Hidden Poverty: Oakville’s poverty and Low Income Cut Off issues.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
This is a paper I wrote for my social policy class, and by far has been my best and most highly applauded work. Enjoy.
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Hidden Poverty: Oakville’s poverty and Low Income Cut Off issues.
By Kala Bennett-Alexander, July 12, 2011
Introduction
Oakville is a town teeming with high end lofts and trendy stores and restaurants. There are even some well known Canadian celebrities that call the Town of Oakville their home. But behind the ritzy glamour of the downtown strip or the beautiful Lakeshore Road homes, there is an underlying hidden problem of poverty, which most are afraid to admit. Poverty in Halton is often hidden, buried under the veneer of affluence and well-being. There is a certain haze in the air, and no it isn’t the smog from Toronto. It’s the blatant disregard for people in need, in a very affluent and successful town, where people refusing to open their eyes and see the problems these misfortunate people are facing in their own well groomed back yards. There needs be an awakening within the people of Oakville, within the government and its officials to see the real experiences of real people living in poverty in Oakville.
Oakville is considered to be one of the most affluent cities in Canada. The Town of Oakville is located in Halton Region, on Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario Canada, and is part of the Greater Toronto Area. Oakville boasts beautiful marinas full of yachts and sail boats, multi-million dollar homes on acre properties surrounded by gates and castle-like verandas, and BMW’s and Porches’ line many of the streets and lay nestled in their three or four car garages at night.
When one announces to a group of friends that he or she is a resident of Oakville, all are taken aback. Known for its notable expensiveness and “snobby demeanour”, most think to live in Oakville you need to be a millionaire or on your way to being one. Truthfully, not everyone that resides in Oakville is a millionaire, or even close to being one.
Oakville boasts a meagre low income area in comparison to some of the more poverty stricken areas of the GTA such as Jane and Finch in Toronto, or Malton in Mississauga, but alas does have scattered low income areas throughout the town.
The truth of the matter is that in 2005, 7.9% of all Oakville families were considered to be living at or below the low income cut off (LICO). This was even before the recession hit in 2008 (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011). It would be safe to say that this rate has probably risen, or perhaps even doubled since the recession.
According to Stats Canada, low income cut-offs (LICOs) are intended to convey the income level at which a family may be in straitened circumstances because it has to spend a greater portion of its income on the basics (food, clothing and shelter) than does the average family of similar size. The LICOs vary by family size and by size of community.
The low income cut-off takes into account family size and the degree of urbanization of the community. An example is a family of four living in the Town of Oakville with a total income of $38, 610 or less in 2005 is considered to be a low income family. (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011).
In 2005, nearly two in five (38%) low income families were considered to be extreme-low income families. For a family of four, that means they have to survive with an annual total income of less than $20,000 in comparison to the LICO threshold which is $38,610. (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011).
Factors affecting low income poverty rates in Oakville
There are many factors that contribute to the ever growing amount of low income families in the Town of Oakville. The ones highlighted in this paper are cost of living, employment issues, and the cost of continuing education but these only scratch the surface of a problem that can’t stay hidden for much longer.
Cost of Living
It is no secret that Oakville excels in one thing for sure and that is money. 121 Oakville residents actually sit on the so called “Sunshine” list (Lea, April 2011), with one of our very own taking the number one spot as the most highly paid person in the public sector for the second year in a row. With all this wealth around us, you would think that this would be the town without any problems, without any “blemishes”. Perhaps that is the picture that the people sitting at Oakville city hall want you to think, but the facts are in; Oakville is not all it is cracked up to be, and that might very well be the fault of its residents, as well as its municipal representatives who let this fog of “greater importance” cloud the minds of many of the residents of Oakville.
The townsfolk of Oakville fought the development of a new shelter in Oakville in 1999, because “we don’t have homeless people”, this writer was merely a 13 year old teenager who was very involved in the Salvation Army at that time and experienced some of the strife that the church and other community organizations were going through at that time. The most recent debacle happened when a plot of land near Rebecca Street and Dorval Drive was said to be up for usage as a low income plot of land. The residents that lived around the plot of land protested the use of the land for low income housing because they didn’t want it in their neighbourhood. (Lea, June 2011). The funny thing is that the Rebecca and Dorval area is not the most “affluent” part of Old Oakville and it just goes to show that some people have their priorities very mixed up, even when their proverbial “horse” is not that much “taller” than the poor family below him.
