Uniting against poverty

from the Hamilton Spectator

Sustainable jobs, fair income, essential social services

Rachel De Lazzer

Matthew Day-Holloway lived his early teens in subsidized housing.

"It was strangely stereotypical of the Springer show," the 26-year-old recalls.

He later took minimum-wage jobs that meant he ended up in substandard housing.

It's the kind of life poverty reduction advocates in Hamilton are targeting.

Day-Holloway was one of about 40 people at Christ's Church Cathedral yesterday who gathered ahead of a visit by Deb Matthews, chair of Ontario's cabinet committee on poverty reduction and minister of Children and Youth Services. Matthews will visit communities in May and June to hear their take on how to reduce poverty.

Municipalities don't yet know exactly when that will be or what format it will take. But Hamilton wants to be good and ready.

The city's Income Security Working Group and Social Planning and Research Council collaborated to host yesterday's session by the Social Planning Network of Ontario.

The network is visiting municipalities across the province urging fewer poverty reduction initiatives that have minimal impact and more focus in three key areas -- sustainable employment, livable incomes and essential social resources.

Sustaining employment, said Marvyn Novick, retired Ryerson University professor and a network consultant, means a poverty-proof minimum wage that rises with inflation, among other elements.

Novick said many people assume raising wages destroys jobs, but Denmark, Finland and Sweden prove that isn't true. They've become models of poverty reduction, while rising to become the strongest economies in the industrialized world, he said.

"Social development and strong economies are not rivals."

Livable incomes mean incomes that don't reduce people to actions that some may find humiliating.

"Food banks destroy dignity," said Novick.

Among recommended changes, he urged a child benefit for low-income families of $5,100, which would rise with inflation. That's up from the current $3,240. Essential social resources include such things as major investments in subsidized child care.

The session drew representatives from the city, school boards and poverty councils.

"I think what we've been working on is this full co-ordination of services so we can get everyone working together and not on their own in these little silos where we're all working like crazy, but there is no co-ordination of service," said teacher Michelyn Putignano.

The network hopes to get municipalities on board to pitch the minister a unified voice, rather than multiple diverging views. So far, it's made six of 12 stops and says most municipalities accept the approach.

A followup network meeting in Hamilton is planned for later this month or in May.