New interactive tool helps Calgarians understand poverty in our city

Calgary Ward Poverty Profiles show that poverty exists in every Ward

CityNews Calgary interviews Meaghon Reid about the Calgary Municipal Ward Poverty Profiles

New report highlights how poverty exists in each one of Calgary’s 14 wards

Policy and Research Specialist, Lee Stevens leads a discussion that raises questions and sparks critical thinking 

VCC hosts fireside chat with basic income expert Dr. Evelyn Forget

Meaghon Reid talks about the effects of COVID-19 on Calgarians living in poverty. 

VCC's interview on AM 770 CHQR Morning Show

New study shows that Calgarians living in low income have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new study has been released stating that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the lives of low-income Calgarians.

New study finds COVID-19 pandemic hits low income population the hardest

Structural barriers identified as disproportionately impacting low income and racialized groups expanding gaps in health and social inequities.

New study highlights the serious impacts to Calgarians living in poverty from COVID-19

With two milestones last week, VCC reflects on the past year

Community builder and food strategy consultant Miriam Bankey reflects on a recent study on Calgary’s emergency food system

VCC's statement on the discovery of 215 Indigenous children buried outside Kamloops residential school

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven more Calgarians into poverty, according to a study conducted by Vibrant Communities Calgary.

77,000 more Calgarians fell into poverty during the pandemic: study

VCC’s community facilitation & engagement specialist Hagir Sail discusses how to be actively anti-racist

Anti-Racism: Using your privilege to leverage

VCC's Executive Director Meaghon Reid discussed how many families are struggling with access to technology and internet connections in an interview with CBC.

Online schooling much harder for thousands of Calgarians living in poverty, say advocates

SAIT student Tyler Saxby illustrates the strength of Enough for All for collective impact in new video

Getting youth excited about Enough for All

New report highlights income required to sufficiently cover the cost of living in Calgary

The pandemic has emphasized the importance of paying people living wages

A critical look at Alberta’s income support program

Four members of Basic Income Calgary share their insights

How do you move the basic income conversation forward?

It’s tax time: Calgarians living on low incomes may be missing out on benefits from not filing

A challenging economy and the pandemic have disproportionately affected women and their families, but there’s hope for a better future

In advance of International Women’s Day, Calgary’s Women In Need Society and Vibrant Communities Calgary Forge Partnership to Help End Poverty in our city

Adult Literacy and Foundational Learning 

Poverty Talks! officially joined Vibrant Communities Calgary in 2016 as an advisory group, offering insight into poverty reduction from a lived experience perspective.

Guiding E4A through the voices of lived experience

Poverty in Blackfoot is kimatapsini, which means “to have empathy and compassion for someone”. In the old days, no one suffered for need of food, shelter, protection or transportation. The leadership, the war chiefs and warriors who were in charge, took care of all the people in their community. Leadership, in the old days, meant not only to protect the people but see to it that they had everything they needed for sustenance. The people were communal. They practiced collectivism and interdependence. They shared everything. Family connections were strong. They had built-in systems that accommodated their beliefs, laws, clan system, societies and spiritualism. That was their way of life — their survival depended on it.

In this episode, Peter and Jill discuss the ramifications, and what we might be able to do in our day-to-day lives to make a difference.

Episode 1 - The Indigenous Perspective on Poverty

Vibrant Communities Calgary (VCC) has created its Social Procurement Guidelines to ensure that products and services purchased by the team are in alignment with the goals of the Enough for All strategy, of which VCC is the steward. To successfully implement the strategy, organizational purchasing must flow to companies that are rooted in Calgary, provide living wages, and environmentally friendly products and services that meet our organization’s needs and mission. In doing so, VCC can scale the impact of purchasing decisions, and materially contribute to Community Economic Development. 

We encourage our community partners to consider purchasing from businesses that minimize the impact on our environment, pay a living wage, and are based in Calgary to support the local economy. 

Read Momentum 's Social Procurement for Calgary publication.

Vibrant Communities Calgary’s Social Procurement Guidelines

VCC has identified areas of opportunity for policy change within Calgary City Council and Administration. There are several roles that the local government can play in creating vibrant communities, including exemplary employer, service provider, investor, leader and champion, convener and partner. 

VCC's Policy recommendations for Calgary City Council

Vibrant Communities Calgary and the Canadian Poverty Institute have released a publication outlining the incidence of poverty with poverty-specific data related to Calgary’s 14 wards. 

This information can be used to stimulate debate and highlight poverty as a key election issue with local candidates.

The goal is for municipal candidates to use these profiles to inform their platforms and priority issues and consider how other orders of government and community organizations could address the various issues of poverty. In addition, voting Calgarians can use the information to form questions to ask candidates how they will support and advance poverty reduction if elected.

