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UpdateQuarterly

JANUARY 2016

Alberta Budget 2015

Alberta’s first non-Conservative government in 44 years released their budget in the

last quarter of 2015, and what a budget it was!

The VCC staff team in Calgary were watching and

listening closely to changes in the budget that would

have an impact on the work of Enough for All and for

the one in ten Calgarians living in poverty. In reporting

on the last three months, we would be remiss if we didn’t

speak to some of the highlights of October’s budget:

The new Alberta Child Benefit; a non-taxable

benefit for families earning less than $41,220 per

year, (including those receiving AISH and Income

Support) making available a maximum annual

credit of $1,100 for families with one child, and up

to $2,750 for families with four or more children.

Payments are issued in August, November,

February and May. This is something poverty

reduction advocates from across the province have

been advocating for over many years. This benefit

will no doubt have a direct and positive impact on

the lives of thousands of Albertans living in poverty.

Enhanced Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit;

increased financial assistance for more low and

middle income working families. Payments are

issued in January and July.

An additional $100 million dollars for Child Care

raising spending to $397 million by 2018.

$25 million in additional funding to Family and

Community Support Services, bringing total

spending to $101 million.

$15 million annually to support women’s

shelter services.

VCC was encouraged by these announcements,

but would have particularly liked to have seen a far

greater commitment to increasing affordable housing

stock throughout Alberta.

continued on page 7

In the development of Enough for All,

a Women’s constellation was formed

and provided crucial recommendations

for poverty reduction in Calgary. In

2015, the Women & Poverty Leadership

Group (W&P) was convened to ensure

these recommendations and a gender

lens are applied to all areas of the

implementation of Enough for All.

The W&P Leadership Group has identified four areas

with a strategic focus on advocacy and public policy.

These include: access to affordable & accessible

childcare; affordable housing options

for single women and single parents

(most often women); employment and

income equity; and an end to violence

against women (specifically access to

emergency refuges and an inquiry into the

prevalence of Murdered & Missing Indigenous

Women across Canada.)

Injustices against women know no cultural, economic or

geographical boundaries. However, Indigenous women

are facing a unique and especially serious injustice.

In recent years, thousands of Indigenous Canadian

women have been murdered or reported missing. VCC

has gathered first-hand knowledge from Indigenous

Calgarian women and their perspectives on MMIW.

Michelle Robinson is a passionate Dene/Metis

community advocate. She works in the greater Forest

Lawn area with a local crime prevention collaborative

called 12 Communities Safety Initiative.

“My first memories of life are of domestic violence.

My non-Indigenous father and my Indigenous mother

would fight regularly. Before they split, my mother’s

temple was crushed. She didn’t die that day, but many

people have told me she is now a very different person

after being with my father.”

Michelle works with the Awo Taan Healing Lodge

on the issues of MMIW, through the Sisters in

Spirit Committee.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) & Poverty

Enough for All Quarterly Update: January 2016

“Since [murdered mother of three] Janel Squirrel’s

death, I was invited into [Janel’s extended] Three

Suns family. That experience has changed the words I

use. Rather than violence against Indigenous women,

I say colonial violence due to the system’s sexist and

racial responsibility of the violence inflicted onto

Indigenous women.”

Michelle remarks that there are not enough support

networks for families dealing with loss. “I carry around

an emergency smudge kit. So many Indigenous

people are hurting and have zero access to smudges.

I try to advocate for families, whether they are in

crisis, or not in crisis any longer but unable to have

their voice heard.”

As an Indigenous woman, Michelle doesn’t feel safe.

“People don’t understand how undervalued women

are! I enrolled myself and my daughter in martial

arts. When people realize that I’m Indigenous, they

completely ignore my opinion. Indigenous women are

dehumanized in this society. The day the newcomers

“discovered” North America, they failed to recognize

women as leaders. That started the marginalization.”

When speaking with Michelle – the link between

MMIW and poverty becomes increasingly clear.

“The system is designed to set up Indigenous people

for failure. Deficit funding, imposed governance, and

child apprehension are all creating systemic poverty

- another form of colonial violence. The Indian Act

favours men. The child apprehension programs are

based on a lack of cultural understanding - using

poverty as a base reason to apprehend children.”

