Understanding Your Context

Poverty in Your Community

The face of poverty is different in different communities. The national figures described previously give you a context for seeing how your community compares to the Canadian average.

But as you think about how to strengthen your community foundation's commitment to poverty locally, you need to understand who is poor in your community and why. There are local organizations and experts who have been fighting poverty in your community for a long time. They will be glad to share their knowledge with you. Talking to them will not only inform you, it will also help you build the relationships you need if you are to take a new or expanded role on this issue.

Tool: A Poverty Scanning Tool for Community Foundations

Facts and figures on poverty can be overwhelming. We've constructed a simple tool to help you build a picture of poverty in your community. Feel free to adapt it to your needs – but keep it simple.

Use the template below to track some of the major indicators and measures of poverty in your community. As you compile your figures, keep in mind:

How you define your community geographically. "Census Metropolitan Area" is one of Statistics Canada's designations for larger urban areas. You can also use your city, your regional municipality, county, etc. Groups you consult may use different geographic definitions to track their figures. Try to be as consistent as possible as you build your chart. Or at least clearly note the differences.
Your community may have particular challenges (high poverty in groups not listed in this chart, for example). Add those particular local dimensions.
If you have access to the data, note whether a particular indicator is rising or falling over the last few years

For some indicators in this tool, Canadian info is shown, to provide a context for your local figures.

Download this table as a worksheet (MS Word)

	Our Community	Canada (2001 and 2005 Census data)
Total population		32.6 million (2006)
Median family income		$60,600 (2005)
Minimum wage - per hour - annualized		Ranges provincially from $7.25 to $8.37/hr (2007). In 2005, $10/hr would have been required to meet the LICO poverty line of $20,778
Unemployment rate		In 2006: 6.3% -- the lowest level in a generation
Poverty rate		Has stayed virtually the same for 30 years -hovering above 20% using LICO

Groups with Particularly High Poverty Rates (2001 Census figures, CCSD)

	Our Community	Canada
Lone-parent families with children under 18		Poverty rate: 44%
Recent immigrants		Poverty rate: 43%
Unattached individuals		Poverty rate: 38%
Aboriginal population		Poverty rate: 34%
Visible minorities		Poverty rate: 28%
People with disabilities		Poverty rate: 23%
Children under 6		Poverty rate: 21%
Other groups

Other Dimensions of Poverty in Our Community

Food bank usage
Homelessness
Literacy rate
Teen pregnancy rate
Housing: rent/own ratio
Housing: vacancy rate
Housing: social housing waiting list
Other indicators

Download this table as a worksheet (MS Word)

Data sources:

The Statistics Canada website contains community profiles for approximately 6,000 Canadian communities, along with comparative provincial figures. It also has information on aboriginal demographics and on newcomers, people with disabilities, and other groups.

The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD)'s is a rich source of poverty information and analysis. Their Urban Poverty Project has compiled 111 community poverty profiles.

Canada's Rural Secretariat also produces and analyzes demographic/economic/social information about rural communities.
www.rural.gc.ca.

They also have a community information database.
www.cid-bdc.ca

Also, local organizations in your community may already have gathered the information you need — the social planning council, the United Way, Chamber of Commerce, the municipal government, local colleges or university etc.

In some communities, the Vital Signs initiative of CFC will provide a useful framework of data.

Some community foundations may also choose to make a research grant to have a local poverty profile developed for the community. This not only adds to your knowledge about poverty, it builds community capacity and helps you begin to establish relationships with the poverty "experts" in your community who will be your partners in this strategic work.

Going deeper:

Vibrant Communities and the Tamarack Institute are a rich resource for Canadian communities about poverty and community approaches to tackling it. Among many useful resources, Tamarack's tool, The Poverty Matrix: Understanding Poverty in Your Community can help you deepen your analysis of poverty. From the introduction: "The Poverty Matrix© is a useful framework for understanding the different groups of low-income residents and mapping out the extent and depth of poverty for each group in your community. The matrix describes poverty in the community using two broad categories. The first is the type or level of poverty someone might experience. […] The next category focuses on demographic groups that experience poverty more than the general population."