While election cycles bring some community challenges to the spotlight, the work creating solutions to these complex challenges is ongoing. Winnipeg’s inner-city neighbourhoods have been quietly transforming — creating employment, reducing poverty, reversing neighbourhood decline and preventing crime.

The Merchants Corner will offer education and housing where a notorious hotel once stood; the Social Enterprise Centre is providing training and jobs to communities while improving housing stock; Neechi Commons is bringing fresh food where no other grocery store stands, along with stable and local jobs.

Community organizations have been the driver of these success stories, but they thrive with supportive governments that move the policy levers and resources at their disposal.

The Province of Manitoba has taken significant steps to work with our communities. The City of Winnipeg has not.

– Excerpt from Winnipeg Free Press Sept. 8th editorial by Kirsten Bernas and Darcy Penner of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network. 

View the complete editorial.