Group wants to make local poverty history; Number of city's working poor continues to rise

from The Brantford Expositor

Anja Karadeglija

Over the coming months, local poverty activists will be getting a boost from a superstar-powered global campaign which branded millions with white plastic bracelets and influenced the most powerful men in the world.

Make Poverty History is coming to Brantford, but the target is not Third World debt, unfair trade rules or astronomic AIDS rates in Africa, the traditional purview of the organization.

Instead, Make Poverty History Canada will be tackling poverty in Brantford.

In March, the national organization decided to set up a lobbying campaign to bring Canadian poverty to the table in the next federal election. It is a little unusual, allows coordinator Dennis Howlett, but not unprecedented. Make Poverty History campaigns in other countries have also tackled the issues of the domestic poor.

priority ridings

From its inception in 2005, Howlett's organization has included Canadian poverty on its agenda.
When the activist campaign was established, the group was looking for areas where it could have the most influence.

"We were looking for priority ridings," said Howlett. "That is, ridings where the last election was decided by a margin of 10 per cent or less."

In 2006, Liberal Lloyd St. Amand beat Conservative Phil McColeman by 582 votes, less then one per cent of the total number of voters.

"We have around 900 supporters in Brantford, so we have more than 100 per cent of the margin in our supporters," Howlett explained.

So the city became one of the 50 ridings targeted for action at all candidates' meetings and other events. Two Make Poverty History Brant meetings were held recently.

JoAnne Dubois, a member of the organization, said that they are in the planning stages now, both in terms of strategy and events, but have many ambitions.

"We want to interview the election candidates on poverty issues," she said. "We're looking at forming a social justice coalition."

Dubois, who works at both the community legal clinic and the Sexual Assault Centre of Brant, said poverty in Brantford is often hidden, but pervasive.

low-income residents

A 2005 report found that, within the city of Brantford, 20.3 per cent of families and 43.6 per cent of singles had incomes that placed them below the low-income cut off, the closest thing Canada has to a poverty line.

Because 40 per cent of Brantford residents don't have a high school diploma, it very difficult for them to find work, Dubois explains.

"Even temp agencies want people with their high school diploma. And that is putting a lot of people on welfare."

Even those working full time, at minimum wage, still fall under the low-income cut off. To meet the line, a wage for someone working 40 hours a week would have to be $10 an hour - $2 more then the current minimum wage.

"If you look at the food bank, growing numbers of people who are accessing it are working families," Dubois says.

Someone on a disability pension would have even less - about $950 a month - to survive on, Dubois explains.

"You're often forced into poverty if you become disabled. You can go from having a full time job, a home, everything, to barely eating," she says.

Welfare pays even less and, while the amount is geared to housing costs, moving through the waiting list for affordable housing in Brantford can take years, Dubois says.

As the summer goes on, Make Poverty History Brant will start developing a strategy and deciding which aspects of poverty to focus on. That should be decided in time for the provincial election on Oct.10, which Howlett considers a "dry run" for the group's work in the federal election.