Addressing Poverty
Waterloo Region is fortunate to have a poverty rate which is less than the provincial average. Nevertheless, more than one in ten of our citizens lives in poverty, and the majority of our poor people are children. Almost 9,000 households in our region subsist on Ontario Works, and this number is up 39% over the past five years. In the same period, we’ve seen a 45% increase in the use of homeless shelter beds, and a 220% increase in shelter use by homeless families. There are more than 3,000 households on the wait list for affordable housing, and more than 1,300 waiting for affordable housing with supports. We can’t accept poverty like that. And we can’t afford it. Maintaining poverty is expensive. In communities where more people are poor, health care costs are higher, as are social services costs, policing costs, and corrections costs, to name just a few.
One of the tools to reduce poverty is the implementation of a living wage. A third of the people in Waterloo Region who are living in poverty are working, but they’re working in minimum wage jobs. Regional Council can’t raise the minimum wage, but it can and should take immediate action to lift some households out of poverty by ensuring that its own employees as well as those of companies with which the Region does business are paid a living wage.
People who can’t work rely on Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program. These social assistance programs provide benefits that are far below the poverty line and in most cases are far too low to allow families to pay the rent and still buy food. Regional Council can’t increase OW and ODSP levels, but it can and should ensure that those basic and emergency supports which are under its control – things like rent assistance, vision care, dental care, food hampers, utility payment assistance, drug benefits and bus tickets – are preserved and maximized.
The Region of Waterloo can be proud of our record of developing affordable housing, an area in which we lead much of the province. But our community’s need is more urgent than ever. Regional Council will soon approve a new housing strategy and new affordable and supportive targets to meet the current and anticipated future needs of our low to moderate-income citizens. Council should ensure that those targets are ambitious and that they are quickly achieved.
And Council must advocate, and do so strongly, with all other levels of government for program and policy improvements to end poverty.
One of the tools to reduce poverty is the implementation of a living wage. A third of the people in Waterloo Region who are living in poverty are working, but they’re working in minimum wage jobs. Regional Council can’t raise the minimum wage, but it can and should take immediate action to lift some households out of poverty by ensuring that its own employees as well as those of companies with which the Region does business are paid a living wage.
People who can’t work rely on Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program. These social assistance programs provide benefits that are far below the poverty line and in most cases are far too low to allow families to pay the rent and still buy food. Regional Council can’t increase OW and ODSP levels, but it can and should ensure that those basic and emergency supports which are under its control – things like rent assistance, vision care, dental care, food hampers, utility payment assistance, drug benefits and bus tickets – are preserved and maximized.
The Region of Waterloo can be proud of our record of developing affordable housing, an area in which we lead much of the province. But our community’s need is more urgent than ever. Regional Council will soon approve a new housing strategy and new affordable and supportive targets to meet the current and anticipated future needs of our low to moderate-income citizens. Council should ensure that those targets are ambitious and that they are quickly achieved.
And Council must advocate, and do so strongly, with all other levels of government for program and policy improvements to end poverty.