Edmonton Social Planning Council

Category: ESPC Publications: Reports

  • Feature Report — Confronting Racism with Data: Why Canada Needs Disaggregated Race-Based Data

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    History has shown that race-based data can be used to uphold racist systems and discriminatory practices; but data can also help to dismantle them. Currently, race-based data is collected in only a few key systems, and data collection strategies are woefully inadequate for current needs (in areas such as health, justice, and education). The limited data that is available does not provide adequate evidence to support targeted policy change and intervention. Race-based data is crucial to develop effective anti-racism frameworks, and to understand the diverse, intersectional, needs of racialized communities in Canada. This report highlights some of the issues, and addresses how systems can improve, or implement, data collection strategies that result in reliable, high-quality, and comparable data—based firmly on national-level standards.

    Authors:

    Jenn Rossiter, Research Services and Capacity Building Coordinator

    Tom Ndekezi, volunteer and ESPC Canada Summer Jobs student (2020)

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  • Spotlight: Lessons on Child Poverty during a Pandemic

    Spotlight: Lessons on Child Poverty during a Pandemic

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    The Alberta Child Poverty Report is a yearly publication that highlights the plight of children and youth living without the resources to thrive and grow into healthy adults. Every year, the Child Poverty Report advocates for better social services and governmental assistance to give all children the opportunities they deserve.

    This year’s report is titled Spotlight: Lessons on Child Poverty during a Pandemic. The report casts a light on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting children and how it is exacerbating problems that were present long before the pandemic started in March 2020.

    The Alberta Child Poverty Report is a collaboration between the Edmonton Social Planning Council, the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW), and Public interest Alberta (PIA). It is part of the Campaign 2000 coalition, a national movement that sought to end child poverty by the year 2000. Obviously, Canada failed to meet this objective and much work remains before poverty for children and youth is eradicated.

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  • THE HIGH COST OF WAITING – Tenant-Focused Solutions to Enhance Housing Affordability

    THE HIGH COST OF WAITING – Tenant-Focused Solutions to Enhance Housing Affordability

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    The High Cost of Waiting: Tenant-Focused Solutions to Enhance Housing Affordability sets out to document the impacts on quality of life for households who have to wait for prolonged periods of time and find the best solutions for reducing wait times and improving housing affordability. Excessively long waits for affordable rental accommodations have been one of the most intractable challenges facing low-income Edmonton households.

    About 100 people currently on the Capital Region Housing waitlist attended focus groups and provided email responses describing their experiences of having to wait in many cases for years to obtain help paying their rents, and the toll this is taking on their mental and financial health.

    The report notes the federal government is proposing a Canada Housing Benefit with matching federal and provincial dollars as a key component of a National Housing Strategy. The ESPC report contains specific recommendations on how such a benefit should be funded and designed to best shrink wait lists. Funding should be sufficient to allow all households who qualify based on their household income receive rental assistance on a timely basis, similar to what is currently the norm for existing programs like child care subsidies and income support.

    Nevertheless, there is uncertainty about the Alberta government’s commitment to its share of the funding.

    » THE HIGH COST OF WAITING Tenant-Focused Solutions to Enhance Housing Affordability Report (PDF)

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  • Invest in Families: Ending Child Poverty Is Good For All

    Invest in Families: Ending Child Poverty Is Good For All

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    Every night, hundreds of thousands of Alberta children suffer the all-encompassing effects of poverty.

    Every night, hundreds of thousands of Alberta children suffer the all-encompassing effects of poverty. Poverty is the single most important determinant of health for both children and adults. In Canada, approximately 1 in 5 children live below the poverty line. This leads to debilitating effects for their personal physical and mental health, which can cause lasting damage.

    Research shows that children and youth who grow up impoverished face significant challenges. They are more vulnerable to issues affecting mental health, educational attainment, health & cognitive development, housing, relationships, employment, and food insecurity. When compared to the non-poor, the long-term poor show large deficits in cognitive and socioemotional development; score significantly lower on tests of cognitive achievement than do children who are not poor. It is immoral to allow child poverty to exist. Children and youth are suffering from long-term health issues and seeing their potential diminished.

    Poverty is often linked to adverse childhood experiences and economic security for families is imperative in mitigating the cycle of poverty. In general, children who grow up in low-income situations are more likely to remain in low income into adulthood. Family circumstances may also affect one’s life path. For instance, Alberta children living with a lone parent are five times more likely to live in low-income households, while immigrant or Indigenous children are also at a higher risk of living in poverty.

