Child poverty is a huge problem in Canada. Many people ask how such a thing can exist in such a developed country with a democratic government. Child poverty in BC alone has risen from 15.5% in 2000 to 20.6% in the year 2012. That’s 51,120 more children living in poverty in the past 12 years. Back in 1989 the House of Commons promised to end child poverty by the year 2000. Clearly that goal has not been achieved. While many British Columbians have taken action with local communities this huge task cannot be achieved without government intervention at the provincial and federal levels. The government has a responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens and there are numerous reasons why they are failing. We should learn from coalitions, provinces, …show more content…
The federal government stopped social housing funding in 1993. Between 2006 and 2013 they saw virtually no new social housing in BC for families in need. The lack of housing is impacting families in a terrible way. The link between poverty and child welfare is clarified by the work of the housing advocacy staff of the Children's Aid Society in Metropolitan Toronto. Cohen-Schlanger and her coauthors document the serious lack of housing facing the clients of the agency. They note that “housing was a factor in 74% of child apprehensions. This indicates that where housing is a factor there were serious child protection concerns such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, and abandonment. They find a definite association between housing problems and the family's level of income, whether the family receives social assistance, whether they can pay the first and last month's rent when they seek a new place to live, and how readily they can access either subsidized housing or affordable private sector housing” (Wharf 1995, 823). How does it make sense to not provide housing for these poor people? This lack of housing leads to child apprehension of the homeless where the government then incurs costs of paying social workers to find adequate housing for the children with people who are not their parents. Often times the kids are shuffled around and around by social workers and have no stability. The government pays the foster parents a …show more content…
The author of the article contends: “On the other hand, child poverty has persisted, putting at risk the exercise of children's rights under the Convention in ways that are more far-reaching than often thought: child poverty undermines the exercise of the child's right not only to the provision of basic needs, but also to protection from abuse and neglect and to participation in decisions that affect the child” (Howe, Covell 2003, 1068). The convention is made up on the concept of the 3 p’s: provision, protection, and participation. Provision means to be provided with the basics of economic and social needs. An example of this is that children have the right to survival and development, education, health care, and basic economic security as stated in the convention. Poverty can have effects on these aspects of provision. For example, if you can’t afford to buy healthy food your health could be affected which could affect your ability to access education if you’re not feeling well enough to focus in school or even attend. The rights of protection include: to be protected from harmful acts or practices. Here children have a right to be protected from neglect or abuse, economic exploitation, and sexual exploitation. Poverty is known to create environments of abuse and neglect. If parents are struggling to put food on the table children do
In Canada there is no official, government mandated poverty line. It is generally agreed that poverty refers to the intersection of low-income and other dimensions of ‘social exclusion’, including things such as access to adequate housing, essential goods and services, health and well-being and community participation. In Canada, the gap between the rich and poor is on the rise, with four million people struggling to find decent affordable housing, (CHRA) and almost 21% of children in BC are living in poverty it is crucial to address poverty (Stats Can). In class we have considered a number of sociological lens to examine poverty. Structural-functionalists maintain that stratification and inequality are inevitable and
With the increase in funding, Canadian poverty within Aboriginal society would greatly decrease. The Government should be “proactive in giving aboriginal people in remote communities the support they need to move to areas where they can find jobs and education” (End First). That way, adults would be able to increase their income in order to have a much more fulfilling lifestyle. It is not only adults who need the financial aid, but also the community and children. In order to help, the Canadian Government should make sure more money is being made available for the First Nation education, social interactions such as community centres, and way of living including: housing, roads and availability of healthy food items. “...The poverty rate of status First Nations children living on reserves was triple that of non-indigenous children” (Hildebrandt). Aboriginal children across Canada need the help of Canadian Government in order to lose this poverty and be able to move ahead. “Persistent disadvantages faced by Canada’s aboriginal peoples in regard to education, employment, health and housing are well-documented/the staggering poverty faced by indigenous children is preventable” (Hildebrandt). With enough Government funding, Native children would be able to get better education, social skills and understanding of their traditions and culture. Schools, community centres
the cost of living in Toronto has come to a record high, we need to start doing something about it now before no one can afford to live at all. There are more than 30,000 women, men and children in the city's homeless shelters annually. Many of thousands more sleep on the streets or considered the “hidden homeless”. About 70,000 households are on Toronto’s social housing waiting list and on the brink of becoming homeless because of the skyrocketing prices of owning a home in Toronto. The Federal Government and the province have begun a slow reinvestment in housing in past years, the number of affordable housing being built now doesn’t even compare near the levels of the early 1980’s. Habitat for Humanity has been building houses for low income
Family homelessness is a fairly new social problem in America. Beginning in the early 1980’s, families with children have become the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.