Both quantitative (numerical data) and qualitative (descriptive data) methods were used to create the profiles for each Ward. Calgarians participated in an online questionnaire designed to give insight into some of the top issues and concerns in each ward. Along with information on what is working well and what solutions are needed to address the various aspects of poverty in each ward.

Poverty is not always visible. Each of the 14 Wards in Calgary have things in common such as a strong sense of community and groups that help community members and residents. At the same time, these profiles are further evidence that poverty exists in each Ward, where people are struggling with access to affordable housing, mental health, transportation, childcare, access to appropriate cultural supports, and food security.

Calgary Municipal Ward Poverty Profiles 2021

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of low-income Calgarians as they cope during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research project engaged with people with lived experience of poverty to understand from their perspectives, how COVID-19 is impacting their day-to-day lives.

We asked participants to describe changes in their lives related to income, employment, service access and health and wellbeing specifically because of the pandemic. Some people reported positive changes including an increase in income from their pre-COVID wages to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, reduced spending on ‘luxury’ items, increased savings and establishment of their ‘true’ social support networks. However, the majority of people, reported serious and significant negatives changes in their lives related to loss of employment, loss of income, food insecurity and being many weeks or months behind in paying household bills.

In reviewing Enough for All’s progress in 2020, we acknowledge the collective efforts of the Enough for All Network to ensure people in our city who live in poverty were – and continue to be – supported. The 2020 Report to Community outlines some of the key accomplishments and initiatives in the year. 

As part of the report you can also view the audited financial statements for VCC Initiatives Ltd. for the year ended December 31, 2020.

The audited financial statements for VCC Initiatives Ltd. for the year ended December 31, 2020. 

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are clear, and few will rebut that in 2020, some were hit harder. Women in Alberta experienced disproportionate job losses, increases to unpaid care work, and greater exposure to the virus working in health care, elder-care, and childcare. Budget 2021 aimed to strike a balance by maintaining previous funding commitments, but it did not address the unequal impacts of the pandemic on women, people of color, or those working in low wage precarious jobs.

Vibrant Communities Calgary’s response to the Alberta Budget 2021: The impact on vulnerable Albertans and Enough for All

Food security remains a pressing need in Calgary. Recent data has identified that many Calgary households are experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity and are concerned about not having enough money for food. The onset of the pandemic in March 2020 resulted in heightened demand for emergency food assistance. This demand revealed gaps in the emergency food assistance system. In response, a variety of agencies began providing food assistance where they had not before, while community-based mutual aid initiatives also emerged.

The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered valuable community strengths and opportunities; a need to increase the accessibility of food assistance services; increase collaboration and coordination of the emergency food assistance system; and increase the capacity of food assistance providers to meet the food needs of Calgarians.

Examining Calgary's Emergency Food Assistance System provides recommendations that will improve the capacity of Calgary’s emergency food assistance system to effectively deliver emergency food assistance in an emergency.

Examining Calgary's Emergency Food Assistance System

Income from employment that is sufficient to cover the cost of living in a given region is not only vital to reducing poverty but is a necessary component to a resilient city and economy. People need more than the bare minimum, this includes enough income to cover bank fees, education and training, internet costs, and the ability to save for an unexpected event. Other principles identified by Living Wage Canada include a wage that enables working families to have sufficient income to cover reasonable costs, promote social inclusion, and support healthy child development.

Working in collaboration with other municipalities, Vibrant Communities Calgary has adopted the new standardized methodology to calculate the living wage rate for Calgary.  The 2020 living wage is $20.69 per hour, a substantial 27% increase from the 2018 rate of $16.45, and a difference of 39% from Alberta’s minimum wage of $15 per hour.  

2020 has been a tough year. While the data is not all in, this year has brought inequities to the surface, in our own city and worldwide. 

Among those harder hit include Calgarians who were experiencing poverty before COVID-19 began. Parents, especially mothers, are struggling to balance work and childcare, and many are leaving employment altogether. Racialized groups and people with lower incomes are less likely to be able to work from home and much more likely to contract COVID-19. Unpaid sick leave was always an issue of poverty, but today it is a matter of public health. 

The intersection of COVID-19, the recession, and increasing food prices has made the vulnerable more vulnerable. We don’t have all the information yet, but need to be prepared to support Calgarians facing unprecedented challenges. As such, we’ll share the most recent data we have on poverty in Calgary and what we know about this radical new context.