The sad thing about Oakville is that they are more worried about their trees getting hurt than the residents that live in the town who are in distress, especially in the area of housing.
Housing
The housing market in Oakville is extremely expensive, new town homes ranging in the high $600,000 and studio apartments in upwards of a million dollars are a reflection of the ever burgeoning housing market in Oakville. As many families who live at or below the LICO do not own their own home, they are required to rent an apartment or house.
According to this writer’s research (See Appendix A), to rent a three bedroom apartment in Oakville it would cost about $15,000 a year minimum depending on cost of utilities. Using the example given in the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, a family of four (one child in school and one child requires child care) living in Oakville with one parent working full-time and another working part time both at minimum wage, their after-tax income would be $33,034 (including a Child Tax benefit of $6,698). Housing would account for 45% of the after-tax income of the couple.
In some cases rent can require almost half or more of a low income couples after-tax income leaving them with just barely half their finances to put towards needs such as food, clothing, transportation and subsidized daycare. The outlook for those who live on their own without a spouse and have children are even worse than a couple family. Couple families have a higher chance of having two wage earners and are less likely to be considered low income earners than single parent families. In Oakville the incidence of low income for female lone parent families is four times higher than couple families. Also, 25% of female lone parent families live in poverty, at or below the LICO level (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011).
Food
According to Community Development Halton to feed a family of four a healthy diet in the Halton region it would cost about $8736.00 a year representing 26% of the after-tax income. The fact of the matter is many emergencies require monetary solutions and they do happen, and the most flexible part of a budget is the food budget. This average family will have to pull funds from their food budget to be able to combat the emergency, which lessens their ability to eat healthy foods, requiring them to turn to cost saving starch and sugar laden products such as pasta and sugary cereal, canned goods made with preservatives and chemicals instead of fresh, healthy foods. This type of diet can lead to many medical issues. Repeated emergencies that take away from the food budget have the tendency to weakened immune systems and result in health problems such as obesity, malnourishment, vitamin or mineral deficiencies and more frequent infections and colds, which can be costly when purchasing medicine or prescriptions for ailments, not to mention the numerous trips to the doctor.
Transportation
To get to and from work, as well as grocery shopping and dropping and picking up the children at childcare and school, the average cost according to the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families is about $5,800 a year including maintaining one used car and a bus pass for another adult in the family. The transportation cost accounts for 17% of the income. The need to have a personal vehicle in a family with two small children is often a no-brainer. Having to bus with two children having alternate routes and schedules would be taxing on time and sanity. Also after the age of 5 children are expected to pay the bus fare as well (Oakville Transit). It seems that every year the transit fare is rising exponentially. This year as of July 1, 2011, Oakville Transit introduced another fare hike which affects those who purchase monthly passes. The biggest population the hike hurts is those between the ages of 19-64, who use the monthly adult bus pass. The previous amount was $88.00 per month and it has been increased to $96.00 per month (Oakville Transit). Luckily they have not changed the average fare per bus use, and the introduction of the Presto card to the GTA transit system has kept the price of bus usage low in a time where gas prices are soaring and somewhat unpredictable.
Daycare and Basic Clothing Needs
According to the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, to place the two children in subsidized early childhood education as well as before and after school programs would cost another $3,750 which accounts for 11% of the after-tax amount. According to this writers research (See Appendix B) without the subsidization, daycare can cost in upwards of $900.00 per child per month in Oakville.
Also, based on the annual Survey of Household Spending conducted by Statistics Canada in 2010, it would cost $1,283 to provide clothing for the families in all seasons. This writer also believes that as the years go on, the price of clothing seems to be growing as well, and this figure seems small in comparison to what she would spend on necessities per year.
Debt
Using the example given in the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, a family of four (one child in school and one child requires child care) living in Oakville with one parent working full-time and another working part time both at minimum wage making an after-tax income of $33,034 including a Child Tax Benefit of $6,698 would find themselves in debt because their average yearly costs exceed what they make each year after-tax. In order to pay for all the daily basic needs, the family of four would need an extra $3,740 per year. Their only options at that time would be either to be forced into debt or give up some of the essentials. As stated previously the most lenient of all parts of the budget seems to be the food budget, which would probably be lowered significantly to accommodate the actuality of accumulating debt. But cutting corners in the food budget aren’t enough. This budget doesn’t account for emergencies, school trips or prescriptions either. The fact of the matter is, this is the face of many families in Oakville, and frankly some of the outlooks are even bleaker in single-parent families and immigrant families.
