Poverty on the Coast is deep and it is wide. We see it every day. As we face inflation, rent is sky high, record numbers of people are visiting the food bank and the living wage — needed to just get by — seems to have the pedal to the metal in the last year alone.
Nearly 4,000 people are living in poverty on the Coast, according to Statistics Canada. Nearly 800 of them are children and teenagers: one in five children.
Poverty is often seen as a personal problem – a failure of the individual. This stigma masks systemic, structural issues that keep people living in poverty: the lack of affordable housing, access to rural transportation, availability of support services and the disparity in government subsidies, for example. And poverty is amplified when we plan our communities without ensuring equal opportunity, without demanding equitable access, and without championing adequate social support and inclusive infrastructure.
Furthermore, the prevalence of poverty is not distributed equally. There is regional disparity in poverty impacts and poverty disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous people of color, newcomers, single-parent families, persons with disabilities and seniors on fixed government incomes.
As an example of systemic inequality? The poverty rate in Canada for a single person is approximately $26,000; yet, in B.C. the persons with disability income rate is $16,300 per year. And, they can only earn an additional $15,000 per year without it affecting their disability benefit. Poverty is not a choice for this individual whose disability may prevent them from participating in the economy. It’s a failure of the government to support basic needs.
We have an extensive poverty reduction strategy that can be seen as a roadmap for change. It recommends social planning efforts to better coordinate measurement and services, enhancing digital equity, implementing a communications strategy to increase awareness of poverty, enhancing advocacy and strategies around income supports and the development of a housing action table. This year, we’re enhancing free or low cost form filling, taxes and financial literacy services. We are launching a public awareness campaign to address the invisibility of poverty on the Coast. We are coordinating awareness of local supports and services, and amplifying the voices of those with lived experience in all our efforts. We’ve got more planned for this year, but the work is needed for generations.
Building a thriving and equitable community is everyone’s responsibility.
It’s time to have serious discussions about the root and ongoing causes of poverty and the work that needs to be done together within our communities.
Sunshine Coast: we can do much better than this; collectively, we can be leaders in poverty reduction and in creating truly thriving, caring communities.
Learn more at resourcecentre.ca/plan/poverty-action/ or get it touch with Chris Hergesheimer: [email protected].
