What does poverty look like in Prince George?
That’s the question the City hopes to answer to better inform its participation in the province’s newly announced poverty reduction strategy.
“Council has identified the role of the City of Prince George in implementing the provinces framework as one of its strategic priorities,” explained Chris Bone, the city’s manager of social planning.
“As such administration is undertaking a number of steps to write a recommendation for your consideration. The first is the most important step we are working on is the development of a poverty profile.”
The profile will include an introductory section outlining definitions, measures, quick facts, and snapshots of poverty in both B.C. and Canada.
“To say poverty profile, it means to get a picture of what poverty looks like in Prince George so that we have a shared understanding, so we can establish a baseline, so we can identify areas that require our attention and improvement.”
Bone said to compile this profile, they will assemble a working group who will review the province’s strategy and how it relates to local government and current initiatives in the city that contribute to poverty reduction.
“With the profile and that analysis our intent is to then come forward with recommendations for council consideration,” said Bone.
She also noted the approach they may take to form the working group would be to identify networks that are already engaged in poverty reduction work within the city.
Bone also noted some of the initiatives the city is currently involved in that work towards poverty reduction, which include an upcoming seniors housing symposium and a child care planning project, which will inventory all child care services in the community.
“I totally support what is being proposed,” said Coun. Murry Krause. “I want to state that I really support this because I think it’s important that the City of Prince George base our actions on real data…I think it’s important we have that data in place before we move forward.”
Bone says one of the challenges that a lot of communities’ face is trying to define poverty.
“I think that is the first chunk of work that will inform the profile is getting a shared understanding of what do we mean when we say ‘living in poverty’.”
The poverty profile, analysis of the province’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, current city initiatives and related reports will serve as the basis for the working group's recommendations to council.
These recommendations should be complete in June 2019.