Finding Employment
After the recession hit many people, both rich and poor scrambled to find their footing in the economic world. Many people lost their jobs, others we’re downgraded to part-time, in turn often losing benefits and pension opportunities given to full-time employees.
According to the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, on average, families that have low incomes have fewer income earners than families that are not experiencing low incomes. Also the number of full time or part time workers can have an effect on the earning power of the families. In the case of our example family, one parent only works part-time at minimum wage which cuts his/her earning potential in half should they had taken a full-time job at minimum wage.
The actual amount of low income families that had two full time workers in their families in 2005 is about one in seven, a whopping 15% who worked more than 30 hours per week to qualify as full-time(Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families)
Only one-third (35%) of the low income families had a full time worker and almost the same percentage (32%) of the LICO families had both spouses not being employed (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families).
This is an obvious correlation to poverty, as if one does not work they cannot bring in income to satisfy their families needs. Percentages show in the Report on Poverty-Oakville Families that if you have two full time spouses working in the same family, than the chances of you living above the LICO line almost double. The chances of poverty also spike if you are an elderly person trying to make ends meet, and as usual, single parents with children often get the bottom of the barrel, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates.
The frightening thing is that even though you have full-time employment, it doesn’t mean that you can be self sustainable in the province of Ontario. In 2008, one third of all Ontario children living in poverty were families with full-time, full-year hours of work (Novick, 2011). You need more than just minimum wage full-time work to get by in this world, and more importantly to get by in the Town of Oakville.
Cost of Continuing Education
With the idea of working full-time at a minimum wage job, in the town of Oakville, not being a prospect, many need to find another course of action to make sure that they are self sufficient and able to take care of themselves and their families. Many people come to the conclusion that post secondary or continuing education is the option that seems to provide the most opportunity, but at what cost?
The cost of continuing education these days is becoming so unmanageable that many people are finding it difficult to attend post secondary. For example, according to this writer’s research and experience, if you want to attend Sheridan College in the Social Service Worker Program, you should expect to pay on average $1500.00 per semester, not including your $250.00 health insurance that you pay once per calendar year, and applicable graduation fees at the end of your learning at Sheridan (See Appendix C). On top of taking the program at Sheridan, you also would have to go on social assistance, apply for a second career grant, or find some other sort of monetary way to keep you and your family afloat while you go to school full time. Some choose to work during their college years but often times it serves the student better to be able to attend as much as their focus to school work, especially if they have children and a family to attend to at the end of the school day. Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) can be beneficial to those willing to use the service, but the interest rates after you start working can be gouging as this writer’s research revealed that in 2009 the Ontario Student Assistance Program was charging 11% interest on the loans they issued at the level of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, and even worse was their rate for Private Career Colleges, which was a whopping 15%, almost the same interest that some credit cards offer the general public. Particularly in 2009 they had a default rate of 8.0% (See Appendix D).
Although post secondary is seen to be the pathway out of poverty, this is not always the case. In times like these, education doesn’t always mean your life is set in stone before you. It does mean you have a foot in the door, and that you are more educated than the average person, but education is not always a foolproof plan to get out of poverty (Novick, 2011). The following statistics will help further illustrate the unstable outcomes of post secondary in Canada:
• 80% of low income parents in Canada had completed high school
• 50% had some sort of post secondary education studies, and
• 45% of the unemployed in Canada had completed a post-secondary education (study done in October 2010 by Statistics Canada, 2010)
Sometimes statistics like these make it hard to be able to picture a future where we are happy and content, without financial woe, or unfortunate circumstance, but all hope should not be lost. If you are willing to work for it, you can achieve it, no matter how horrible the economy looks, or how daunting the other person interviewing before you is.
Recommendations
My recommendation for the Town of Oakville is simple: Awareness. We need to take off the blindfold and accept what is in front of us. Poverty is everywhere, and in some time in our lives, we have known someone who has been touched by poverty, if it hasn’t touched us personally. Kerr Street is not just a “meagre ghetto” it’s a cry for help. Hanging some pots and sprucing up the sidewalks are not going to make the area any better. The people need support so that they can have respect and pride in their surroundings. More funding has to be provided to organizations such as Kerr Street Ministries and the Salvation Army Lighthouse to provide Oakvillian’s a place to stay when they need it and somewhere to turn to when they just can’t help themselves. The resources themselves in the Oakville area are very few and far between and when you do find them, they are strapped for funding because the Canadian Government often looks over some of the charity organizations in Oakville, simply because they are located in Oakville and serve the Oakville area.
