Key Enough for All Partners ... and all of you! enough for all U pdate Q uarterly JANUARY 2016 Alberta Budget 2015 Alberta’s first non-Conservative government in 44 years released their budget in the last quarter of 2015, and what a budget it was! The VCC staff team in Calgary were watching and listening closely to changes in the budget that would have an impact on the work of Enough for All and for the one in ten Calgarians living in poverty. In reporting on the last three months, we would be remiss if we didn’t speak to some of the highlights of October’s budget: The new Alberta Child Benefit; a non-taxable benefit for families earning less than $41,220 per year, (including those receiving AISH and Income Support) making available a maximum annual credit of $1,100 for families with one child, and up to $2,750 for families with four or more children. Payments are issued in August, November, February and May. This is something poverty reduction advocates from across the province have been advocating for over many years. This benefit will no doubt have a direct and positive impact on the lives of thousands of Albertans living in poverty. Enhanced Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit; increased financial assistance for more low and middle income working families. Payments are issued in January and July. An additional $100 million dollars for Child Care raising spending to $397 million by 2018. $25 million in additional funding to Family and Community Support Services, bringing total spending to $101 million. $15 million annually to support women’s shelter services. VCC was encouraged by these announcements, but would have particularly liked to have seen a far greater commitment to increasing affordable housing stock throughout Alberta. continued on page 7
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Key Enough for All Partners ... and all of you!
enoughf o r a l l
UpdateQuarterly
JANUARY 2016
Alberta Budget 2015
Alberta’s first non-Conservative government in 44 years released their budget in the
last quarter of 2015, and what a budget it was!
The VCC staff team in Calgary were watching and
listening closely to changes in the budget that would
have an impact on the work of Enough for All and for
the one in ten Calgarians living in poverty. In reporting
on the last three months, we would be remiss if we didn’t
speak to some of the highlights of October’s budget:
The new Alberta Child Benefit; a non-taxable
benefit for families earning less than $41,220 per
year, (including those receiving AISH and Income
Support) making available a maximum annual
credit of $1,100 for families with one child, and up
to $2,750 for families with four or more children.
Payments are issued in August, November,
February and May. This is something poverty
reduction advocates from across the province have
been advocating for over many years. This benefit
will no doubt have a direct and positive impact on
the lives of thousands of Albertans living in poverty.
Enhanced Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit;
increased financial assistance for more low and
middle income working families. Payments are
issued in January and July.
An additional $100 million dollars for Child Care
raising spending to $397 million by 2018.
$25 million in additional funding to Family and
Community Support Services, bringing total
spending to $101 million.
$15 million annually to support women’s
shelter services.
VCC was encouraged by these announcements,
but would have particularly liked to have seen a far
greater commitment to increasing affordable housing
stock throughout Alberta.
continued on page 7
In the development of Enough for All,
a Women’s constellation was formed
and provided crucial recommendations
for poverty reduction in Calgary. In
2015, the Women & Poverty Leadership
Group (W&P) was convened to ensure
these recommendations and a gender
lens are applied to all areas of the
implementation of Enough for All.
The W&P Leadership Group has identified four areas
with a strategic focus on advocacy and public policy.
These include: access to affordable & accessible
childcare; affordable housing options
for single women and single parents
(most often women); employment and
income equity; and an end to violence
against women (specifically access to
emergency refuges and an inquiry into the
prevalence of Murdered & Missing Indigenous
Women across Canada.)
Injustices against women know no cultural, economic or
geographical boundaries. However, Indigenous women
are facing a unique and especially serious injustice.
In recent years, thousands of Indigenous Canadian
women have been murdered or reported missing. VCC
has gathered first-hand knowledge from Indigenous
Calgarian women and their perspectives on MMIW.
Michelle Robinson is a passionate Dene/Metis
community advocate. She works in the greater Forest
Lawn area with a local crime prevention collaborative
called 12 Communities Safety Initiative.
“My first memories of life are of domestic violence.
