City budget puts brakes on poverty reduction

Opinion

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This article was published 22/03/2024 (536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All levels of government must contribute to ending poverty, and municipalities are no exception. The need is urgent. More than one in 12 Winnipeg residents experience poverty, including more than one in six Indigenous people.

Municipalities have limited resources for addressing poverty compared to other levels of government, but Winnipeg has adopted a strategy and action plan outlining what it can do. It needs to commit financial resources to execute it.

Winnipeg’s 2024-27 budget passed with virtually no new resources for the city’s poverty reduction strategy. This move is inconsistent with council’s Strategic Priorities Action Plan 2023-26, which guides council priorities and investments. Action 3.3 of the plan is to “accelerate implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy.” While the budget “elevates” the strategy to the CAO’s office, it allocates no new resources to accelerate implementation.

Winnipeg released its first-ever poverty reduction strategy in November 2021 “within existing resources.” With no new money, the majority of actions in the first implementation plan (2021-23) were exploratory and introductory in nature. Major highlights focused only on managing the symptoms of poverty.

Advocates urged council to ensure the strategy’s second implementation plan (2024-27) included stronger actions and financial resources to actually help prevent and end poverty. Make Poverty History Manitoba (MPHM) campaigned for investments in social housing, affordable transit, community-based safety initiatives, training for city employees in areas related to poverty reduction and reconciliation, and staff to implement the poverty reduction strategy.

There are some noteworthy actions in that plan, including ensuring city procurement contributes community benefits like employment opportunities and reduced poverty. It’s a positive example of powers within the city’s jurisdictions that could make a big impact for low-income Winnipeggers.

Council approved the second implementation plan in November 2023 but failed to fully address MPHM’s priorities. The plan included resource requests totalling only $1.4 million to implement some very modest actions, pending approval in the 2024 budget.

Apart from a reduced budget for mobile outreach services for unsheltered people, none of the resource requests made it into the budget. This includes funding for transitional housing for unsheltered people and additional staff to implement the city’s strategy, an area that was in fact reduced. It’s notable that the budget includes no new operating funds to support the strategy’s second “Life Pole” focused on Indigenous Children, Youth, and Families.

One objective of the city’s strategy is to increase transit affordability for low-income people — an area the city can have a tangible daily impact on those experiencing poverty. MPHM called on council to reduce the cost of a monthly transit pass and to pilot fare free transit. The city’s poverty reduction implementation plan included a pilot to provide vulnerable Indigenous children, youth, and women with transit fares and passes, but the resource request was not included in the budget.

Affordable housing is one of two major focus areas or “Life Poles” in the city’s strategy. MPHM called for 750 new units of non-market rent-geared-to-income (RGI) housing annually and housing staff to co-ordinate development. Winnipeg recently secured $122 million in federal housing funding, but has not publicly set any targets to partner with the province to build RGI housing with rents less than 30 per cent of household income. The budget includes no municipal funding to hire permanent housing staff to develop social housing, and the city’s homelessness initiatives are not funded beyond 2024.

Another objective of the strategy is to support community-based approaches to safety. MPHM called for funding to community organizations that enhance safety for all and address the root causes of crime. The budget includes support for 24-7 safe spaces, community safety hosts, and public washrooms in Year 1, but nothing is indicated for future years. There are cuts to inner-city community centres, recreation facilities, and the Indigenous Youth Strategy, and there is no funding to support growing calls to develop a safe consumption site.

Finally, the strategy sets an objective to implement training programs focused on equity, diversity, inclusion, reconciliation, and poverty reduction. MPHM called for training in anti-racism and anti-oppression for all city workers, as well as training for first responders around non-violent crisis intervention, de-escalation, mental health first aid, trauma-informed care, and harm reduction. The city’s poverty reduction implementation plan included an initiative to deliver training in many of these areas, but yet again, the resource request was also left out of the budget.

It is discouraging to see the 2024-27 budget scale back the city’s already modest investments in poverty reduction.

Winnipeg’s mayor and council must do better going forward to ensure a just allocation of resources that promotes the health, safety, and welfare of all members of our communities, as outlined in its legislated mandate.

Michael Barkman and Desiree McIvor are members of Make Poverty History Manitoba’s steering committee.