I think that at this time, awareness is the only way we are going to be able to get through to the people who really keep holding up charity projects, and that is the majority of the residents of Oakville. They believe that having low income residential areas located near their house will bring down the value of their houses, or having a habitat for humanity house/building in their neighbourhood will shatter their perfect neighbourhood, there is no statistical data to show that this is the truth, moreover, small pockets of low income housing could balance out neighbourhoods, help cut down the stigmatization felt by those who are less fortunate than other.
The government should also realise that poverty is everywhere. Just because parts of Oakville do not look like Jane and Finch in Toronto doesn’t mean we do not have poverty, it just looks a little different. The need for help here is just as dire as Jane and Finch, just in different amounts and different areas. We have homeless in Oakville, there isn’t a day the Salvation Army Lighthouse isn’t housing someone in need of a place to stay, and the many food banks located throughout Oakville are always busy.
We as social workers, social service workers and those in the community development sector need to educate the residents of Oakville about the poverty that some of their fellow residents are experiencing, and help them realise that everyone deserves to be treated as a human, not to be denied food or shelter. Secondly, we need to initiate the government to be more responsible for who they divvy out the funding to each charity organization. Just because Oakville is an affluent community, doesn’t mean its residents are any less deserving of proper access to services when they need them, especially since there is poverty in Oakville, it is just hidden. Thirdly, and most importantly, those who feel there needs to be change have to stand up and fight for those who don’t know how to change their situations. Oakville does have the rap of being affluent and snobby, but one bad apple shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch. We are all human and we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
Conclusion
By not providing enough low income housing and resources for low income families in the Town of Oakville, it makes a strong case that perhaps Oakville really doesn’t want “poor people” in their town. Perhaps the low amount of housing is indicative of a sort of social cleansing that the Town of Oakville is partaking itself in. More so, we already have legislation like the Safe Streets Act impairing the needy from using panhandling as a form of monetary gain, what’s next? Mandatory income checks to be part of certain communities?
If I have anything to say about it, and the words and thoughts of other caring, compassionate people in the town, the Oakville Mayor and counsellors will have to wake up and realise the problem sitting on their door step, that poverty in Oakville is not just a myth, but a real thriving threat to the Town’s shiny “Green” record.
Will Oakville always put the wellbeing of their Trees in front of the wellbeing of its residents? This writer hopes her gut feeling is wrong, that there can be change and acceptance in this community. Although the future is bleak, and those who are suffering aren’t getting the help they need all over the world, not just in Oakville, these practices can provide relief to those who need it most.
References
Apartments:Oakville . (n.d.). Viewit.ca. Retrieved July 9, 2011, from http://viewit.ca/vwListings.aspx?cs=1&city=Oakville
CDH. (2011, May 1). Report card on Poverty-Oakville Families. Retrieved June 28, 2011, from www.cdhalton.ca/pdf/Report-Card-on-Poverty-Oakville-Families.pdf
Early Explorers in Oakville. (n.d.). Daycare and Child Care in Canada with Reviews and Ratings. Retrieved July 9, 2011, from http://www.godaycare.com/ontario/oakville/Early+Explorers/8623/1
Fares & Policies. (n.d.). Oakville Transit. Retrieved July 7, 2011, from http://www.oakvilletransit.com/fares.htm
LICO Dec 1999. (1999, December 1). Statistics Canada: Canada's national statistical agency. Retrieved June 15, 2011, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/13-551-x/13-551-x1998001-eng.pdf
Lea, D. (2011, April 7). Top earners on the Sunshine List. InsideHalton
News from the Burlington Post, Oakville Beaver newspaper and others. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://www.insidehalton.com/community/oakvillebeaver/article/978263
Lea, D. (2011, June 1). DND lands proposal raises density concerns. InsideHalton
News from the Burlington Post, Oakville Beaver newspaper and others. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://www.insidehalton.com/article/1019006--dnd-lands-proposal-raises-density-concerns
Novick,M. (2011). Better Living Conditions for a Poverty Free Ontario. Presentation for Poverty free Halton (March 2011)
The Price of Eating Well in Halton. (2010, May 1). CDH. Retrieved June 28, 2011, from www.halton.ca/common/pages/UserFile.aspx?fileId=18562
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Hidden Poverty: Oakville’s poverty and Low Income Cut Off issues.
