New Approaches for Tackling Rising Poverty in Families

Welcome to Where Parents Talk. My name is Leanne Castellino.

Our guest today is the vice president of corporate communications and Public policy at the United Way Greater Toronto. Anita Stilinga is an advocate for poverty, mental health and social justice, and she's also a mother of two. She joins us today from Milton, Ontario, just outside Toronto. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, Leanne, for having me. It's a real pleasure.

I'd like to start, Anita, by having you paint a picture, if you could, about the current state as it relates to poverty and families. So we're talking about on a national scale, what does nonprofit services look like? And specifically in Toronto, what are we talking about when we talk about poverty among families? So, Leanne, great question.

I think what we are seeing across the country and specifically here in the GTA focusing in on Peel, Toronto, New York, is that families are struggling, that the challenges of daily living are incredible. Costs are rising, rent is rising, inflation is rising, and poverty rates are rising. We're seeing that one in four people across the GTA live in poverty. Now, we saw a bit of a dip in poverty rates during the pandemic. And now with recent data, that's actually surpassed pre pandemic levels.

So in terms of families living in poverty here in the GTA, there are about 800,000 families that are being impacted. The poverty line, just to give you a sense of what that is, what is it? Income that's considered, considered to be at the poverty line is about $57,000 for a family of four. And so with that, you can imagine with rent costs and rising food costs, that after rent is paid, there really isn't much for people.

And people are making tough choices every single day, every hour to survive. And we know that in terms of financial security, that a staggering number of people, two out of four, are only a paycheck away from $200, away from financial insolvency. And we know that food banks are experiencing incredible demand, that those numbers are rising month after month after month. And I think every single city and region has been talking about the rising demand for food.

And so when we look at all of that together and the impact on families, it is incredible, the stress and pressure, the strain that people are feeling. What we are doing at United Way with our campaign that we just launched any way we can, is bringing attention to those issues to, in a way sound the alarm that, you know, where we have hoped the things would get better, they are getting increasingly difficult for people.

And one of the things that we are, well we have many solutions, but one of the things our biggest focus is on ensuring that people have access to services where they need them, when they need them. Because we really believe that the sooner we can get people supported, the sooner we can get services to people, the better it is going to be in the long, in the long run.

And that it's also equally important that people have access to services close to home, where they need them, where they live, because that is going to make lives much better.

So this campaign of ours, any way we can, is really about the grit and the determination, the persistence, recognizing that these challenges are complex, recognizing that these challenges continue to persist in growing numbers in our community, and that we are collectively inviting, encouraging everyone in our community to be a part of that solution, to join us any way we can to ensure that people have that kind of support and access when they need them.

Certainly lot to unpack there, but I'd like to start, Anita, with your personal view on this. In terms of you've been in this space for over 30 years and know we live in unprecedented times. You're seeing this sort of on the front lines. In terms of what you do, what strikes you most when you look at some of those very sobering statistics that you shared and others, other statistics as well, what strikes you most from that? There are two things that strike me.

It's almost a bit of a ying and a yang, because on the one hand, you know, the numbers that I've shared with you are so crippling, they're so brutal. When you think about the impact like the behind those numbers is a person, is an individual, a family that is reflected in those numbers and the struggles that they're having. Sometimes very invisible, not seen to people because you don't know what is happening behind closed doors and how people are surviving.

So those numbers are dark and they're grim. But the other side of it is what I have seen with my almost 30 year journey in this space, in this sector, is also the hope. It's the incredible hope and persistence of individuals, of families, of community, of neighbors, of the community sector, of agencies that are really there, that are often again invisible.

It's the thread of support that is there for people that is such a vital glue that supports people that really helps to build a strong, safe, connected neighborhood. It's that balance between things are stark and things are difficult, but the hope of knowing that these spaces do exist and often people don't know that they exist. And that is half of the challenge of people knowing where they can go for help.

But it's between those two spaces that I find myself working and advocating and partnering with our community in that space of hope. I see as part of our campaign of any way we can. Also the incredible generosity of people across the region that are supporting the work of organizations like United Way. We're the second largest funder of community services after government.

Every single dollar is raised every year, and it's raised on the generosity, because of the generosity of over 80,000 people across the GTA that believe in this vision of a better community and believe in providing supports to people. And so when we see that kind of galvanization, that kind of mobilization, we know that things are tough, but we can persist, that there are solutions and that we are bringing those solutions to people for a stronger gta.

Because I do believe at the heart of it, at the root of it, we all want a better place to live in for ourselves, for our families, for our friends, for our neighbors. And that's what this work to me has meant over the years. That's where my values and my passion, my core, has been. But I see that in the organization and in the partnerships that we have and with people that are connected to the work.

There are stories behind every statistic, and as you alluded to, often those stories are invisible. I wonder if you're able to illustrate for us, Anita, some of the downstream stream impacts of a child within a family who is identified as being gripped in poverty. If their situation is not addressed in the medium or short term, what does that typically mean for a child in that scenario?

