In September of 2015, Amber was preparing to present in front of a City Council Standing Committee to support Administration’s sliding scale framework proposal for the Fair Entry program. As a member of Poverty Talks! Amber has been a part of the group’s advocacy efforts. She invited Veronica, her neighbour and friend, to come along.
As presentations to Committee went on, Veronica listened to words used to describe people experiencing poverty- “them” and “those people.” It really started to bother her. With Amber’s trusted support, Veronica decided to seize the moment and
present her story to Committee. She shared how she managed to meet her and her son’s basic needs on an extremely limited budget; which meant some hard sacrifices. She explained how the City’s subsidised annual recreation passes were still out of reach for her family and many others in her neighbourhood. She recalls having a panic attack the whole time she presented. She persevered and, as she says, “I was actually heard, not just listened to.”