My non-Indigenous father and my Indigenous mother
would fight regularly. Before they split, my mother’s
temple was crushed. She didn’t die that day, but many
people have told me she is now a very different person
after being with my father.”
Michelle works with the Awo Taan Healing Lodge
on the issues of MMIW, through the Sisters in
Spirit Committee.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) & Poverty
Enough for All Quarterly Update: January 2016
“Since [murdered mother of three] Janel Squirrel’s
death, I was invited into [Janel’s extended] Three
Suns family. That experience has changed the words I
use. Rather than violence against Indigenous women,
I say colonial violence due to the system’s sexist and
racial responsibility of the violence inflicted onto
Indigenous women.”
Michelle remarks that there are not enough support
networks for families dealing with loss. “I carry around
an emergency smudge kit. So many Indigenous
people are hurting and have zero access to smudges.
I try to advocate for families, whether they are in
crisis, or not in crisis any longer but unable to have
their voice heard.”
As an Indigenous woman, Michelle doesn’t feel safe.
“People don’t understand how undervalued women
are! I enrolled myself and my daughter in martial
arts. When people realize that I’m Indigenous, they
completely ignore my opinion. Indigenous women are
dehumanized in this society. The day the newcomers
“discovered” North America, they failed to recognize
women as leaders. That started the marginalization.”
When speaking with Michelle – the link between
MMIW and poverty becomes increasingly clear.
“The system is designed to set up Indigenous people
for failure. Deficit funding, imposed governance, and
child apprehension are all creating systemic poverty
- another form of colonial violence. The Indian Act
favours men. The child apprehension programs are
based on a lack of cultural understanding - using
poverty as a base reason to apprehend children.”
“The Indigenous community is faced with many
historical traumas. We carry things in our genes from
intergenerational trauma, and substance abuse (as a
coping tool) plagues our community.”
Michelle asserts that one major tool to use in the
fight against poverty, is equitable funding for people
living on-reserve.
On December 8, the Canadian Government announced
the first two phases of a national Inquiry into MMIW.
“I hope that the Federal Government will allow
it to be family led, and allow for all to give their
victim impact statements, verbally or written or
whatever medium works. And that support systems
are in place to give spiritual and emotional help to
those families as they open deep wounds. There
is a need to acknowledge the colonial role of the
government’s financial oppression and make financial
accommodations for those involved.”
You can read more from Michelle on her blog:
www.redneckgirlthatcould.blogspot.ca
“I hope that the Federal
Government will allow it to be
family led... And that support
systems are in place to give
spiritual and emotional help
to those families as they
open deep wounds.”
Mic
helle
Ro
bin
son
Enough for All Quarterly Update: January 2016
Financial Empowerment Collaborative
As an integral part of the Enough for All strategy, the Financial Empowerment Model
(FE) is being activated at a critical time in our current economic climate to help
Calgarians who are experiencing financial stress and to prevent others from slipping
into poverty. Calgary is leading the way as the first city in Canada to implement a
proven Financial Empowerment Model to better the lives of Calgarians.
The United Way of Calgary & Area, Vibrant
Communities Calgary (VCC), Momentum, The City of
Calgary, Bow Valley College and the Government of
Alberta are working in partnership as the Financial
Empowerment Collaborative (FEC). FEC strives to
ensure that Calgarians have the income and assets
they need to thrive.
“People who live in poverty make the decisions they
do because they live in poverty. You have very little
bandwidth left to make good constructive decisions
when the majority of your energy is consumed with
worrying about how you’re going to pay your rent
or buy groceries,” said Donna McBride, Director of
Operations at Momentum and Chair of the FEC.
“When you can help people to reduce their financial
stress, people have more mental bandwidth left to
build the rest of their life. That’s why Financial
Empowerment is so important. We all only have so
much decision-making and willpower in any given day.”
FEC focuses their work on six main pillars:
Safe & affordable financial products
The lack of safe and affordable financial products in
Calgary means that people are forced to turn to high
cost payday lenders, reinforcing the cycle of poverty.
The group is working with community partners
to develop micro-loan products with financial
institutions to fill the need for instant credit through
small, lower interest, short-term loans.
Financial coaching
Financial coaching works directly with individuals
to assess, identify and improve their personal financial
situation through debt management and financial skill
building.
Taxation and government benefits
Filing taxes activates important and available
government benefits, and can help immediately boost
finances for low-income individuals and families. In
2015 more than 2,400 Calgarians benefited from free
tax clinics, resulting in more than 1.7 million* dollars in
refunds. (*projected value, based on 5 organizations)
Enough for All Quarterly Update: January 2016
Education savings
Establishing RESPs is one of the most impactful
ways to end intergenerational poverty. Children with
savings accounts set up in their names are six times
more likely to attend post-secondary education than
those without them.
Learning & earning
Learning and earning through matched savings
programs supports low-income individuals to
achieve their saving goals faster. These programs
also change relationships with money by growing
financial literacy skills.
Basic Needs Assistance
Basic Needs Assistance provides people facing
financial crisis with a one-time financial grant. In 2014
the program helped prevent over 1000 people from
being evicted or having their utilities disconnected.
Over the course of 2015, FEC saw real leadership from
various players stepping up and taking ownership of
the overall implementation of FE work in Calgary.
“In 2015, Momentum stepped into leading capacity-
building work for RESP and matched savings programs,
taking what we know best at Momentum and actively
building the capacity of others to do the same.”
In November, after some difficulty getting the financial
coaching piece off the ground, Bow Valley College
agreed to be the leading partner for this piece of the
work. They will write the curriculum, deliver it at the
college, and build a community of practice around
financial coaching to share the lessons.
“Our goal for 2016 would be that we have all six
pillars of work being led by a community partner,
it is this sort of ownership that will move this work
forward in our city. This is how we will be able to start
to tell the story of FE in Calgary.”
When thinking about the future, the group’s goals
are clear: to impact as many Calgarians as possible.
“We speak a lot about how this work can be
embedded into existing systems, because systems
are where you get scalability. We hope to take a
systems approach so that we make the largest impact
possible for low-income Calgarians.”
“We have a four-year operational strategy, United
Way is raising money for the collaborative, our
budget stretches to 2018, but where does this work
live after 2018? We are starting to think about this.
How can the work be grounded in the community so
that it continues to help those who need it most?”
Over the course of 2015 – 2018, the FEC plans to
reach 16,100 Calgarians through the work of
Financial Empowerment.
“Our goal for 2016 would be
that we have all six pillars
of work being led by a
community partner, it is this
sort of ownership that will
move this work forward in
our city. This is how we will
be able to start to tell the
story of FE in Calgary.”
Enough for All Quarterly Update: January 2016
What makes this Constellation unique is that they are
still actively working together today to implement
their own recommendations. Furthermore, Calgary’s
Enough for All strategy was the only poverty
reduction strategy in the country at the time to have
a justice sector component.
Janice Pasay, Co-Chair of the Justice Sector
Constellation remarks, “There is a need for such work
in a poverty-reduction initiative because research
has found that there is a strong link between multiple
unresolved legal problems and social exclusion,
poverty and disadvantage.”
“Having legal problems can result in poverty, as in the
case of family breakup, especially when the family may
have had financial pressures already. On the other hand,
poverty can exacerbate legal issues, as in the case of
a single parent who cannot afford legal assistance to
collect child support that has not been paid or to obtain
an order for child support in the first place.”
Over 90 percent of the recommendations developed
by the Constellation had previously been made,
directly or indirectly, in other reports regarding the
legal system and the justice sector. In light of that, the
members of the Constellation agreed to continue to
work together on implementing the Constellation’s
recommendations, despite having completed their
original mandate.
“We are proud of the fact that the Justice Sector
Constellation decided to work on implementing
its own recommendations, and that more than
two years later, the Constellation continues to
work on implementation. It is much easier to make
recommendations and suggest that they be done
by another body – we recognized the importance of
what we were recommending and as such committed
to making them a reality for Calgary.”