It is so important that the early years of a child's life, and we know through research and evidence, the first six years of a child's life are incredibly important. The social determinants of health, where we talk about food, housing, the basics, but also mental health, the opportunity to be connected in community, to participate, for nutrition, for physical activity. Emotional health is so, so crit to a child's development. And when families are living in poverty, poverty robs you.

Poverty isn't just a financial number. It isn't just about income. It is about income. But that fact of being in low income or living in poverty robs us from so much more, right? It robs families and children from opportunities. It has an impact on their mental health, their stress. They experience that, the anxiety levels that families experience because they're focusing on our survival.

When there is no money for food, the biggest thought for a parent is, how can I put food on the table where we've just scraped through breakfast what happens for lunch and now what happens for dinner and where's tomorrow in all of this? And those are just the basics. And, and so there's that impact. There's the, you know, ability for children to attend school, to focus, to participate, good grades. Those are all impacted by these things.

And then sometimes we don't think about this, but poverty robs us of so much opportunity. You know, it. It's the choice between things that we take for granted. You know, as a, you know, a family with two kids. When my kids were young, they love to have friends come over for sleepover. But, you know, if you don't have the means and you're struggling with your. The next, you know where the next meal is coming from.

You can't think about having somebody come over, sleep for a sleepover because what will you offer them if you offer them an extra juice box or a sandwich that takes away from what you have for your own family, never mind for yourself, but for your kids, you know, or if you're, you know, going to a birthday party, you can't, because that birthday gift that you have to buy means, you know, a week's worth of groceries for your family or transportation to get to your job. So you start to shrink.

You know, it starts to take away. It starts to rob you of those connections, the friendships, the relationships which we all know are so important for children, for us to thrive, right? And what it comes to then is this ability or inability to participate and feel like you belong when you don't have something to eat, you're not going to be in the lunchroom because you don't want to face those questions about, oh, where's your lunch? What are you eating today?

There's so much stigma attached to all of that. Start to, you know, remove yourself and you're off somewhere where nobody can notice you or you don't get asked those questions. And again, it's shrinking your space. It's shrinking. You know, what we value in terms of social capital that we talk about is so important, right, for individuals, for people, for kids to develop those relationships, the trust. And so while, you know, it's an.

It's a number like when we say, you know, income and all of that, but it's, it comes down to so many things that impact that family and that child. And that's what we want to turn around. That's what we want to make better. That we know that there are solutions.

We know that there are things in place across community through programs that exist for families, drop ins after School programs, breakfast programs, recreational programs so that children can participate and have the same opportunity that others do, that they can, you know, also go to summer camp or after school programs and activities or have friends and not have to worry about how am I going to pay for this? Or, you know, how am I going to participate in, in going on an activity?

And those programs are part of that network, that invisible network that so many people don't know about. But they're there because we believe that those supports for families are so critical.

We knew we were seeing that, you know, where we would have programs that were, you know, that would, that would be in place for kids after school, let's say, you know, drop in programs and often after school, you know, programs that would provide snacks, nutritious snacks for, for kids so that they had something to replenish themselves with.

And then started noticing that parents who were dropping off the kids, if there was, you know, food left, if there was a snack left, that they would ask, you know, can I take something? Can I have that? Can I take it back for my other child? Can I take it back for my son? Or I haven't eaten all day, is it okay if I grab that banana?

And so, you know, agencies, programs started to build in additional food so that when kids came in and their parents were coming in, that they could also offer in a dignified way, right? In a way that doesn't demean someone or take someone, something away, but in a way that, you know, fosters welcome and belonging and say, you know, would you like something? Take this. We have lots. Take some home with you. Because often that was their dinner, right?

Because they were worried about their, you know, their children having dinner. I met a parent, a single mom, many years ago, and she came to one of our meetings.

We were having a community consultation to hear from people with lived experience about, you know, the challenges that they were facing. And she stood up in that meeting and she said, she said, you know, earlier today, I was rooting through the garbage can because I wanted to look for food for leftovers because I'm living in poverty, I have a teenage son. I don't have money for food. I'm working part time.

She walked to our community meeting, which was about an hour, because she didn't want to use a transportation ticket because what she was doing was in addition to looking for food for herself and to bring some, you know, scraps back home was. And this is so poignant, it stayed with me for such a long time because she said, you know, that money that I saved from my transportation, from my bus tickets.

I use that to buy laundry detergent because I don't want my son going to school with clothes that are dirty because he will get bullied. And I don't want him to be bullied. I want him to be clean. I want him to be fresh. I want him to have and feel like he is in a good place. I want him to have deodorant. Right. So that he is, again, not made fun of, he's not bullied. And it's things like that.

When you think about the sacrifices that people are making and the challenges that they're going through that it's about. And then the third thing that she said was, you know, as you're sitting at this table and you're thinking about policies and solutions, don't forget that the work that you're doing is super important because it's only because of that kind of work. It's only because of having people around the table that you know what people are struggling with.