By Kala Bennett-Alexander, July 12, 2011
Introduction
Oakville is a town teeming with high end lofts and trendy stores and restaurants. There are even some well known Canadian celebrities that call the Town of Oakville their home. But behind the ritzy glamour of the downtown strip or the beautiful Lakeshore Road homes, there is an underlying hidden problem of poverty, which most are afraid to admit. Poverty in Halton is often hidden, buried under the veneer of affluence and well-being. There is a certain haze in the air, and no it isn’t the smog from Toronto. It’s the blatant disregard for people in need, in a very affluent and successful town, where people refusing to open their eyes and see the problems these misfortunate people are facing in their own well groomed back yards. There needs be an awakening within the people of Oakville, within the government and its officials to see the real experiences of real people living in poverty in Oakville.
Oakville is considered to be one of the most affluent cities in Canada. The Town of Oakville is located in Halton Region, on Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario Canada, and is part of the Greater Toronto Area. Oakville boasts beautiful marinas full of yachts and sail boats, multi-million dollar homes on acre properties surrounded by gates and castle-like verandas, and BMW’s and Porches’ line many of the streets and lay nestled in their three or four car garages at night.
When one announces to a group of friends that he or she is a resident of Oakville, all are taken aback. Known for its notable expensiveness and “snobby demeanour”, most think to live in Oakville you need to be a millionaire or on your way to being one. Truthfully, not everyone that resides in Oakville is a millionaire, or even close to being one.
Oakville boasts a meagre low income area in comparison to some of the more poverty stricken areas of the GTA such as Jane and Finch in Toronto, or Malton in Mississauga, but alas does have scattered low income areas throughout the town.
The truth of the matter is that in 2005, 7.9% of all Oakville families were considered to be living at or below the low income cut off (LICO). This was even before the recession hit in 2008 (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011). It would be safe to say that this rate has probably risen, or perhaps even doubled since the recession.
According to Stats Canada, low income cut-offs (LICOs) are intended to convey the income level at which a family may be in straitened circumstances because it has to spend a greater portion of its income on the basics (food, clothing and shelter) than does the average family of similar size. The LICOs vary by family size and by size of community.
The low income cut-off takes into account family size and the degree of urbanization of the community. An example is a family of four living in the Town of Oakville with a total income of $38, 610 or less in 2005 is considered to be a low income family. (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011).
In 2005, nearly two in five (38%) low income families were considered to be extreme-low income families. For a family of four, that means they have to survive with an annual total income of less than $20,000 in comparison to the LICO threshold which is $38,610. (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011).
Factors affecting low income poverty rates in Oakville
There are many factors that contribute to the ever growing amount of low income families in the Town of Oakville. The ones highlighted in this paper are cost of living, employment issues, and the cost of continuing education but these only scratch the surface of a problem that can’t stay hidden for much longer.
Cost of Living
It is no secret that Oakville excels in one thing for sure and that is money. 121 Oakville residents actually sit on the so called “Sunshine” list (Lea, April 2011), with one of our very own taking the number one spot as the most highly paid person in the public sector for the second year in a row. With all this wealth around us, you would think that this would be the town without any problems, without any “blemishes”. Perhaps that is the picture that the people sitting at Oakville city hall want you to think, but the facts are in; Oakville is not all it is cracked up to be, and that might very well be the fault of its residents, as well as its municipal representatives who let this fog of “greater importance” cloud the minds of many of the residents of Oakville.
The townsfolk of Oakville fought the development of a new shelter in Oakville in 1999, because “we don’t have homeless people”, this writer was merely a 13 year old teenager who was very involved in the Salvation Army at that time and experienced some of the strife that the church and other community organizations were going through at that time. The most recent debacle happened when a plot of land near Rebecca Street and Dorval Drive was said to be up for usage as a low income plot of land. The residents that lived around the plot of land protested the use of the land for low income housing because they didn’t want it in their neighbourhood. (Lea, June 2011). The funny thing is that the Rebecca and Dorval area is not the most “affluent” part of Old Oakville and it just goes to show that some people have their priorities very mixed up, even when their proverbial “horse” is not that much “taller” than the poor family below him.
The sad thing about Oakville is that they are more worried about their trees getting hurt than the residents that live in the town who are in distress, especially in the area of housing.