    Currently, children’s health is being explored through the lens of trauma. Adverse childhood experiences are traumatic events in childhood such as household instability, economic insecurity, and experiencing or witnessing violence. Adverse childhood experiences have been linked to precarious health behaviours, chronic health issues, poorer outcomes, and early death. Children who experience cumulative adverse childhood experiences are more likely to have physical, emotional, and social issues. Children whose parents are living in poverty are more likely to experience lower socioeconomic status as well as other negative outcomes as adults.

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    By getting involved with the Edmonton Social Planning Council, you add your voice to our message of positive social development and policy change.

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  • Public Engagement on Affordable Housing in Edmonton Report

    Public Engagement on Affordable Housing in Edmonton Report

    Access to stable and quality housing can produce positive outcomes to community health and education, and ultimately improve neighbourhood conditions and perceptions. Families that are in unstable housing are more likely to face intergenerational poverty. Living in unsafe neighbourhoods could have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Despite these benefits, there is still formidable public opposition to providing quality affordable and safe housing to vulnerable populations, as these projects are seen as posing a risk to the dynamic and safety of the neighbourhood. Reasons for this vary and include fear, racism, safety, or concerns around decreased property values.

    To alleviate these concerns, a robust public engagement strategy with communities is necessary. In order to explore the effects of current public engagement practices on the acceptance of affordable housing in Edmonton, the Edmonton Social Planning Council was tasked with conducting focus groups across the city with Community League members. This report details the findings and offers recommendations to Community League members, City administration, and affordable housing developers.

    To increase acceptance of affordable housing and to improve the public engagement process, the report’s recommendations include:

    • Create a campaign on what affordable housing is, using a human rights-based approach to housing and use unconventional messengers, such as religious leaders or conservative politicians, to speak to affordable housing issues.
    • Break down silos between members of the public, developers, and City administration. Ongoing dialogue where engagement begins early to allow for context-specific concerns to be fully explored with each engagement.
    • Restructure public engagement to have clear expectations where all stakeholders outline their desired outcomes of engagement and how it will be conducted.
    • Create a guiding set of principles to anchor public engagement processes in a human-rights based approach to housing.
    • Increase support for community building and integration between new housing tenants and pre-existing members of the community.
    • Employ non-traditional engagement formats, as preferences vary widely accordingly to the individual. Examples include walking tours of successful affordable housing developments, neighbourhood walkthroughs given to developers to allow for innovative ways of hearing community feedback.

    ESPC Documents/PUBLICATIONS/A.06.G REPORTS/EFCL – Public Engagement on Affordable Housing.pdf

  • A Profile of Poverty in Edmonton – May 2019 Update

    Poverty affects people from all walks of life — young, old, employed, unemployed, those who are new to Canada and those whose ancestors have lived here for hundreds of years. The structure of the economy traps people in bad situations and forces some into poverty by constraining choices and limiting options (Ghatak, 2015). Limited social housing, eroding benefits, and lack of access to stable, good-paying jobs, has created an economy that takes away many people’s choices and leads to poverty. People are increasingly forced into unstable jobs that don’t pay enough to satisfy needs, and some can’t find jobs at all. The cost of living has also gone up, which forces many people to focus on making ends meet and living day-to-day, rather than planning for the future or their children’s future. Because people in poverty lack the means to participate in their communities, they are often socially isolated (Mood & Jonsson, 2016; Stewart et al., 2009). The stress experienced from poverty can lead to negative impacts on mental and emotional health, the ability to make decisions, and even family and neighbourhood cohesion (Carvalho, Meier, & Wang, 2016).

    Edmontonians believe in helping and protecting one another, so we must work together to address poverty. For this reason, the Edmonton Social Planning Council has produced this Profile on Poverty — 2019 Update in partnership with EndPovertyEdmonton. EndPovertyEdmonton is a community initiative working towards prosperity for all through advancing reconciliation, the elimination of racism, livable incomes, affordable housing, accessible and affordable transit, affordable and quality child care, and access to mental health services and addiction supports (EndPovertyEdmonton, 2019). It uses a collaborative model, whereby governments, businesses, non-profits, and many other forms of organizations can come together to end poverty in Edmonton in a generation (30 years).

    We need to break the constraints of our current economy. Every Edmontonian deserves to have the freedom to pursue opportunities.

    It is our responsibility to ensure all people in our city have a decent standard of living.

    ESPC Documents/PUBLICATIONS/A.06.G REPORTS/Edmonton Poverty Profile 2019b.pdf