Knowledge becomes power in Peel’s fight against inequity
Community Advisory Councils help agencies identify and address service gaps widened by COVID and racism
Indus Community Services’ third-floor lounge sure doesn’t look like a battleground. On one wall, a vibrant mural depicts a country cottage complete with removable plastic flowers. A fish tank glows nearby, its cheerful burbling breaking the silence that has fallen over the room since COVID-19 forced out the local seniors who once crafted, cooked and socialized here.
The serene space belies the long-standing battles that Indus and dozens of other community organizations across Peel Region are fighting harder than ever before. Battles
against racialized issues such as poverty, isolation, hunger, domestic violence and mentalhealth problems, all of which have become more difficult to wage, and more acute, during
the pandemic.
This is partly because racialized people are more likely to contract the coronavirus. According to Peel Public Health, visible minorities made up 77
per cent of Peel’s COVID-19 cases between April 13 and July 15, despite comprising 63 per cent of the region’s population. The impact of this disparity is exacerbated by the relative paucity of health-care funding in the region. From 2016 to 2017, for instance, Brampton hospitals received about a quarter of the $2,964.11in per-capita funding provided to Toronto hospitals.
“Inequity had become so magnified that more action had to be taken,” says Sonia Pace, Peel Region’s director of community partnerships.
Thankfully, the region and United Way Greater Toronto (UWGT) both sprang into action in March.
The two partners “were there when agencies needed realtime information and emergency funding right at the beginning of the pandemic, before the province and the feds and everybody else followed,” says Pace.
“This was one of the keys to accelerating change and pivoting service delivery models.”