Housing
The housing market in Oakville is extremely expensive, new town homes ranging in the high $600,000 and studio apartments in upwards of a million dollars are a reflection of the ever burgeoning housing market in Oakville. As many families who live at or below the LICO do not own their own home, they are required to rent an apartment or house.
According to this writer’s research (See Appendix A), to rent a three bedroom apartment in Oakville it would cost about $15,000 a year minimum depending on cost of utilities. Using the example given in the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, a family of four (one child in school and one child requires child care) living in Oakville with one parent working full-time and another working part time both at minimum wage, their after-tax income would be $33,034 (including a Child Tax benefit of $6,698). Housing would account for 45% of the after-tax income of the couple.
In some cases rent can require almost half or more of a low income couples after-tax income leaving them with just barely half their finances to put towards needs such as food, clothing, transportation and subsidized daycare. The outlook for those who live on their own without a spouse and have children are even worse than a couple family. Couple families have a higher chance of having two wage earners and are less likely to be considered low income earners than single parent families. In Oakville the incidence of low income for female lone parent families is four times higher than couple families. Also, 25% of female lone parent families live in poverty, at or below the LICO level (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, 2011).
Food
According to Community Development Halton to feed a family of four a healthy diet in the Halton region it would cost about $8736.00 a year representing 26% of the after-tax income. The fact of the matter is many emergencies require monetary solutions and they do happen, and the most flexible part of a budget is the food budget. This average family will have to pull funds from their food budget to be able to combat the emergency, which lessens their ability to eat healthy foods, requiring them to turn to cost saving starch and sugar laden products such as pasta and sugary cereal, canned goods made with preservatives and chemicals instead of fresh, healthy foods. This type of diet can lead to many medical issues. Repeated emergencies that take away from the food budget have the tendency to weakened immune systems and result in health problems such as obesity, malnourishment, vitamin or mineral deficiencies and more frequent infections and colds, which can be costly when purchasing medicine or prescriptions for ailments, not to mention the numerous trips to the doctor.
Transportation
To get to and from work, as well as grocery shopping and dropping and picking up the children at childcare and school, the average cost according to the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families is about $5,800 a year including maintaining one used car and a bus pass for another adult in the family. The transportation cost accounts for 17% of the income. The need to have a personal vehicle in a family with two small children is often a no-brainer. Having to bus with two children having alternate routes and schedules would be taxing on time and sanity. Also after the age of 5 children are expected to pay the bus fare as well (Oakville Transit). It seems that every year the transit fare is rising exponentially. This year as of July 1, 2011, Oakville Transit introduced another fare hike which affects those who purchase monthly passes. The biggest population the hike hurts is those between the ages of 19-64, who use the monthly adult bus pass. The previous amount was $88.00 per month and it has been increased to $96.00 per month (Oakville Transit). Luckily they have not changed the average fare per bus use, and the introduction of the Presto card to the GTA transit system has kept the price of bus usage low in a time where gas prices are soaring and somewhat unpredictable.
Daycare and Basic Clothing Needs
According to the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, to place the two children in subsidized early childhood education as well as before and after school programs would cost another $3,750 which accounts for 11% of the after-tax amount. According to this writers research (See Appendix B) without the subsidization, daycare can cost in upwards of $900.00 per child per month in Oakville.
Also, based on the annual Survey of Household Spending conducted by Statistics Canada in 2010, it would cost $1,283 to provide clothing for the families in all seasons. This writer also believes that as the years go on, the price of clothing seems to be growing as well, and this figure seems small in comparison to what she would spend on necessities per year.
Debt
Using the example given in the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, a family of four (one child in school and one child requires child care) living in Oakville with one parent working full-time and another working part time both at minimum wage making an after-tax income of $33,034 including a Child Tax Benefit of $6,698 would find themselves in debt because their average yearly costs exceed what they make each year after-tax. In order to pay for all the daily basic needs, the family of four would need an extra $3,740 per year. Their only options at that time would be either to be forced into debt or give up some of the essentials. As stated previously the most lenient of all parts of the budget seems to be the food budget, which would probably be lowered significantly to accommodate the actuality of accumulating debt. But cutting corners in the food budget aren’t enough. This budget doesn’t account for emergencies, school trips or prescriptions either. The fact of the matter is, this is the face of many families in Oakville, and frankly some of the outlooks are even bleaker in single-parent families and immigrant families.
