New report suggests policy fixes, garners huge community support
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) launched its report, Moving to the City: Housing and Aboriginal Migration to Winnipeg before a packed room at the Circle of Life Thunderbird House on Tuesday.
Winnipeg, MB – Dec 8, 2014
Report launch: Moving to the City: Housing and Aboriginal Migration to Winnipeg
Tuesday December 9
11:30 am refreshments
12:00 pm report launch
Circle of Life Thunderbird House – 715 Main St.
By Matt Stock and Evelyn Peters
Homelessness is a major problem in Winnipeg. In 2014 the Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council estimated that at any time approximately 350 individuals stayed in one of Winnipeg’s homeless shelters, 700-1,000 individuals were in single room occupancy hotels, and 1,400 stayed with friends or family in order to avoid living on the streets or in homeless shelters. These numbers are in line with aggregate estimates for Canada.
A Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba report
by Josh Brandon and Evelyn Peters
by Sarah Cooper
Manitoba is losing subsidized rental housing units—a delayed result of the federal government’s withdrawal from funding social housing in the 1990s. As operating agreements between the federal government and housing providers expire, the subsidies expire with them. As a result, nonprofit housing organizations and housing cooperatives are having to make tough decisions. Many subsidized units have already been lost; many more are likely to be lost in the next two decades.
By Josh Brandon
Despite high demand for housing in Winnipeg, some new non-profit housing projects are having difficulties filling some of their suites. Housing that has been officially designated as “affordable” is sitting vacant. Frontline housing advocates are rightly concerned.
By Molly McCracken and Susan Prentice
This week hundreds of educators, academics and activists gather in Winnipeg for the fourth national childcare conference. They are united by a vision of a universal early childhood education and child care system in Canada. Here in Manitoba, we have made steady progress toward this goal. A strong federal partner at the table would take things to the next level.
By Jim Silver
An issue that needs to be addressed in the forthcoming Throne Speech on November 20th, is the persistence in Manitoba of a deep, complex and damaging poverty.
I
mportant gains have been made in recent years in the fight against poverty, especially in Winnipeg’s inner city. They often emerge in the following way: people in an inner-city community identify a means of responding to a poverty-related problem, and put together a strategy based on their hands-on, “close-to-the-ground” experiential knowledge; and once a plan is in place and is determined to be viable, the provincial government invests in that community-driven initiative. This kind of partnership has produced some significant gains of late. Examples—there are many more—include: the remarkable transformation in Lord Selkirk Park, a North End public housing complex where the community mobilized and the provincial government invested, leading to big gains in a neighbourhood once thought by many to be a lost cause; the many productive investments by Neighbourhoods Alive!, including core funding for Neighbourhood Renewal Corporations that do important anti-poverty work in low-income communities; the pioneering efforts of organizations like Building Urban Industries for Local Development (BUILD) and Manitoba Green Retrofit (MGR) in moving into useful paid employment significant numbers of inner-city residents who would otherwise have difficulty finding jobs; the highly successful adult educational initiatives on Selkirk Avenue, soon to be added to by the redevelopment of the old Merchants Hotel into Merchants Corner; the significant numbers of social and affordable housing units that have been and are being built by the Province; and the introduction of the Rent Assist program, which when fully rolled out will produce results that will place Manitoba at the cutting edge of the fight against poverty.
By Shauna MacKinnon
Winnipeg’s divide is far more complex than Bartley Kives suggests in his article “High hopes for first indigenous Winnipeg mayor” (Winnipeg Free Press Saturday October 25).
Having a self-identified Métis mayor will undoubtedly dispel many of the negative stereotypes about Indigenous people that continue to be far too prevalent in our city. Our first openly gay mayor certainly had this effect on homophobia. In fact, my somewhat conservative Catholic mother changed her views about homosexuality in part because of Glen Murray. She held him in very high regard and came to understand that his sexual orientation was irrelevant. I’ve always attributed a big part of my mother’s instant openness and acceptance of my gay brother to her seeing a progressive openly gay male as a civic leader and role model.
But the divide that Kives refers to is far more complicated, and Bowman identifying himself as Indigenous will not be enough to bridge it.
By Lynne Fernandez
The above quote, by one of Swiss author Max Frisch’s characters, succinctly captures the inherent conflict between employers and workers. Employers want results; they want productivity, machine-perfect timing and energy for the lowest wage possible. Workers want a living wage, benefits, a pleasant workplace, some say over the work process. They want work/life balance so they can enjoy life after work and spend time with their families.
But in reality many work for less than a living wage in difficult circumstances. Even many union-protected new Canadian workers face challenges that seem impossible to the average Canadian. So much of the work they do is dirty, dangerous, demoralizing and exhausting. Working in hog or chicken processing plants, for example, is not only physically demanding, it assaults the spirit and breaks the heart.
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