On poverty advocates, industry and ‘pimps’

Community efforts connecting the dots to address inadequacies of system

I am part of what some people would disparagingly call the “poverty industry.”

About half the work I do involves supporting community efforts to organize and advocate for a system to end poverty and its closest sibling, homelessness.

When I started this work over a decade ago, I had much to learn about poverty policy and how to influence it. My best teachers were the people living the reality. It was the accounts of their lives that would have the most impact on policy-makers and my work was to ensure their voices were heard. I thought I was on the side of right.

When I heard the poverty industry comment for the first time, I was defensive about my good intentions. However, after a moment’s reflection it was easy to see why people who had lived in poverty for decades would be upset that I was seemingly being paid to address the inadequacies of the system, yet there was no sign of improvement in sight.

On top of that, I was becoming locally known for my work in this area. One night I was cohosting a forum at city hall with a poverty advocate who had lived experience, that is, he was living on social assistance at about $650 a month at the time.

He took the mike and introduced me as a “poverty pimp.”

Although I’d say I’m far from the top of the food chain in this so-called industry, thereby disqualifying me as the pimp, I understand the anger. It’s uncomfortable but it’s real.

I think many of us whose work in this community are connected to people living in poverty — from front line housing and street outreach workers, to policy influencers and makers — have a feeling of unease at the end of the day. Most of us (not all, especially front-liners, earn a living wage and many are precariously employed) go home to places free of bugs, warm or cool depending on preference, with full fridges and located in “nice” neighbourhoods.

I’d be amiss not to mention, on behalf of people with lived experience, there are also some who work in this industry who go home and have long ago become desensitized to the pain their clients face or have formed harsh judgments about their situations and sleep just fine at night, thank you, despite the dissonance. They likely don’t even pay attention to the name-calling anymore.

Frankly, this week you can call me anything, but late for dinner, as we have finally seen some fruits from our decades of labour, both allies and people with the first voice experience of poverty.

First up, National Housing Day had some real meaning this year, as the federal government committed to a long-called-for national housing strategy, which even includes a nod and some dollars to respond to the unique vulnerabilities of women who face homelessness.

In Ontario, Bill 148 passed ensuring minimum wage workers will earn $14 an hour by January, and other fairer work provisions will be enshrined. Also, provincially, a Road map for Change, on the Income Security system, including some remarkable reform to social assistance, was laid out.

And finally, every meeting I attended this week I ran into someone who had been or knew someone who was accepted into Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot Project as a paid participant. For some people it means going from $730 or so a month on Ontario Works up to $1,915.

The initial stories of how this increased income is changing people’s lives are simple, yet powerful. Like going home to Timmins for Christmas for the first time in decades, and buying a new winter coat for the first time ever.

There is so much more to come on all of these good news items. But advocacy and attentiveness will still be needed from people with current lived experience and their allies, to ensure there are new dollars behind promises. And that existing gaps will be responded to.

In the face of ongoing death and destruction, real and threatened, all in all it’s been a pretty good week on the poverty front in Ontario and Canada, if things promised can be realized.

As Bill Mous, friend, priest and fellow poverty pimp, posted this week: “Let us give thanks to all who have helped bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.”

Deirdre Pike is a Bi-Weekly freelance columnist for the Hamilton Spectator. If you want to volunteer for the “poverty industry,” please email her at dpike@sprc.hamilton.on.ca. Direct all other queries to dpikeatthespec@gmail.com or @deirdrepike.