Driving through rural Ontario, it is not unusual to see signs with Christian messages surrounded by colourful leaves at this time of year. I was struck recently by one sign that read, “Harden not your heart”. As we were driving by this sign, we were also receiving updates from our shelter team that there were four overdoses happening at the same time.
All around us, we have seen higher levels of anger expressed in political and social environments. You see this in relation to politics, you see it in the eyes of enraged drivers, and we have seen it in our community as people reconcile the realities of more and more people experiencing homelessness and drug addiction, especially around shelters and spaces that support people most at risk.
The main message of Astra Taylor’s The Age of Insecurity is How Can We Come Together. When CBC IDEAS asked Astra Taylor to give the Massey Lecture, they were inviting a Canadian who has been acting on the insecurity that has provoked the Occupy generation. Since her Occupy days, Taylor’s projects include the Debt Collective, a US based operation which supports those who have taken on overwhelming debt to pay for education, rent or bail. Taylor is very familiar with the causes of the insecurity she writes about.
Published in March 2024 Good Work News; Originally published in San Francisco Chronicle, July 2023
Sadly, they are called “frequent flyers” — severely ill patients with serious medical conditions who routinely cycle in and out of hospital emergency departments. On any given day, their affliction could be an overwhelming infection, festering wounds or even a coma. Sometimes they require a ventilator and ICU care.
All shelter spaces are full. The 230 shelter beds that the Working Centre has established in the last three years have helped to double the Region’s shelter capacity, but there are still 200 people camping and without access to shelter. There is little movement of people in our shelters as housing costs are beyond any social assistance cheque. Underneath the despair of reduced housing options is a burgeoning drug problem.
Canada’s fair share of climate action is greater than what our governments are promising, let alone doing. In fact Canada’s fair share of climate action is greater than our society’s capacity. The amount we would need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to be fair to other nations is greater than our ability to do so, technically and physically. The gap between what we should do and what we can do becomes what we owe – our climate debt – to those countries whose fair shares we are, in effect, borrowing.
When a group of Canadian citizens brought the national capital to a halt for three weeks in January and February, 2022, the atmosphere on all sides was one of confusion. Nothing like this had ever happened in Canada’s capital – at least, not since anti-democratic forces besieged Parliament, which was then based in Montreal, and burned it to the ground. That was a little while ago: April 25, 1849.
The Federal legislation for a Canada Disability Benefit is exceptionally important news. This is a targeted benefit focused on improving income support for those with disabilities. Benefits delivered through the tax system are efficient and can be directed where they are needed most. We have seen the difference for families that receive the Canada Child Benefit which Ala Abdulkarem describes in the article, Helping New Canadians Access Income Supports. Ala leads our Money Matters project providing support to over 3000 individuals last year.
Access to dental care is often overlooked and underfunded, and is deeply intertwined with complex social issues, from the rise of precarious employment to increasing food insecurity. One thing is clear – for many of the most vulnerable people in our communities, the current system has left them behind and without support.
This report highlights the importance of oral health and analyzes the state of oral health in Waterloo Region compared to other regions.
The homelessness crisis can be seen in any Canadian city. Every municipal council is struggling to open or expand shelter beds. Tent encampments show up in public parks, a concept that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. In Kitchener, since the spring, there have been large encampments of 50 people or more at Victoria/Weber and Victoria Park.
In large cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Tampa Bay, Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, the homeless population exceeds 10,000 people.
The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.
This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.
In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.