Finding Employment
After the recession hit many people, both rich and poor scrambled to find their footing in the economic world. Many people lost their jobs, others we’re downgraded to part-time, in turn often losing benefits and pension opportunities given to full-time employees.
According to the Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families, on average, families that have low incomes have fewer income earners than families that are not experiencing low incomes. Also the number of full time or part time workers can have an effect on the earning power of the families. In the case of our example family, one parent only works part-time at minimum wage which cuts his/her earning potential in half should they had taken a full-time job at minimum wage.
The actual amount of low income families that had two full time workers in their families in 2005 is about one in seven, a whopping 15% who worked more than 30 hours per week to qualify as full-time(Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families)
Only one-third (35%) of the low income families had a full time worker and almost the same percentage (32%) of the LICO families had both spouses not being employed (Report Card on Poverty-Oakville Families).
This is an obvious correlation to poverty, as if one does not work they cannot bring in income to satisfy their families needs. Percentages show in the Report on Poverty-Oakville Families that if you have two full time spouses working in the same family, than the chances of you living above the LICO line almost double. The chances of poverty also spike if you are an elderly person trying to make ends meet, and as usual, single parents with children often get the bottom of the barrel, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates.
The frightening thing is that even though you have full-time employment, it doesn’t mean that you can be self sustainable in the province of Ontario. In 2008, one third of all Ontario children living in poverty were families with full-time, full-year hours of work (Novick, 2011). You need more than just minimum wage full-time work to get by in this world, and more importantly to get by in the Town of Oakville.
Cost of Continuing Education
With the idea of working full-time at a minimum wage job, in the town of Oakville, not being a prospect, many need to find another course of action to make sure that they are self sufficient and able to take care of themselves and their families. Many people come to the conclusion that post secondary or continuing education is the option that seems to provide the most opportunity, but at what cost?
The cost of continuing education these days is becoming so unmanageable that many people are finding it difficult to attend post secondary. For example, according to this writer’s research and experience, if you want to attend Sheridan College in the Social Service Worker Program, you should expect to pay on average $1500.00 per semester, not including your $250.00 health insurance that you pay once per calendar year, and applicable graduation fees at the end of your learning at Sheridan (See Appendix C). On top of taking the program at Sheridan, you also would have to go on social assistance, apply for a second career grant, or find some other sort of monetary way to keep you and your family afloat while you go to school full time. Some choose to work during their college years but often times it serves the student better to be able to attend as much as their focus to school work, especially if they have children and a family to attend to at the end of the school day. Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) can be beneficial to those willing to use the service, but the interest rates after you start working can be gouging as this writer’s research revealed that in 2009 the Ontario Student Assistance Program was charging 11% interest on the loans they issued at the level of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, and even worse was their rate for Private Career Colleges, which was a whopping 15%, almost the same interest that some credit cards offer the general public. Particularly in 2009 they had a default rate of 8.0% (See Appendix D).
Although post secondary is seen to be the pathway out of poverty, this is not always the case. In times like these, education doesn’t always mean your life is set in stone before you. It does mean you have a foot in the door, and that you are more educated than the average person, but education is not always a foolproof plan to get out of poverty (Novick, 2011). The following statistics will help further illustrate the unstable outcomes of post secondary in Canada:
• 80% of low income parents in Canada had completed high school
• 50% had some sort of post secondary education studies, and
• 45% of the unemployed in Canada had completed a post-secondary education (study done in October 2010 by Statistics Canada, 2010)
Sometimes statistics like these make it hard to be able to picture a future where we are happy and content, without financial woe, or unfortunate circumstance, but all hope should not be lost. If you are willing to work for it, you can achieve it, no matter how horrible the economy looks, or how daunting the other person interviewing before you is.
Recommendations
My recommendation for the Town of Oakville is simple: Awareness. We need to take off the blindfold and accept what is in front of us. Poverty is everywhere, and in some time in our lives, we have known someone who has been touched by poverty, if it hasn’t touched us personally. Kerr Street is not just a “meagre ghetto” it’s a cry for help. Hanging some pots and sprucing up the sidewalks are not going to make the area any better. The people need support so that they can have respect and pride in their surroundings. More funding has to be provided to organizations such as Kerr Street Ministries and the Salvation Army Lighthouse to provide Oakvillian’s a place to stay when they need it and somewhere to turn to when they just can’t help themselves. The resources themselves in the Oakville area are very few and far between and when you do find them, they are strapped for funding because the Canadian Government often looks over some of the charity organizations in Oakville, simply because they are located in Oakville and serve the Oakville area.
