC meeting of the year. I got my mom to drive me down to Jackson Square, in the heart of downtown Hamilton, so I could attend. Representatives explained the grant-making process and gave us a brief outline of what we would be doing over the course of the year. I met some new friends and left. I admit, I was confused as to how meeting in a boardroom would make any difference in the community.

But the longer I stayed with the YAC, the more grant proposals I read, and the more community visits I participated in, the more I learned about Hamilton. It had always been rather unknown to me: I stayed in my happy bubble and ignored everything new. Now I was learning about its thriving arts community, about church groups and youth groups organizaing breakfast programs, street hockey leagues, services for newly immigrated students.

I got involved, I met people, and I saw the true face of the “scary” city I had avoided for so long. I loved every minute of it.

I’ve lived in Hamilton my entire life. But it wasn’t until I started working with the Community Foundation that I really began to call Hamilton my home.

One of the most important things I’ve learned, and that I believe everyone should learn, is the importance of getting outside your comfort bubble. To truly make an impact on the problems in a community, to truly improve the lives of children, to eradicate poverty, to help others become involved, and to help those who may need it, you need to know your city. You need to get involved. You need to make your city your home and care for it as you would care for your own family.

Getting out of the house and simply learning is the first step to helping. Go!

Melissa Ricci served on the YAC for three years, and as co-chair in 2009-10. She now studies Arts and Science at McMaster University. She likes reading, cake decorating, volunteering, and the Hamilton Community Foundation, and hopes to one day found her own charitable organization.

Progressive partnership: Vibrant Communities and Community Foundations

By Paul Born

Vibrant Communities Canada has partnered with organizations across Canada, including many Community Foundations, on a nine-year experiment that demonstrates the positive impacts of an innovative and collaborative approach to fighting poverty that is driving individual benefits, neighbourhood changes and large-scale community poverty reductions.

For nearly a decade now, a wide range of partners, including Community Foundations, have formed leadership tables in more than a dozen communities across Canada, giving new momentum to the work of poverty reduction. More than a hope or a dream, they have made it a living, breathing reality.

Joined by the Vibrant Communities initiative, citizens of all income levels, community workers, business people and representatives from all levels of government are clarifying needs, identifying community assets and developing tangible strategies for tackling poverty.

Our experience is proving an important role for place-based strategies when it comes to reducing poverty. Community collaboration is showing promising and powerful results. Community Foundations have played a critical role in many cities, including Hamilton Community Foundation, which has played a leadership role in convening and leading the award-winning coalition in Hamilton.

The Edmonton Community Foundation sits on the leadership body and contributes broadly to the work in that city. The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation was involved with the leadership roundtable for Opportunities Waterloo Region. The Niagara Community Foundation was also involved with Opportunities Niagara.

Launched in 2002, Vibrant Communities Canada builds on learning generated by Opportunities 2000, a millennium campaign to reduce poverty in Waterloo Region to the lowest in Canada, which earned a place in the United Nations Top 40 Projects Worldwide.

The Vibrant Communities approach emphasizes collaboration and consensus building across sectors; comprehensive thinking and action; building community assets; and a commitment to long-term learning and change. It is a self-fuelling change model where progress creates greater capacity, leading to new programs and more systematic interventions. The end result is improved lives and less people living in poverty.

Together, Vibrant Communities partners have:

• Launched 164 poverty reduction initiatives
• Reduced poverty for more than 170,000 households in Canada
• Raised $19.5 million, most of it in local communities
• Engaged 1,690 organizations as partners, including more than 500 businesses
• Mobilized 1,080 individuals as partners, including 573 people living in poverty
• Driven 35 substantive government policy changes

We invite you to read the report, read the executive summary of the report, visit the VC Evaluation webpage and learn about the Vibrant Communities experience.

Paul Born directs Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement, a ten year journey and partnership with Alan Broadbent of the Avana Capital Corporation and Maytree Foundation to advance place based solutions to entrenched problems like poverty.

Tough economic times still ahead

By Lynne Slotek

As Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 reported, “the fallout from the global recession is far from over.”

Regrettably, history has taught us that – without extensive government stimulus – it will be many years before Canada returns to unemployment and poverty levels that existed before the recession. After the 1980s recession, for example, it took seven years for Canada’s unemployment rate to return to pre-recession levels, and even then poverty rates kept going up for another three years.