“The Indigenous community is faced with many

historical traumas. We carry things in our genes from

intergenerational trauma, and substance abuse (as a

coping tool) plagues our community.”

Michelle asserts that one major tool to use in the

fight against poverty, is equitable funding for people

living on-reserve.

On December 8, the Canadian Government announced

the first two phases of a national Inquiry into MMIW.

“I hope that the Federal Government will allow

it to be family led, and allow for all to give their

victim impact statements, verbally or written or

whatever medium works. And that support systems

are in place to give spiritual and emotional help to

those families as they open deep wounds. There

is a need to acknowledge the colonial role of the

government’s financial oppression and make financial

accommodations for those involved.”

You can read more from Michelle on her blog:

www.redneckgirlthatcould.blogspot.ca

“I hope that the Federal

Government will allow it to be

family led... And that support

systems are in place to give

spiritual and emotional help

to those families as they

open deep wounds.”

Mic

helle

Ro

bin

son


Financial Empowerment Collaborative

As an integral part of the Enough for All strategy, the Financial Empowerment Model

(FE) is being activated at a critical time in our current economic climate to help

Calgarians who are experiencing financial stress and to prevent others from slipping

into poverty. Calgary is leading the way as the first city in Canada to implement a

proven Financial Empowerment Model to better the lives of Calgarians.

The United Way of Calgary & Area, Vibrant

Communities Calgary (VCC), Momentum, The City of

Calgary, Bow Valley College and the Government of

Alberta are working in partnership as the Financial

Empowerment Collaborative (FEC). FEC strives to

ensure that Calgarians have the income and assets

they need to thrive.

“People who live in poverty make the decisions they

do because they live in poverty. You have very little

bandwidth left to make good constructive decisions

when the majority of your energy is consumed with

worrying about how you’re going to pay your rent

or buy groceries,” said Donna McBride, Director of

Operations at Momentum and Chair of the FEC.

“When you can help people to reduce their financial

stress, people have more mental bandwidth left to

build the rest of their life. That’s why Financial

Empowerment is so important. We all only have so

much decision-making and willpower in any given day.”

FEC focuses their work on six main pillars:

Safe & affordable financial products

The lack of safe and affordable financial products in

Calgary means that people are forced to turn to high

cost payday lenders, reinforcing the cycle of poverty.

The group is working with community partners

to develop micro-loan products with financial

institutions to fill the need for instant credit through

small, lower interest, short-term loans.

Financial coaching

Financial coaching works directly with individuals

to assess, identify and improve their personal financial

situation through debt management and financial skill

building.

Taxation and government benefits

Filing taxes activates important and available

government benefits, and can help immediately boost

finances for low-income individuals and families. In

2015 more than 2,400 Calgarians benefited from free

tax clinics, resulting in more than 1.7 million* dollars in

refunds. (*projected value, based on 5 organizations)


Education savings

Establishing RESPs is one of the most impactful

ways to end intergenerational poverty. Children with

savings accounts set up in their names are six times

more likely to attend post-secondary education than

those without them.

Learning & earning

Learning and earning through matched savings

programs supports low-income individuals to

achieve their saving goals faster. These programs

also change relationships with money by growing

financial literacy skills.

Basic Needs Assistance

Basic Needs Assistance provides people facing

financial crisis with a one-time financial grant. In 2014

the program helped prevent over 1000 people from

being evicted or having their utilities disconnected.

Over the course of 2015, FEC saw real leadership from

various players stepping up and taking ownership of

the overall implementation of FE work in Calgary.

“In 2015, Momentum stepped into leading capacity-

building work for RESP and matched savings programs,

taking what we know best at Momentum and actively

building the capacity of others to do the same.”

In November, after some difficulty getting the financial

coaching piece off the ground, Bow Valley College

agreed to be the leading partner for this piece of the

work. They will write the curriculum, deliver it at the

college, and build a community of practice around

financial coaching to share the lessons.

“Our goal for 2016 would be that we have all six

pillars of work being led by a community partner,

it is this sort of ownership that will move this work

forward in our city. This is how we will be able to start

to tell the story of FE in Calgary.”

When thinking about the future, the group’s goals

are clear: to impact as many Calgarians as possible.