And if you know what people are struggling with, you then know how to bring solutions forward. So don't forget about me, you know. Such a visceral example that you share, Anita. You know, relatable and so important.

Because I think one of the things that often happens certainly today is we see the statistics, we watch the stories, we read the headlines, but there might be a certain desensitization on some level because everyone's got some kind of struggle that they're dealing with to the statistics that you shared at the outset. Right. But by painting the picture of what that looks like at a very, you know, personal, tangible level, I think is so incredibly important.

You talked about the United Way Greater Toronto campaign, and I'd like to ask you a little bit more about that. You know, what you talked about earlier really speaks to the dignity of the person. Right. And what are we doing to support that? When you've got unprecedented challenges, they really require courageous thinking, bold approaches. How does this campaign, in what ways does this campaign do that and achieve that to tackle this massive issue?

So we're working on a couple of really important things to drive this campaign forward.

One is the access to services that I was talking about. We have a network of about 300 agencies across the GTA in Peel, Toronto and York. And we want to make sure that the funding for that network of agencies continues and that we can expand because we know that the demands are going to be great. Agencies are already facing significant pressures to deliver services. There is so much growth happening, not Only in terms of development across neighborhoods, but also population growth.

You know, we're projected to be over 9 million in the next decade in the GTA. That's going to put significant pressure on agencies and the demands on services, especially if the complexities that we're seeing with the numbers, the stats that I was sharing, is only going to increase. So we want to, as I said, we're the second largest funder of community services after government. We want to make sure that that funding is available, that we can expand that reach across the gta.

And to do that, we're looking at. We have what we call a community hub model, which is a. Is community hubs that are physically located in neighborhoods. We have 10 such hubs across Toronto right now that coordinate and bring together services so that they're integrated in a neighborhood in response to the needs that people have in that neighborhood.

So lots of things like employment programs, food programs, mental health supports, children's programs, support for people like seniors, individuals with disabilities, parenting groups, family resource programs, putting all of those programs together in a place where people can access them easily, that they're not having to go from place to place to place to figure out what they can get when and where. These hubs are essential.

And our commitment with this campaign is 10 more hubs over the next decade in Peel, Toronto and New York, working in partnership with our community agencies, with government, with residents, with our donors, to look at where they need it and where do we place them. Because community services are such an essential part of the fabric of community life, we want to make sure that they're there.

As I was saying, with the growth that's happening and the redevelopment that's happening across cities and communities, people are also being displaced from their neighborhoods. But that same kind of displacement is also happening with community agencies where, you know, rent costs are rising and agencies aren't able to afford, they aren't able to, you know, pay for those increased rents. They're trying to survive on, you know, very minimal funding.

And they're super, super efficient in the way that they deliver services. Again, there isn't a lot of money for agencies. Think about operating and overhead costs. And so with the community hubs, what we're also wanting to do is to make sure that community agencies can have spaces where they can deliver those services out of. And so we want to enable them with community ownership of those spaces.

So we have a commitment of 10 more, so 10 plus 10 over the next decade, as well as focusing in on real estate grants so that agencies can, with A mix of partners think about purchasing community space so that it is not displaced, that is not threatened in terms of losing that really important ecosystem that I was describing to you that exists when, you know, all of these services come together.

And we know that having places like that, like a community hub in a neighborhood, actually helps to foster those relationships and trust and friendships. And again, a really important part of belonging.

We've heard so many stories of people coming into a hub at a point of crisis in their life where they were supported, they received access to services, things turned around, things got better, and now they were coming back to volunteer at that hub, to give back, to engage, to support others who, like them, are in a present state of crisis or urgency. And so that is such an important part of what we were talking about earlier. You know, where poverty robs you from these opportunities.

But as soon as you're able to, people are wanting to come and give back and support others. That, again, is something invisible that we don't think about, but it's so essential for us when we think about, you know, when you think about what's you think about your neighborhood, what's it like, what's a great neighborhood that you lived in? It's when people engaged and connected and there was friendship and laughter and, you know, you didn't feel, you know, worried about.

And so hubs are such an important part of that.

And our vision is to ensure that we've got that network that we're scaling up what we know works and providing increasing access to those services, but being really thoughtful and strategic about where and how we create that access to services. So that's part of the, part of that campaign is to say we, we can't do it ourselves. We need the generosity, we need the kindness of people across the GTA to support that kind of vision.

Because at the end of the day, there are people who really need that kind of support, who need to know that there is hope for them, that they're not forgotten. They need to know that people care about where they are. Because I'm sure we all have our own journeys, we all have our own stories and that this is what community is about. People come together to care for each other. So that's what we're trying to do with the Any Way we Can campaign. Certainly the statistics are stark.

They've been exacerbated in the last four years, from the pandemic onwards. You talked about the difference in the statistics pre pandemic to where we are today. Census data numbers prove that when you look at tackling this issue, how would you describe what the impetus for this United Way Greater Toronto campaign is? What was the trigger point that led to this bold approach? LEANNE it was really seeing the data, the evidence, and knowing that we have the generosity and the determination of.