Recessions do not hit all Canadians equally. A report prepared last year for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), The Economic Crisis through the Lens of Wellbeing by Jean-François Arsenault and Andrew Sharpe, showed that in each of the previous two recessions, lower and middle income families experienced much larger losses of income than higher income households.

In the 1982-83 recession, the market income of the bottom 20 per cent of households dropped by 38 per cent, while the top 20 per cent of households lost just 3 per cent. In the 1990-93 recession, the bottom 20 per cent lost 74 per cent of income compared to 5.1 per cent for the top 20 per cent.

The situation for the unemployed and Canadians living in poverty has been further complicated by the growing holes in our country’s social safety net. Cuts to EI combined with a weakening of welfare benefits have rendered the climb out of poverty more difficult than in the past.

The climb has been especially steep for historically disadvantaged groups such as recent immigrants, racialized groups, Aboriginal peoples and youth. A second report prepared for the CIW, How are Canadians Really doing? A Closer Look at Select Groups by Caryl Arundel and Associates noted that racialized groups are three times as likely to be poor than other Canadians.

History can be an important predictor of future patterns. But sometimes we need to remind ourselves that it’s there to teach us, not to bind us. History will only repeat itself if we allow it to. We Canadians are an adaptable people and we have the capacity to explore new solutions.

What does this mean in public policy terms? It means there must be two priorities for government action. First, since recessions and their aftermath primarily hit those who lose their jobs, it is vital that governments support such individuals by designing and implementing income supplement and retraining programs that meet their needs by opening up real access to real jobs.

Secondly, governments must offset as much as possible the shortfall in private-sector spending that prevents our economy from operating at full capacity. This is no time to become complacent and assume that just because GDP may be picking up a little, the market economy will take care of everything. It was that kind of thinking that got us into trouble in the first place.

In short, we still need ongoing government stimulus and support for both Canadians hit hardest by the recession and for the economy if we are to avoid the extended periods of high unemployment and even higher poverty rates that have followed previous recessions.

Lynne Slotek is the National Project Director of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. CIW Reports on the quality of life of Canadians are available at www.ciw.ca.

Housing driving a wedge between rich and poor

By Judith Maxwell

Rising home prices are often treated as a sign of prosperity, but they also drive a wedge between the rich and the poor.

In its Vital Signs 2010 report, Community Foundations of Canada has asked the question: “How much ‘house’ can Canadians afford?” Well, it all depends on your income, your down payment and mortgage interest rates, as well as the cost of the house.

And today, the average price for a house is 4.1 times the annual median family income, up from 3.1 times in 1995.

Broad averages like these hide many diverse stories. Some people can afford to spend $1 million on a house, others can’t make next month’s rent.

Benjamin Tal of CIBC Economics^[i] says that the most vulnerable groups are those who live on less than $50,000 a year. If they own a house, and not many of them do, he estimates that they are paying 51% of their gross income on mortgage payments plus hydro and property taxes. In contrast, people with incomes over $50,000 pay an average of 24% of gross income.

The Community Foundation of Ottawa has demonstrated the wedge between rich and poor in its Vital Signs 2010^[ii] report. Ottawa, like many other cities large and small, has a serious shortage of affordable housing, specifically apartments with rent geared to income.

For a family of four on social assistance (Ontario Works), for example, monthly assistance amounts to $1,844. This is not enough to cover the average monthly rent for a 3 bedroom apartment ($1,257) plus a nutritious food basket ($735). The family therefore has to choose between lower quality housing and being able to cover costs of food, transit and other necessities.

A lot of working Canadians face the same dilemma. Almost half of the people on low income in Ottawa do not receive Ontario Works benefits – they are the working poor. Their wages, even when they work 49 weeks a year, don’t cover basic shelter, food and necessities. Many depend on the food bank to get through the month.

These are untenable choices for families. The underlying problem is that Ottawa has a waiting list of 10,000 families looking for affordable housing but has only built an average of 164 new units per year over the past decade.

Real estate developers don’t build affordable housing because it is not a profitable business. Governments have reduced their contributions to this kind of housing, and not-for-profits, which are ready and able to build, don’t have access to capital.

This puts Canadians to a test. Do we let this gap between rich and poor continue to grow? Or can we get creative? Surely financial innovation plus a social conscience can free up resources to build more stable, decent and affordable housing.

Tom Carter^[iii] Canada Research Chair at the University of Winnipeg, says that good housing plays a stabilizing and facilitating role in the community. It improves:

• Physical and mental health
• Educational attainment
• Family life and social interaction
• Income security
• Labour force attachment
• Integration of immigrants, and
• Community development

Sounds like a good investment to me.

Judith Maxwell is the former Chair of the Economic Council of Canada, and Founding President of Canadian Policy Research Networks.

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^[i] Benjamin Tal, Consumer Watch Canada, “Assessing Vulnerabilities in the Canadian Housing Market,” CIBC Economics, May 25, 2010.
^[ii] Community Foundation of Ottawa, Ottawa’s Vital Signs, 2010.
^[iii] Tom Carter and Chesya Polevychok, Housing is Good Social Policy, Canadian Policy Research Networks, 2004.

Day of action for a federal strategy to address housing as a critical vital sign

By Christiane Mitchell

October 19th marks the launch of the Red Tent Campaign, a multi-partner campaign to end the coast-to-coast crisis of homelessness and draw attention to the need for a federal housing strategy, such as the federal Bill C-304, should it pass into law.

Rallies in cities across Canada will be held to draw attention to the 300,000 homeless people and the inadequate housing of more than a million others. As a vibrant symbol, carried by hundreds of activists and volunteers, the red-coloured, functional tents will bear the message of “housing is a right” – an international human rights law to which Canada is signatory and bound, but unfortunately does not live up to. The splash of red tents on Parliament Hill, along with other locations across the country, will underscore the key message to parliamentarians: housing is a human right and significantly enhanced investment in housing and housing supports is needed if homelessness is to be eliminated and the right to housing is to be honoured.

Empirical evidence shows that decent, affordable housing is an absolute necessity for good health. On the flip side, inadequate and/or unaffordable housing is linked to:

• Higher risk for illness and death among people who are homeless versus the general population. For example, in Toronto, adult women who are homeless are 10 times more likely to die than other women in the general population;
• High risk of respiratory disease, infectious disease and asthma due to lead, mould, vermin, poor heating, dampness, overcrowding and/or poor ventilation;
• High risk of mental health problems associated with overcrowding;
• Stress, leading to unhealthy coping behaviours, such as tobacco use and substance abuse; and
• Less money available to support other social determinants of health, e.g., nutritious food.

In addition to the adverse affects of poor housing on individual health, let’s comprehend the broader spectrum of health problems associated with low income neighbourhoods.

An Ontario-based study showed children living in poor neighbourhoods had a 67% higher rate of injuries than children living in the wealthiest neighbourhood. Living in a deprived area has also been shown to increase smoking, decrease physical activity, increase depression, increase noise pollution, increase speeding-related accidents, thus impairing a community’s vital signs and its quality of life.

Ensuring access to affordable, adequate, safe housing for all will make an immense contribution to the improvement of emotional and physical health and safety, not only to the immediate health conditions of millions of vulnerable people, but also to the overall health of all Canadians. This information alone should be enough for parliamentarians to ramp up investments in housing across Canada. But in case a reinforcing message is needed, watch for the presence of the Red Tent Campaign in your community!

Christiane Mitchell is the Manager of the Poverty and Health Program of Canada Without Poverty, a national charity based in Ottawa.

Spotlight on Income Inequality

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today’s contributor Lynne Slotek, CEO, Institute of Wellbeing and National Project Director, Canadian Index of Wellbeing.

In Vital Signs most recent report, ‘total income’ is the indicator used to provide a snapshot on ‘The Gap Between Rich and Poor‘. According to Vital Signs, “income inequality in Canada has grown over the past 25 years, through both bad and good economic times… and the current economic challenges run the risk of worsening the trend.”

Recessions are a difficult way to learn a lesson. Still, there’s one thing that the current economic meltdown has taught us, and that is to question the notion that all growth is a sign of progress. The “growth is good” concept is one that has been increasingly reinforced by the dominance of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – a tool that was invented in the Great Depression and has often been misused as a surrogate for quality of life.

New times call for new measures. We need to adopt a new paradigm for the way we measure our wellbeing and think about ourselves and our world. Just as Vital Signs shines a light on the quality of life of communities, the Institute of Wellbeing with its signature product, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), is designed to do that at the national level.

One of the key goals of the Institute of Wellbeing is to connect the dots between Canadians’ public policy decisions and quality of life (measured by indicators) – to promote a new understanding of wellbeing and the interrelated factors that contribute to it; and to encourage policy makers to make evidence-based decisions that respond to the values and needs of Canadians.

In its First Report, How are Canadians Really doing? the CIW drew attention to the dynamic interactions among income, health and education. People with higher incomes and education tend to live longer, are less likely to have diabetes and other chronic conditions, and are consistently more likely to report excellent or very good health. “The stark reality”, the report says “is that household income continues to be the best predictor of future health status. This is true in all age groups and for both women and men.” For policy shapers and decision makers, it highlights the need to confront disparities in education and health, in addition to income in order to come up with real and sustainable solutions for poverty reduction.

The CIWs First Report‘s message also clearly demonstrated that “the poor stayed poor”. The poverty gap – the amount of money by which the average poor family fell short of the poverty line – was the same in 2007 as it was in 1981. At the same time, “the rich got richer”. The after-tax income of the top 20 percent of households rose 38.7 percent from 1981-2007 while the increases for all other income groups were between 21.4 and 25.8 percent.

The recession is not helping. In July 2009, the Institute of Wellbeing, released a Special Report, The Economic Crisis through the Lens of Economic Wellbeing. The report comments that the current recession will erase many of the economic and standard of living gains made since the mid-1990s. Unemployment and poverty will likely continue to rise and stay at high levels for years. The report points out that there has been a great loss of income since the onset of the recession and the hardest hit have been the bottom 20 percent of households. Based on previous recessions, the report predicts that unemployment will likely peak at around 10 percent in 2010 and the poverty rate will rise to 13.2 percent in 2010.

There is a wealth of information on income inequality in this country. About 11.4 percent of the total population, or nearly 3.5 million Canadians, including nearly 880,000 children aged 17 years and under, lived in low-income in 2005 (Statistics Canada 2008b). According to the OECD (2008), both inequality and poverty rates in Canada are now higher than the OECD average. The Senate of Canada, Subcommittee on Cities (2008) reported that “labour force participation is no longer enough to keep Canadians out of poverty.” And Food Banks Canada (2008) report that nearly 15 percent of food bank users in Canada get all their income from work and still aren’t able to care for and feed their family. Despite all of this, in June 2009, Canada rejected the UN Human Rights Council recommendation for the development of a national strategy to eliminate poverty.

So, what does this mean for policy application? The Institute’s Living Standards report links changes in the income inequality of Canadians with specific government public policy decisions. Some policy decisions have been harmful to wellbeing, such as changes to Employment Insurance and the significantly lower Welfare Benefits in 2007 than in 1986. On the other hand, the introduction of the Child Tax Credit and the National Child Benefits Supplement in the mid 90s, has provided additional income to poor working families and has lowered the poverty rate for this group somewhat – a good start towards Canadian wellbeing.

We can learn from these examples of policy decisions. The CIW, Community Foundations of Canada, other partners, and concerned Canadians, are engaging in dialogue to discover new possibilities. Sometimes, confronted with the need for significant and immediate change to complex problems, we fall back on band-aid solutions. To do so, means that we will still be looking at the same challenges or worse, come the next recession. Instead, let’s find innovative and sustainable solutions that confront root problems in integrated ways.

The Importance of Aboriginal Education

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today’s contributor is Dr. Andrew Sharpe, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards.

Canada’s Aboriginal population is in crisis. In 2007, the National Council of Welfare concluded that, “To date, no governmental response has made major inroads into the issues” faced by Aboriginal people. Improving the social and economic well-being of the Aboriginal population is not only a moral imperative; it is a sound investment which will pay substantial dividends in the coming decades. Aboriginal education must be a key component in any such effort.

In recognition of the educational challenges facing Canada’s aboriginal population, the Vital Signs initiative led by Community Foundations of Canada this year selected the aboriginal high school completion rate as one of the 10 core indicators to be used in the Vital Signs reports released by 16 community foundations across the county. The objective of this article is to highlight some of this key facts and issues related to aboriginal education, building on research that the Centre for the Study of Living Standards has conducted for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (Sharpe et al, 2007 and Sharpe et al, 2009).