With foster care, foster parents get paid monthly by the state to ensure the children are taken care of. Each child gets an allowance every month to have for spending money. The Department of Children Services (DCS) gives the foster families that adopt money for the children until they turn eighteen, and even before adoption the state sends money for helping take care of foster children. According to the Tennessee Department of Children Services. “When children are not able to stay safely in their own homes and there isn’t a relative who can care for them, they often have to come into state custody. The department’s first goal for children is to work toward a safe return home to their families” (1 Foster care and Adoption). Another form of adoption can be through private agencies. Private agencies allow a person to adopt and choose if it is open or closed. Open adoption is when the child can still see his or her birth parents. Closed adoption is when the parents decided they do not want to see the children. In both cases of open and closed adoption most of the time the child or children are infants and straight from birth go to a family, in some of these cases the parents are young and cannot afford to take care of the child so they choose to let him or her be better off with people that can give them everything they will ever want or need. According to Sally Allphin in the scholarly journal article, “President Clinton’s Adoption 2002 Initiative, which intends to double the number of children who move into adoption or legal guardianship between 1986 and 2002. Each year, states will receive four thousand or six thousand dollars for each adoption that they complete above their projected baselines” (1). Getting attached to foster children is an uncommon thing, but in rare cases the children either go back to their parents or a relative chooses to take the
Poverty is difficult to describe and a major factor in determining poverty relies on where in globe you are choosing to focus, the culture that is being examined and the overall wealth of the country. For the sake of this paper I am choosing to discuss poverty in Canada, which by definition does not exist according to Canadian Counsel of Social Development (2004). Furthermore; I will discuss the Low Income Cut off Lines (LICO) which is commonly known as the ‘poverty line’ to help determine the poverty rate for Canadian women. “The situation of poverty among women in Canada is well established. More than half of all Canadians living in poverty are women. In total, approximately 19 percent of women in Canada live below the poverty line. Fifty-six percent of lone parent families headed by women are poor, compared with 24 percent of those headed by men. Almost half (49 percent) of single, wid...
As a result of anti-poverty legislation being placed into effect all over the country to force workers back into the capitalist labour market, which has taken hold in neoliberalism, the number of families finding themselves on the brink of homeless is skyrocketing. Furthermore, with the reduction of social assistance programs these families are barely able to provide for themselves, therefore, numerous children are being physically impacted by homelessness. According to Jenny Hsu (2015) hunger and physical illness are effects children and youth may experience due to homelessness that greatly affect their development which is unacceptable for our government to allow this many young people to be negatively impacted. Thus, the links between these
News Briefs. a. The adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of Journal of Housing & Community Development, 10-11. Stein, M. L., & Roseman, M. (1990). Homeless Children: A New Vulnerability?
" Effects of Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness on Children and Youth." American Psychological Association ,www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx. Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.
Poverty has many influences on children under the age of 16. The research fined out that in recent year, an increasing number of children become poor, live under the poverty condition- childhood poverty lasted 10 years or more. So, what does the poverty exactly mean to children? According to Brook-Gunn and Duncan, The kids who live in the poverty condition have the low quality of schools; more likely to have domestic violence and become homeless; less access to friends, services, etc.
It is estimated that, “each year, more than 3 million people experience homelessness, including 1.3 million children” (NLCHP). Clearly poverty and Homelessness come hand in hand, and the economy downfall has only contributed to this growing crisis. “Homelessness stems from a lack of affordable housing. Increasing rents, destruction of traditional low-income housing, and cuts in federal housing programs threaten affordable housing with extinction” (NLCHP). Most people in poverty have a housing affordability crisis, which means that they pay more than half of their income for rent, so therefore they have to buffer to deal with unforeseen expenses.
most affected by poverty are the future of this country, the children. “Young children are the
One of the main problems that are evident in the world today is children at risk. In many cases people's thoughts are directed to children in third world countries who are living below the poverty line. In this website the topics that are to be covered include, what determines a child at risk in a third world country, what the needs are and what a child at risk looks like, what the organisations Blue Dragon and Habitat for Humanity are doing, and what their most successful processes have been. The World Health Organisation defines a child at risk as a child who is deprived of their basic needs and rights (WHO, 2011) More specific to a third world countries Richard Jolly writes in The Lancet that ‘Many children younger than 5 years in developing
When analyzing children growing up in poverty a lot of factors come into play such as their physical, psychological and emotional development. To grow up in poverty can have long term effect on a child. What should be emphasized in analyzing the effects of poverty on children is how it has caused many children around the world to suffer from physical disorders, malnutrition, and even diminishes their capacities to function in society. Poverty has played a major role in the functioning of families and the level of social and emotional competency that children are able to reach. Children in poverty stricken families are exposed to greater and emotional risks and stress level factors.
Child poverty is a major and complex issue that New Zealand faces today. The degree is far more severe than the public's perception and it is a problem that we cannot afford to ignore. A combination of factors contributes to child poverty, from individual causes at the micro level to the macro collective government involvement. This occurs partly due to social construction and it is potentially avoidable. The consequences can impact on both individual and to a great extent affect significantly on the country as a whole. If the issue is not resolved, the inequality will continue, if not worsen and becomes an ongoing intergeneration cycle. 'The poor get poorer and poorer', children can easily fall into the poverty trap where it becomes nearly impossible to reach an end to this issue. The consequences of the disparity have a major outcome on the societal level.