Please join us for the film screening of:

FOUR FEET UP
A film examining
child poverty in Canada
by Filmmaker Nancy Ackerman

Thursday, January 14th
7:00 pm
Ralph Fisher Auditorium
Richmond Hospital
7000 Westminster Highway
Film screening (46 minutes) followed by panel discussion

Free parking available on the gravel parking lot – enter off of Westminster Highway, eastbound, the parking lot is on the left.
Google Map

Click here to download the event poster

Please rsvp to info@richmondprc.org

Twenty years after the House of Commons promised “to eliminate poverty among Canadian children,” 8-year-old Isaiah is trying hard to grow up healthy, smart and well adjusted despite the odds stacked against him. Isaiah knows he’s been categorized as “less fortunate,” and his short life has seen more than his share of social workers, food banks and police interventions. His parents struggle to overcome a legacy of stereotypes, abuse and dysfunction and desire more than anything for Isaiah and his siblings to have access to the opportunities they never had.

In Four Feet Up, her second NFB documentary, award-winning photographer and filmmaker Nance Ackerman invites us into the lives of this determined family for an intimate and touching experience of child poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. 

The screening will be followed by a Panel Discussion and dialogue with the audience about the film and its impacts as well as potential solutions to the serious social issue of child poverty. Our panellists represent a range of sectors and disciplines and each are advocates on the issue of child poverty.  Their information, knowledge and experience on child poverty will provide be a resource to the dialogue on child poverty and solutions.

• Dr. James Lu, Medical Health Officer, Richmond Health Services/past Chair, Health Officers Council of BC.
• Margaret White, Research Analyst, BC Teachers Federation, Department of Research
• Ted Bruce, Executive Director, Population Health, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority
• Steven Kerstetter, social policy consultant and volunteer with First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition
• Panel moderated by Belinda Boyd, Leader, Community Engagement, Richmond Health Services

Co-hosted by Vancouver Coastal Health and the Richmond Poverty Response Committee

Please rsvp to info@richmondprc.org

Thank you to those who have already responded to our survey about services for the poor in Richmond. Note: this includes services for which some subsidies or free participation is available.

Your input is important to us, so if you have not already had a chance to fill out the survey, please take a few minutes now and do so. Your agency information will not be publicized without your permission.

The deadline has been extended to October16th.

Thank you!

Click here to take survey

To Richmond community agencies, service groups and faith community:

The Richmond Poverty Response Committee has been actively working to reduce the effects of poverty in our community since 2001.

Poverty reduction is increasingly proposed as a complement and at times an alternative to poverty alleviation, which focuses on making the conditions of poverty less severe e.g. food hampers and homeless shelters.

According to Vibrant Communities, Poverty reduction activities are “interventions that reduce the number of people in poverty and/or the depth of people’s poverty by ensuring that they have access to political, social, or economic resources that provide them with the ability to make measurable progress out of poverty”, E.g. customized training, asset development programs.

From the RPRC Strategic Planning session held in last fall, the question arose… are community agencies in a position to develop poverty reduction strategies, as well as their more traditional role in carrying out poverty alleviation activities?

To this end, we are conducting a brief survey and we would be most grateful for your thoughtful responses to our survey. Results will be collated and shared as speedily as possible. We very much hope that what we learn from each other will help us all in our work with people living in poverty in our community.

If you feel that any of the information you give us is sensitive, please note that at the end of the survey, you will be asked for permission to identify your agency name in the report.

The survey should take about 5 minutes to complete and will close on September 29^th 2009. Please forward this email to any other Richmond group as you see fit.

Thank you in advance for your time!

Richmond Poverty Response Committee

CLICK HERE TO BEGIN THE SURVEY

Nelson Bennett, Richmond News

Published: Friday, July 03, 2009

When the city adopted its affordable housing strategy in 2006, city officials warned it could not go it alone, but needed senior governments at the table. But since then, the federal government has earmarked billions of dollars for various housing initiatives.

“People don’t seem to know the funding is there,” says Richmond MP Alice Wong.

No one has approached her office to discuss federal funding initiatives for affordable housing, she said.

decision-makers, ‘This is what Richmond wants.’ No one has ever approached my office for social housing,” she said.

“There’s still funding available,” Wong said, although she added that any projects to be funded would have to be built within two years. Some of the money from Ottawa has been flowing through B.C. Housing on a variety of social and affordable housing projects in B.C. But the funding is often time-sensitive, and Richmond has already missed the boat on funding for a women’s shelter.

Then there’s the Turning Point proposal: a two-stage 32-bed supportive housing project for addicts in recovery. The society had property on Ash Street but abandoned it due to neighbourhood opposition. The society has broken the proposal in two, and is now looking for other sites in the city - one for a group home for recovering women addicts, and a second-stage housing project that would provide long-term supportive housing.

“We have the funding — we’re ready to go. But we can’t find a site,” Plant said.

When it adopted its affordable housing strategy in 2006, city officials said they could not go it alone. They would need senior governments - especially the federal government - at the table.

The federal government has since earmarked billions for housing initiatives, and B.C. Housing has been using some of that funding for social and affordable housing projects throughout the province - but not Richmond.

Here are some examples of BC Housing projects that have recently been announced: $9 million towards a 51-unit rental building in Victoria for “moderate-income” renters; $22 million for two supportive housing projects in Kelowna; nine units of “second stage” housing in Burnaby for women and children leaving transition houses.

By Ian Austin,  The Province

June 4, 2009

New figures from Statistics Canada show that B.C. leads the nation in child poverty for the sixth year in a row.

The StatsCan figures show that 13 per cent of B.C. residents under 18 live in poverty — the highest percentage in Canada and well above the national child-poverty average of 9.5 per cent.

On the plus side, the just-released 2007 numbers — the latest available — represent a drop from 2006, when the B.C. rate was 16.5 per cent and the national rate was 11.4 per cent.

“There was some good news in 2007 — the rate was coming down — but B.C. had the highest child-poverty rate for the sixth year in a row,” said Adrienne Montani, principal co-ordinator for First Call, the B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition.

Montani’s biggest worry was the statistic for single-mother families.

In B.C., 37.4 per cent of children in those families were living in poverty, compared with a national average of 26.6 per cent.

“That’s more than one in three,” said Montani. “There seems to be denial here — the government simply says, ‘The best answer to poverty is a job.’”

Steve Kerstetter of the First Call co-ordinating committee said child poverty is a very complex issue.

“There is no magic bullet when you talk about poverty,” he said. “We have too many people working at low-wage jobs. Too many people who are working part of the year, not the whole year, and too many people working part-time.”

Kerstetter said B.C. is a magnet for new immigrants, making the child-poverty issue worse here.

First Call is asking for a minimum 25-per-cent reduction in the child poverty rate by 2012, and a minimum 50 per cent by 2017.

NDP leader Carole James said the statistics show B.C. didn’t act when the times were good, and the problem will only get worse under today’s economic downturn.

“It’s a warning sign, and I’m concerned about what that’s going to mean for child poverty and families in need now,” said James. “I think the root causes are the minimum wage, housing, and child care.”

iaustin@theprovince.com

- - -

FIRST CALL’S SUGGESTIONS TO ADDRESS CHILD POVERTY

- Raise the minimum wage from $10 to $10.76 per hour immediately, with annual increases pegged to increases in the cost of living.

- Abolish the $6 per hour training wage.

- Make the federal government provide universal access to high-quality, accessible child care.

© Copyright (c) The Province