Ontario’s soaring poverty gap ‘starkest’ for single adults as welfare rates stagnate, By Laurie Monsebraaten, May 9, 2016, Toronto Star: “After five years on welfare, Pauline Bryant figures she was probably over-qualified to help others ‘get by on next to nothing’ as a part-time community engagement worker last year. Although the job gave Bryant an extra $600 a month, it didn’t provide medical benefits or enough money to escape welfare. But it eased her sense of isolation…”
Tag: Canada
Youth Homelessness
Poverty the leading cause of youth homelessness: Study, By Laurie Monsebraaten, April 4, 2016, Toronto Star: “Poverty — not delinquency — is the leading cause of youth homelessness around the world, according to a groundbreaking international study led by a University of Toronto researcher. The study, published online Monday by JAMA Pediatrics, analyzes research on youth homelessness involving more than 13,500 young people in 24 countries, including Canada and the United States and is believed to be the first of its kind…”
Child Poverty – Canada
- 25 years after Ottawa’s pledge to end child poverty, it’s time to hit ‘reset’, By Marco Chown Oved, November 19, 2014, Toronto Star: “It’s been 25 years since members of Parliament unanimously voted to eradicate child poverty. Their self-imposed deadline came and went almost 15 years ago. In that time, millions of children in Canada have grown up in deplorable conditions, often cold, hungry and ill — and some of them are now raising their own kids in the same situation. On the anniversary of the government’s unfulfilled pledge, almost 1.2 million children go to school hungry, don’t have a good winter coat or can’t afford to play sports. Religious leaders, economists, teachers and doctors say it’s time to reset the clock on the pledge to ending child poverty and embark anew on the road to ensuring that every Canadian child gets a good start in life…”
- Patchwork of employment perpetuates poverty cycle for Toronto family, By Sara Mojtehedzadeh, November 19, 2014, Toronto Star: “Richard Wang is a man of many trades. He is a dishwasher, a doorman, a food taster and a tour guide. He scrubs toilets and flips hamburgers. When luck strikes, he gets paid $50 to be CT-scanned or x-rayed at a teaching hospital. But most of all, Richard Wang is a father. His dizzying schedule and patchwork of low-paid work are stitched together for a single mission: to be the best dad possible to his 8-year-old son. ‘I want to make sure that Noah’s development, especially emotionally, is OK. Whatever he needs, I provide it,’ says Wang. It’s not easy. Like a growing number of Canadians, Wang is stuck in the kind of precarious work that grants him few rights, no benefits, and little control over his life…”