Windsor region has highest rate of urban child poverty in Canada
Almost 1 in 4 children in area live in low-income household, statistics show
The Windsor area has a higher rate of children growing up in lowincome families than any city in Canada.
Almost one in four children under age 17 — or 24 per cent — are living in a low-income household in the Windsor census metropolitan area which includes Tecumseh, Lakeshore, LaSalle and Amherstburg.
The Windsor area had previously been in the top 10 but jumped to the No. 1 spot, the worst in the country, when compared to other urban areas in 2015 data released by Statistics Canada last week.
“I think we should be appalled,” United Way/Centraide WindsorEssex County CEO Lorraine Goddard said Monday. “It just should not happen in our country. We should not accept that it’s happening in our community.”
It goes along with last week’s bad news that showed Windsor had the largest drop, at 6.4 per cent, in the last decade in median income among Ontario metropolitan areas.
Nearly 1.2 million — or 17 per cent — of Canadian children lived in a low-income household in 2015, according to Statistics Canada. In the Windsor region, 24 per cent — or 16,210 children — under age 17 were living in low-income households in 2015. Of those, 5,445 were under age five, which is 27.4 per cent.
There is no Canada-wide definition of poverty, Goddard said. Lowincome would include the working poor and people living on government assistance and is based on the number of people relying on an income. The Statistics Canada after-tax, low-income measure for two people, such as a single mother of one child, is $31,301, and for a household of four people it’s $44,266.
Windsor ranked higher than Saint John, N.B., in second place and in the third spot was London, which was also surprisingly high on the list, Goddard said.
Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor CEO June Muir said she was also shocked Windsor had the highest rate in the country.
“Hunger is everybody’s responsibility to address,” Muir said Monday.
This week is Hunger Awareness Week in Canada. People are being encouraged to donate food or money to food banks through the Unemployed Help Centre, which is a hub for 15 local food banks and can be reached at 519-944-4900.
According to Food Banks Canada, one in six households helped by food banks are people who have jobs. One third of those helped by food banks are children. Muir said hydro and food have increased in price over the last two years and large families are affected the most.
Goddard said 15 to 20 years ago, Windsor had some of the highest per capita incomes in Canada. After the recession, the jobs that came back were mostly low paying and precarious. There are children in Windsor who are going to bed hungry, who struggle in school and feel the stress of a parent grappling to keep the hydro or heat on, Goddard said.
“If we don’t take this seriously and really address this problem, where’s our community going to head? What’s next for our community?”
It’s one of the reasons United Way/Centraide Windsor-Essex County is looking to increase giving to $7.5 million in the next five years. Last year, the United Way raised $5.2 million and although it may take time is using $7.5 million as its fundraising target this year.
The local United Way helps sponsor CommUnity Partnership Windsor Essex which provides programs such as the Glengarry Homework Club. Children from low-income families who cannot afford such things as computers for Internet access, can get help through the homework club to complete their curriculum.
Research on poverty shows without intervention, 25 to 40 per cent of these children will not get out of the poverty cycle, Goddard said.