I think that at this time, awareness is the only way we are going to be able to get through to the people who really keep holding up charity projects, and that is the majority of the residents of Oakville. They believe that having low income residential areas located near their house will bring down the value of their houses, or having a habitat for humanity house/building in their neighbourhood will shatter their perfect neighbourhood, there is no statistical data to show that this is the truth, moreover, small pockets of low income housing could balance out neighbourhoods, help cut down the stigmatization felt by those who are less fortunate than other.
The government should also realise that poverty is everywhere. Just because parts of Oakville do not look like Jane and Finch in Toronto doesn’t mean we do not have poverty, it just looks a little different. The need for help here is just as dire as Jane and Finch, just in different amounts and different areas. We have homeless in Oakville, there isn’t a day the Salvation Army Lighthouse isn’t housing someone in need of a place to stay, and the many food banks located throughout Oakville are always busy.
We as social workers, social service workers and those in the community development sector need to educate the residents of Oakville about the poverty that some of their fellow residents are experiencing, and help them realise that everyone deserves to be treated as a human, not to be denied food or shelter. Secondly, we need to initiate the government to be more responsible for who they divvy out the funding to each charity organization. Just because Oakville is an affluent community, doesn’t mean its residents are any less deserving of proper access to services when they need them, especially since there is poverty in Oakville, it is just hidden. Thirdly, and most importantly, those who feel there needs to be change have to stand up and fight for those who don’t know how to change their situations. Oakville does have the rap of being affluent and snobby, but one bad apple shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch. We are all human and we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
Conclusion
By not providing enough low income housing and resources for low income families in the Town of Oakville, it makes a strong case that perhaps Oakville really doesn’t want “poor people” in their town. Perhaps the low amount of housing is indicative of a sort of social cleansing that the Town of Oakville is partaking itself in. More so, we already have legislation like the Safe Streets Act impairing the needy from using panhandling as a form of monetary gain, what’s next? Mandatory income checks to be part of certain communities?
If I have anything to say about it, and the words and thoughts of other caring, compassionate people in the town, the Oakville Mayor and counsellors will have to wake up and realise the problem sitting on their door step, that poverty in Oakville is not just a myth, but a real thriving threat to the Town’s shiny “Green” record.
Will Oakville always put the wellbeing of their Trees in front of the wellbeing of its residents? This writer hopes her gut feeling is wrong, that there can be change and acceptance in this community. Although the future is bleak, and those who are suffering aren’t getting the help they need all over the world, not just in Oakville, these practices can provide relief to those who need it most.
References
Apartments:Oakville . (n.d.). Viewit.ca. Retrieved July 9, 2011, from http://viewit.ca/vwListings.aspx?cs=1&city=Oakville
CDH. (2011, May 1). Report card on Poverty-Oakville Families. Retrieved June 28, 2011, from www.cdhalton.ca/pdf/Report-Card-on-Poverty-Oakville-Families.pdf
Early Explorers in Oakville. (n.d.). Daycare and Child Care in Canada with Reviews and Ratings. Retrieved July 9, 2011, from http://www.godaycare.com/ontario/oakville/Early+Explorers/8623/1
Fares & Policies. (n.d.). Oakville Transit. Retrieved July 7, 2011, from http://www.oakvilletransit.com/fares.htm
LICO Dec 1999. (1999, December 1). Statistics Canada: Canada's national statistical agency. Retrieved June 15, 2011, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/13-551-x/13-551-x1998001-eng.pdf
Lea, D. (2011, April 7). Top earners on the Sunshine List. InsideHalton
News from the Burlington Post, Oakville Beaver newspaper and others. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://www.insidehalton.com/community/oakvillebeaver/article/978263
Lea, D. (2011, June 1). DND lands proposal raises density concerns. InsideHalton
News from the Burlington Post, Oakville Beaver newspaper and others. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://www.insidehalton.com/article/1019006--dnd-lands-proposal-raises-density-concerns
Novick,M. (2011). Better Living Conditions for a Poverty Free Ontario. Presentation for Poverty free Halton (March 2011)
The Price of Eating Well in Halton. (2010, May 1). CDH. Retrieved June 28, 2011, from www.halton.ca/common/pages/UserFile.aspx?fileId=18562
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