Vibrant Communities Calgary and EndPovertyEdmonton believe the Alberta government plays a pivotal role in ensuring public safety, wellbeing, and in creating the right environment for civil society to adequately do its job. While we realize these are extraordinary times, Alberta’s debt and increasing health care costs are long standing challenges. When the causes of health care and opportunities for savings are closely examined, the evidence points overwhelmingly to various issues related to poverty. We understand and respect the difficult choices your government has had to make during an extremely challenging year, and we believe this submission presents a path forward towards modernizing our policies for the Alberta of today, helping create a strong foundation for the future. 

Poverty Talks! gathered with community members for the 2020 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Poverty exists along a continuum from those not at immediate risk of poverty to those living in conditions of deep poverty. This report examines the characteristics of those at risk of living in income poverty with income just above the poverty line, as well as those in shallow and deep poverty.

The Risk and Depth of Poverty in Calgary: A Socio-Demographic Profile

Albertans are facing elevated levels of unemployment, employment volatility, and income instability as we work to recover from the overlapping crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the crash in oil prices that have shocked Alberta’s economy. This brief highlights opportunities to improve the effectiveness of Alberta’s Income and Employment Support programs. These programs will be essential to the province’s economic recovery as Albertans seek support to meet their essential needs and find new opportunities to become self-sufficient through employment.

Social Policy Collaborative Income Support Policy Brief 2020

At the Business Council of Alberta, we spend a lot of time thinking about shared prosperity—how can we ensure that all those who call Alberta home have the opportunity, security and belonging to live the life that they aspire to? According to recent reports from Vibrant Communities Calgary and End Poverty Edmonton, more than 120,000 Calgarians and 100,870 Edmontonians live in poverty, respectively, and poverty is over-represented in children, women, newcomers, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, and the working poor.

Meaghon Reid and Erick Ambtman are Executive Directors for Vibrant Communities Calgary and End Poverty Edmonton, respectively, organizations that have a big, audacious goal to end poverty in Alberta. They join BCA president and host of this episode, Adam Legge, to dive into the relationship between poverty and shared prosperity, how COVID-19 has both accelerated the problem but also the opportunity for solutions and how businesses help drive meaningful action in reducing (and eliminating) poverty in Alberta.

Meaghon and Erick share several concrete ways businesses can help reduce poverty in Alberta beyond a cheque, including

Look at or develop social procurement policies to use purchasing power to support local community businesses

Look at vendors and contractors and their practices around paying a living wage and supporting the well-being of employees

Consider your ability to pay a living wage for employees

Assist with innovation for social service agencies and non-profits and look for opportunities to provide knowledge and insight to service agencies

Reach out to service agencies in your community to learn what they need and add supplies or materials to your bulk order

For the complete conversation on these ideas, please go to 43:35.

More Than a Cheque: Reducing Poverty and Building Shared Prosperity in Alberta

Vibrant Communities Calgary is the steward of Enough for All, Calgary's poverty reduction strategy. We held our 2020 virtual AGM on 8 July 2020.

Leger was contracted by EndPovertyEdmonton in collaboration with Vibrant Communities Calgary to conduct an online survey with Albertans to assess awareness, behaviours, attitudes, lifestyles and socio-demographics in regards to ‘Basic Income’.

The results of this research will help EndPovertyEdmonton and Vibrant Communities Calgary with future communications.

Basic Income Perception Survey with Albertans

A detailed list, linking out to many helpful resources for people who may be struggling during COVID-19.

New protections are in place for residential and mobile homes site tenants facing financial hardship due to COVID-19.

Information for Employees, Renters, and Utility Customers in Alberta during COVID-19

We all experience stress and feelings of anxiety in challenging times, but now we may feel overwhelmed by a number of simultaneous stressors - isolation, financial and employment uncertainty, kids home from school and getting cabin fever – all things that are beyond our control during this pandemic.

Drug Free Kids Canada: Supporting yourself and your family during COVID-19

Highlighting the experiences of poverty in all 14 wards of Calgary.

Evaluating our collective progress towards achieving Enough for All in 2020

Not filing your taxes? You could be missing out!

Laying Bare Inequities: COVID-19, Gender, Race and Precarious Employment

Reflecting on Basic Income Through the Lens of Poverty Reduction

Combating poverty in the earliest stages of life

Overcoming Stigma: Poverty is Not a Choice

Poverty Talks!

Overview

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Community Conversations

Featured

What Are We Hearing: Adult Literacy and Foundational Learning

What Are We Hearing: Affordable Housing

What Are We Hearing: Early Learning and Care

What Are We Hearing: Financial Empowerment

What Are We Hearing: Food Insecurity

What Are We Hearing: Income Support

What Are We Hearing: Justice

What Are We Hearing: Physical and Mental Health

What Are We Hearing: Transportation