Proposed budget falls well short of city’s poverty-reduction goals, advocate says

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This article was published 09/02/2024 (588 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Poverty-reduction advocates fear city council’s proposed four-year budget will undermine its own strategy to help cash-strapped residents make ends meet amid hikes on taxes, fees and transit fares.

Make Poverty History Manitoba spokesperson Desiree McIvor said the spending blueprint tabled Wednesday lacks new funding and jobs to implement the city’s poverty-reduction strategy, which was approved in November 2021.

“It’s going to take longer to get this done than if we would have all worked together in collaboration,” McIvor said.

“It’s very disheartening that we asked for the city mayor to be a champion in ending poverty within the city, and without any funds allocated towards this it just shows that it’s not the city’s top priority.”

According to budget documents, citywide spending on initiatives related to the poverty-reduction strategy total $23.5 million in 2024, including $16.8 million in operating funds, with a total of $10 million more dedicated to the program compared to last year.

The budget also includes one new full-time equivalent position for the city’s equity office and transfers management of the poverty-reduction strategy and the newcomer welcome and inclusion policy to the chief administrative officer going forward.

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham called the investments in the strategy significant.

“We froze the WINNPass at last year’s level, so those that rely upon the WINNPass are receiving a discount on transit (that) is greater than 50 per cent now,” he said.

Putting the people responsible for the poverty-reduction strategy under the CAO will ensure there is a “whole-of-city approach” to implementation, he said.

However, McIvor said several staffing and funding requirements needed to implement the strategy over the next four years, as identified in a public service report in November, do not appear to have made it into the budget.

The report called for six new full-time equivalent positions across various departments by 2025, including two positions in community development that are dedicated to project management and initiatives to start midway through 2024.

It also called for $100,000 in annual operating funding to be dedicated to implementing projects, and mobile outreach funding to be increased.

The budget, meanwhile, proposes the elimination of one full-time equivalent position in the community development branch and three others due to “refinement of service-based view.” One new position is added in the equity office, in alignment with the report. Funding for mobile outreach support services will remain flat, at $550,000.

The budget document doesn’t specify exactly how the $16.8 million in operating funding to support the strategy will be spent.

However, it notes the low-income bus pass, mobile outreach services, recreation-fee subsidies, public washrooms and accessible city services as areas of expenditure.

Delayed funding for the new positions is a missed opportunity to launch needed programming, McIvor said.

“It’s going to impact a lot of Indigenous women and youth, and with no new resources available, it’s disheartening,” she said.

“We needed the money to start implementing the strategy, so that we’d be meeting our targets and timelines.”

Proposed fee, tax and transit-fare hikes and the possible closure of community pools will put a further strain on struggling Winnipeggers, she said.

The budget proposes increasing municipal fees by an average of five per cent, adding a new garbage collection fee for apartment blocks and condominiums and raising transit fares by 10 cents.

“It shows that we’re again last on the agenda,” she said. “Once again it puts the brakes on poverty reduction.”

— with files from Joyanne Pursaga

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca