Poverty persists in our city and is not going away anytime soon. Most shameful is how much child poverty we have, especially in high-density downtown. Poverty rates have thankfully lowered the last few years, especially with CERB essentially becoming akin to a universal basic income, but we should not be comforted by these numbers. Poverty rates are measured merely by income against average living expenses, just because the rate improved does not mean those of lower income are living in better housing, or eating more nutritious food, or have better access to services. The city has a poverty reduction strategy, and we need to ensure the goals in it are met.
Homelessness
Homelessness is a constant and pervasive problem in Toronto, as I have witnessed my entire life. Over 200 hundred people experiencing homelessness died last year alone. According to the city’s 2021 Street Needs Assessment there are around 7,347 homeless in Toronto, a staggering number, and by other measures an underestimate.
Our shelter system is at capacity in many areas, and during the pandemic it took a lawsuit to open up temporary shelters in hotels (which still came with its own set of inequities). The encampment evictions during COVID were criminal, what a horrible reaction to the homeless problem during an incredibly fragile time. The city has a Temporary Shelter Transition & Relocation Plan, and it shows innovation in temporarily repurposing sites rather quickly to meet the crisis of COVID, but the crisis of homelessness remains, and the city must ensure these temporary measures transition into permanent solutions, not a return to the status quo. Toronto also needs to step up its action on properly regulating multi-tenant housing, which is an important source of housing for low income renters.
The vast majority of our homeless have either mental health issues and/or addiction issues, and need treatment, not to be treated like criminals. The modular homes recently installed on Cedarvale will help house people quickly, but concentrating the homeless in shelters and low income housing is known to cause more criminality, and does nothing to support re-integration of the homeless into society. Other nations like Finland place their homeless in proper rental housing amongst regular folk, with much better results.
There are things that can help alleviate or mitigate the problem, like a ban on rental evictions, appropriating empty buildings or buying out hotels to convert them to shelters, or even allocating an outdoor public space with amenities as Brandon, Manitoba did (or like the Port Lands encampment, although preferably somewhere not contaminated with benzene). In the end however, the goal must be to PREVENT homelessness through robust social supports, not react to it after people have already slipped through the cracks.
Food Security
I speak more about food security here, and it is crucial in the context of poverty reduction, in particular for child nutrition. It is known that poor nutrition in childhood and adolescence often leads to mental health issues, so it is not just a matter of equity, it is a matter of poverty PREVENTION. Children growing up in the stress of poverty do not just have disadvantages like less economic and educational opportunities, it can also leave them with lifelong mental and physical deficits and a worse reaction to stress as adults.
If we really want to address poverty, we need to prevent its worst outcomes, and to do that we need to break the cycle by ensuring children growing up in poverty do not end up with the mental deficits that ensure they will remain in poverty. Toronto has a student nutrition program, which must be expanded as much as possible, even beyond schools, to ensure no child is falling through the cracks.
Employment
A Youth Job Guarantee has been mentioned already, and should that prove viable using a TO dollar, it could be expanded to be a job guarantee for anyone in need of work. Most people would much rather work to support themselves than sit around collecting a government cheque that barely covers living expenses. There is satisfaction that comes with being productive, and there are many low-skill jobs the city could be offering.
The Ontario Works Training Program is somewhat helpful, but most people cannot survive on the money given and so cannot stop working to retrain. We need to find ways the city can train and employ people for its own jobs program, and it is possible with a TO dollar.