Since April 2013, the Constellation has been actively
working on the following projects:
Service Provider Capacity Building project: This
project seeks to increase awareness by service
providers and intermediaries of potential legal issues
as part of client needs, and increase awareness of
and referral to appropriate justice sector services and
resources. Funding has been obtained to develop and
pilot training for service providers and intermediaries
(e.g., community and faith community workers and
volunteers) to that end. Training pilots were recently
completed, and the training has been well-received.
The Constellation has recently conducted a survey to
provide baseline data to evaluate the effects of the
training over time.
Database project: Appropriate and timely access to
justice sector services requires knowledge of what
services are available. The goal of this project is to
develop a current, comprehensive database of justice
Justice Sector Constellation
In 2012, a Constellation Network of 13 working groups went off to develop their
recommendations for what needed to be included in Calgary’s poverty reduction
strategy. One of the 13 Constellations was the Justice Sector Constellation, working
to intervene at the intersection of the legal system and poverty.
Enough for All Quarterly Update: January 2016
sector service providers and justice sector services,
available to both the public and other service
providers. Stakeholder agreement for the integration
has been obtained, and funding for the integration is
currently being sought.
Legal Advice versus Legal Information project:
This project seeks to educate justice sector service
providers on the difference between legal advice
and legal information, so as to encourage them
to provide as much legal information as possible.
Resource materials have been developed, and the
first presentation was given in October.
Collaboration with Educators project: The goal
of this project is greater understanding within
the justice sector regarding vulnerability to legal
issues, the interaction between poverty and the
legal system, and the need for lawyers and other
legal professionals in poverty law. Specifically, the
Constellation has advocated to have issues regarding
the legal system and poverty included in materials for
existing courses, and for a credit and/or continuing
education course on poverty and the law. As a result
of these activities, a new Poverty and the Law course
is being developed at one Calgary university.
By-laws Project: One of the issues identified by
the Constellation is that the impact of receiving
a fine for by-law and other infractions is more
significant for those living in poverty. In light of
this, the Constellation recommends that the policy
underlying infractions that have a disproportionate
impact on those with low income be reconsidered.
Legal analysis will be conducted and quantitative
and qualitative data will be gathered, to provide
an evidentiary and analytical basis for such a
reconsideration. Researchers and funding for the
legal aspect has been secured, a researcher has
been identified for the social science aspect, and an
application has been made to fund the latter.
In addition to these projects, the Constellation has
conducted a needs assessment at the Calgary Courts
Centre regarding how visitors navigate the Courts
buildings resulting in recommendations for improved
signage, mapping and training of service personnel.
The Justice Sector Constellation has had a busy
year and looks forward to further progress in 2016.
Through monthly Constellation meetings, many
additional conversations and a tremendously
engaged and committed group of individuals,
their work will continue to be a stellar example of
collaboration in action.
For the full list of the Justice Sector Constellation’s
recommendations see the March 2013 report
“Intervening at the Intersection of Poverty and
the Legal System” (the report can be found at
vibrantcalgary.com/uploads/enough-for-all-2013/
Justice-Sector-Constellation-Final-Report.pdf).
Alberta Child Benefit and 2015 Alberta Budget (continued from front)
Of course, no commentary on politics in 2015 would
be complete without recognizing Canada’s new
federal government, as well. It is far too early to tell
which decisions will be made that will have an impact
on poverty reduction in Calgary, but one thing we
know for certain is that none of the work associated
with Enough for All is happening in a closed system.
The best we can do as a collective impact initiative
is scan the horizon for shifts and be as nimble and
adaptive as we can possibly be. If you allow this
land-locked Calgarian a poor seafaring analogy; ‘our
tack may change, but so will the weather!’
Remember! In order to be eligible for the benefits and credits
listed on page one, individuals and families must file their
income taxes. For more information on free tax clinics available