The importance of the Aboriginal population for Canada and the Canadian economy is best exemplified by these key observations:

• In 2006, the Aboriginal identity population made up 4.0 per cent of the Canadian population, with 1,311,200 persons.
• The Aboriginal population is much younger than the average Canadian, with a median age in 2006 of only 26.5 years, compared to 39.5 years for all Canadians.
• Aboriginal Canadians aged 15 and over have a much lower educational attainment than their non-Aboriginal counterparts with 43.7 per cent not holding any certificate, diploma or degree in 2006, compared to 23.1 per cent for other Canadians.
• As a result, the labour market outcomes for Aboriginal Canadians are significantly inferior to the Canadian average. In 2006, Aboriginal Canadians had lower incomes, a higher unemployment rate, a lower participation rate, and a lower employment rate.
• Aboriginal people with a high school diploma or higher had significantly better labour market outcomes, both in absolute terms and relative to non-Aboriginal Canadians than those who did not.
• In 2026, using the medium growth projection for Aboriginal and the General population, the Aboriginal population is projected to make up 4.6 per cent of the Canadian population.

Given these observations, Canada’s Aboriginal population could play a key role in mitigating the looming long term labour shortage caused by Canada’s ageing population and low birth rate. The potential contribution of the Aboriginal population to Canadian labour force and employment growth could be even larger than predicted by simple demographic trends because their participation and employment rates currently lag far behind the Canadian average. Indeed, if Aboriginal participation and employment rates reach 2006 non-Aboriginal levels by 2026, it is projected that the Aboriginal population will account for 19.9 per cent of labour force growth and 22.1 per cent of employment growth over the 2006-2026 period. In other words, if in 2026 Aboriginal people experienced the same labour market outcomes as non-Aboriginal people did in 2006, the Aboriginal share of the Aboriginal population to the Canadian labour force would nearly double by 2026. This equates to nearly 200,000 additional productive Canadian workers.

Given that educational attainment is one of the key driver of participation and employment rates, there are clear incentives for the Canadian government to make Aboriginal education a priority. If in fact Aboriginal education were not prioritized, the drag on Canadian productivity caused by below average Aboriginal education will grow as the Aboriginal population’s share of Canada’s labour force increases over time.

CSLS research has concluded the following.

• Education is by far the most important determinant of labour market outcomes, and also plays a preeminent role improving social outcomes.
• Given the demographic structure of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, Aboriginal people will undoubtedly play a significant role in shaping the economic future of Canada, and in particular that of the Western provinces.
• As a result, if businesses are to thrive in the environment of limited labour supply that is currently developing in Canada, they will need to integrate an increasing number of Aboriginal people into the labour force. If these individuals do not possess the necessary skills, businesses will suffer.
• In addition, the long-term fiscal impact for governments of better education and better social outcomes for the Aboriginal population are massive. If government want to deal with looming fiscal issues, addressing the pressing needs of Aboriginal today may be part of the solution.
• Finally, increased education can have dynamic effect on the leadership capacity of the Aboriginal community and therefore may underestimate the contribution of increased education of Aboriginal Canadians to future output and productivity growth. Better educated Aboriginal Canadians will be more effective leaders and thereby provide better direction for the economic development of Aboriginal communities.

Investing in disadvantaged children is one of the rare public policy with no equity-efficiency tradeoff. Increasing the number of Aboriginal Canadians who complete high school is a low-hanging fruit with far-reaching and considerable economic and social benefits for Canadians.

The key message is clear: investing in Aboriginal education will not only benefit the Aboriginal population itself, but will also benefit Canadian governments and businesses, and, by extension, the entire Canadian population. Increased output will drive up productivity which is the key driver of our standard of living. Furthermore, decreased government cost and increased government revenue will provide Canadian government with the fiscal flexibility needed to cut taxes, increase services or reduce debt.

References

• National Council of Welfare, (2007). “First Nations, Métis and Inuit Children and Youth: Time to Act” available online at http://www.ncwcnbes.net/documents/researchpublications/ResearchProjects/FirstNationsMétisInuitChildrenAndYouth/2007Report-TimeToAct/ReportENG.pdf
• Sharpe, Andrew, Jean-Francois Arsenault and Simon Lapointe (2007) “The Potential Contribution of Aboriginal Canadians to Labour Force, Employment, Productivity and Output Growth in Canada, 2001-2017,” CSLS Research Report No. 2007-6, November. http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2007-04.PDF
• Sharpe, Andrew, Jean-Francois Arsenault, Simon Lapointe and Fraser Cowan (2009) “The Effect of Increasing Aboriginal Educational Attainment on the Labour Force, Output and the Fiscal Balance, ” CSLS Research Report No. 2009-3, May. http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2009-3.pdf