“We speak a lot about how this work can be

embedded into existing systems, because systems

are where you get scalability. We hope to take a

systems approach so that we make the largest impact

possible for low-income Calgarians.”

“We have a four-year operational strategy, United

Way is raising money for the collaborative, our

budget stretches to 2018, but where does this work

live after 2018? We are starting to think about this.

How can the work be grounded in the community so

that it continues to help those who need it most?”

Over the course of 2015 – 2018, the FEC plans to

reach 16,100 Calgarians through the work of

Financial Empowerment.

“Our goal for 2016 would be

that we have all six pillars

of work being led by a

community partner, it is this

sort of ownership that will

move this work forward in

our city. This is how we will

be able to start to tell the

story of FE in Calgary.”


What makes this Constellation unique is that they are

still actively working together today to implement

their own recommendations. Furthermore, Calgary’s

Enough for All strategy was the only poverty

reduction strategy in the country at the time to have

a justice sector component.

Janice Pasay, Co-Chair of the Justice Sector

Constellation remarks, “There is a need for such work

in a poverty-reduction initiative because research

has found that there is a strong link between multiple

unresolved legal problems and social exclusion,

poverty and disadvantage.”

“Having legal problems can result in poverty, as in the

case of family breakup, especially when the family may

have had financial pressures already. On the other hand,

poverty can exacerbate legal issues, as in the case of

a single parent who cannot afford legal assistance to

collect child support that has not been paid or to obtain

an order for child support in the first place.”

Over 90 percent of the recommendations developed

by the Constellation had previously been made,

directly or indirectly, in other reports regarding the

legal system and the justice sector. In light of that, the

members of the Constellation agreed to continue to

work together on implementing the Constellation’s

recommendations, despite having completed their

original mandate.

“We are proud of the fact that the Justice Sector

Constellation decided to work on implementing

its own recommendations, and that more than

two years later, the Constellation continues to

work on implementation. It is much easier to make

recommendations and suggest that they be done

by another body – we recognized the importance of

what we were recommending and as such committed

to making them a reality for Calgary.”

Since April 2013, the Constellation has been actively

working on the following projects:

Service Provider Capacity Building project: This

project seeks to increase awareness by service

providers and intermediaries of potential legal issues

as part of client needs, and increase awareness of

and referral to appropriate justice sector services and

resources. Funding has been obtained to develop and

pilot training for service providers and intermediaries

(e.g., community and faith community workers and

volunteers) to that end. Training pilots were recently

completed, and the training has been well-received.

The Constellation has recently conducted a survey to

provide baseline data to evaluate the effects of the

training over time.

Database project: Appropriate and timely access to

justice sector services requires knowledge of what

services are available. The goal of this project is to

develop a current, comprehensive database of justice

Justice Sector Constellation

In 2012, a Constellation Network of 13 working groups went off to develop their

recommendations for what needed to be included in Calgary’s poverty reduction

strategy. One of the 13 Constellations was the Justice Sector Constellation, working

to intervene at the intersection of the legal system and poverty.


sector service providers and justice sector services,

available to both the public and other service

providers. Stakeholder agreement for the integration

has been obtained, and funding for the integration is

currently being sought.

Legal Advice versus Legal Information project:

This project seeks to educate justice sector service

providers on the difference between legal advice

and legal information, so as to encourage them

to provide as much legal information as possible.

Resource materials have been developed, and the

first presentation was given in October.

Collaboration with Educators project: The goal

of this project is greater understanding within

the justice sector regarding vulnerability to legal

issues, the interaction between poverty and the

legal system, and the need for lawyers and other

legal professionals in poverty law. Specifically, the

Constellation has advocated to have issues regarding

the legal system and poverty included in materials for

existing courses, and for a credit and/or continuing

education course on poverty and the law. As a result

of these activities, a new Poverty and the Law course

is being developed at one Calgary university.

By-laws Project: One of the issues identified by

the Constellation is that the impact of receiving

a fine for by-law and other infractions is more

significant for those living in poverty. In light of

this, the Constellation recommends that the policy

underlying infractions that have a disproportionate

impact on those with low income be reconsidered.

Legal analysis will be conducted and quantitative

and qualitative data will be gathered, to provide

an evidentiary and analytical basis for such a

reconsideration. Researchers and funding for the

legal aspect has been secured, a researcher has

been identified for the social science aspect, and an

application has been made to fund the latter.

