Poverty analysis calls for more responsive actions
Cariboo Press -- Kelowna Capital News
April 30, 2009
By: Jennifer Smith

Some 1,765 Central Okanagan residents are quite literally living in the poor house.

They're being forced into substandard living conditions because proper housing is too costly and there is not enough available to those living on modest to low incomes, according to a new poverty analysis.

Thursday morning, the Poverty and Homelessness Action Team released its Central Okanagan Poverty Report Card, revealing the area has serious challenges in every area-health care, to child care, income levels, housing, nutrition-when it comes to reducing poverty levels.

… "The working poor have been the foundation that has made the economy thrive and benefit others, yet they are going homeless as they grow old or without their own place to live in as young adults," one respondent told researchers working on the affordability survey PHATCO used to produce the report card.

Getting government and policy makers to listen to this message has not been easy.

Poverty is not on the agenda of the Interior Health Authority, according to medical health officer Dr. Paul Hasselback, who told those gathered for the release of the report that poverty could be targeted as easily as any other major health concern.

… If we were able to take poverty and put it right up there (with these other concerns), you would see so much savings to the health care system."

…. This could mean raising the minimum wage, building universal child care systems or attacking the nutritional needs of a community, according to recommendations in the report card. No matter what issue the community tackles first, it's likely to save society plenty of money in the long run….

A copy of the report is available on the PHATCO website at
http://www.phat-co.ca/publications