A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness, was the result of a two-year cross-country study on poverty in Canada. In the study, the senate stated that they were saddened by the amount of Canadians living below any measure of poverty, and are working to make improvements.

Currently, Canada’s current rescue system is in need of a complete overhaul. The Senate Committee is suggesting that we start spending in the right places, and base recommendations on spending smarter, rather than spending more.

Examples where, instead of paying tax dollars toward providing institutional care for the homeless, which can cost around $100,000 per person annually, we should be investing in affordable housing. We have too many people struggling to maintain affordable housing and an increasing number of Canadians are becoming homeless, which is inadvertently placing strain on the tax and health care system.

The Committee therefore offers the following general recommendations with respect to poverty:

• recognize the need for the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to adopt a core poverty eradication strategy
• adopt a core poverty eradication programme that deals with poverty and homelessness, designed to lift Canadians out of poverty, rather than make living within poverty more manageable
• modify federal income security programs, to better protect Canadians in low-income households who experience short-term gaps in employment
• seek to establish with the provinces a goal that individuals and families, regardless of the reasons for their need, receive incomes totaling at least after-tax LICO
• publish a Green Paper by 31 December 2010, including the costs and benefits of current practices with respect to income supports and of options to reduce and eliminate poverty
• reinstate a federal minimum wage at $10/hour, indexed to the Consumer Price Index
• analyze gender-based differences in designing benefits and implementing new tax measures
• sustain federal funding focussed on homelessness until a combined strategy on housing and homelessness is developed to guide federal investment
• establish a fund to allow groups over-represented among the persistently low-income to have legal representation in law reform cases with respect to their human rights
• support bridging programs, especially for immigrants with professional qualifications from their countries of origin, through immigrant settlement funds and agreements

At their worst, our existing policies and programs are creating unintended perverse effects and costing tax payers more money in the long run. These outcomes are not inevitable. In fact, the recent federal programs designed to bring older Canadians out of poverty have proven to be enormously, if not completely, successful. This can also be done for all Canadian’s when there is a shared goal. To help support our fight against poverty sign onto the dignity of all campaign for a Poverty Free Canada by clicking: http://www.dignityforall.ca/

Read the Senate co-chairs on how Canada can’t afford not to take on poverty.

Download a copy of the Senate’s Call to Action