In addition to these projects, the Constellation has

conducted a needs assessment at the Calgary Courts

Centre regarding how visitors navigate the Courts

buildings resulting in recommendations for improved

signage, mapping and training of service personnel.

The Justice Sector Constellation has had a busy

year and looks forward to further progress in 2016.

Through monthly Constellation meetings, many

additional conversations and a tremendously

engaged and committed group of individuals,

their work will continue to be a stellar example of

collaboration in action.

For the full list of the Justice Sector Constellation’s

recommendations see the March 2013 report

“Intervening at the Intersection of Poverty and

the Legal System” (the report can be found at

vibrantcalgary.com/uploads/enough-for-all-2013/

Justice-Sector-Constellation-Final-Report.pdf).

Alberta Child Benefit and 2015 Alberta Budget (continued from front)

Of course, no commentary on politics in 2015 would

be complete without recognizing Canada’s new

federal government, as well. It is far too early to tell

which decisions will be made that will have an impact

on poverty reduction in Calgary, but one thing we

know for certain is that none of the work associated

with Enough for All is happening in a closed system.

The best we can do as a collective impact initiative

is scan the horizon for shifts and be as nimble and

adaptive as we can possibly be. If you allow this

land-locked Calgarian a poor seafaring analogy; ‘our

tack may change, but so will the weather!’

Remember! In order to be eligible for the benefits and credits

listed on page one, individuals and families must file their

income taxes. For more information on free tax clinics available

in Calgary, call 2-1-1 or visit informAlberta.ca


Enough for All needs all of us, from

every sector, working together to

succeed! Are you or your organization

interested in getting involved? Find out more

at www.vibrantcalgary.com or reach out by

contacting [email protected]

Deepening understanding of what it means to be a ‘Backbone’

In Enough for All’s last quarterly report, we discussed what it means to be a

backbone organization to a collective impact initiative. As a follow up, here is

what VCC has been doing to deepen its understanding of what it means to be

the backbone of the Enough for All poverty reduction strategy.

Sharing & Reconciliation Circles

VCC has engaged Blackfoot Elder, Reg Crowshoe

to guide VCC’s Board, Staff, Poverty Talks and

Aboriginal Advisory Committee through three

Reconciliation circles. The aim of these sessions is

to generate conversation and understanding on

reconciliation, through a meeting of hearts and

minds. The goal is to create a deep understanding

between Indigenous cultures and mainstream

society, and ultimately assist the combined efforts of

the VCC teams to work more effectively within goal

area number four – All Aboriginal peoples are equal

participants in Calgary’s prosperous future.

Learning Labs with Mark Cabaj

VCC has engaged Mark Cabaj, for his expertise in

systems change and collective impact methodology

to deepen VCC’s Board and staff understanding of

the collective impact approach to poverty reduction.

Mark’s focus is on developing practical ways to

assist groups understand, plan and evaluate policies,

programs and initiatives that address complex

issues. Through a series of six sessions the Board and

staff have engaged in a learning process about what

governance, advocacy, and other areas of poverty

reduction work look like when being done through

a collective approach. These learning labs help to

solidify the foundation for continued implementation

of the strategy.

Community Conversations

In October, VCC invited Enough for All stakeholders

together to engage with each other and learn about

what’s happening in given areas of the strategy. This

particular conversation was held at the ArtBOX in

Forest Lawn. VCC is hosting quarterly community

conversations, in different areas of the city in 2016 as

an opportunity for Calgarians to connect with each

other around the strategy – and realize their important

and vital role in poverty reduction work in Calgary.

Lisa Petermann

VCC has engaged Lisa Petermann, a stakeholder

engagement consultant, to help determine how to best

engage Enough for All’s various groups of stakeholders.

Evaluation

As featured in the last Quarterly report, Dr. Debb

Hurlock and Dr. Katrina Milaney from Creative Theory

Inc. have been tasked with evaluating the collective

work being done on poverty reduction in Calgary. Look

for their Report to Community about the progress of

the Enough for All strategy in February 2016.

400 – 119 14 Street NW Calgary, AB T2N 1Z6 vibrantcalgary.com

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