Tag Archives: Poverty

Last month, Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (whose important work I have written about before), issued a tweet about the new poverty and healthcare numbers in the United States along with a challenge to the administration of Donald Trump (which in June decided to voluntarily remove itself from membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council after Alston issued a report on his 2017 mission to the United States). The numbers for...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Field researchers in Uganda strategize before going out to track down cash grant recipients nine years laterIt’s been a big week for cash, with two studies out on cash transfers based on data from my IPA colleagues:Craig McIntosh and Andy Zeitlin worked with IPA, USAID, Catholic Relief Services, and GiveDirectly in Rwanda to compare a standard WASH (water/sanitation/hygiene) and nutrition program to cash. You can read the...

Over at the Research Blog of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’ve written a ‘top 10’ overview of a study on which I’m co-author. It essentially asks the question: “When homeless people are placed into subsidized housing with social work support, for how many months/years do they require that social work support?” The study relies on an impressive data set about ex-homeless people who’ve been placed into subsidized housing with social work support in Calgary. Methodologically, the study uses...

The desire to judge people's motives rather than addressing their needs is a “British disease”. We have been suffering from it for hundreds of years, cycling endlessly through repeated cycles of generosity and harshness. Each cycle ends in public outrage and an abrupt reversal: but the memory eventually fades, and the disease reappears in a new form. In this post, I outline the tragic history of Britain's repeated attempts to "categorise the poor". For centuries, successive British...

I’ve just reviewed Professor Carey Doberstein’s book on homelessness governance (UBC Press). The book looks at the way decisions are made pertaining to funding for homelessness programs in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto during the 1995-2015 period. Points raised in my review include the following: -Homelessness trends look quite different across the three cities. For example, it can be growing in one city, but declining in another. -One of the book’s main arguments is that better decisions...

I recently wrote a ‘top 10’ overview blog post about the 2018 Saskatchewan budget. Following on the heels of that, I’ve now written an opinion piece about the budget’s announcement of a phase out a rental assistance program for low-income households. Points raised in the opinion piece include the following: -Across Saskatchewan, rental vacancy rates are unusually high right now, making this a good time to provide rental assistance to tenants for use in private units (indeed, right now it’s a...

I’ve written a ‘top 10’ blog post about the recently-tabled Saskatchewan budget. Points raised in the blog post include the following: -This year’s budget was quite status quo. -Last year’s budget, by contrast, included a series of cuts to social spending. Last year’s budget also announced cuts to both personal and corporate income taxes that were subsequently reversed. -Saskatchewan has one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in Canada. -This recent budget announced the phase out of a rent...

I’ve just written a blog post about the newly-signed federal-provincial-territorial housing framework agreement. This agreement builds on (and helps move forward) Canada’s National Housing Strategy, which was released last fall. One of the points made in the blog post is that the federal government’s stated objective of removing approximately half-a-million households from core housing need is very ambitious, in light of what we know about the Strategy. The link to the full blog post is...

On March 22, the NDP government of Rachel Notley tabled the 2018 Alberta budget. I’ve written a blog post discussing some of the major ‘take aways’ from the standpoint of Calgary’s homeless-serving sector (where I work). Points made in the blog post include the following:  this was very much a status quo budget; Alberta remains the lowest-taxed province in Canada (and still the only province without a sales tax); Alberta still has (by far) the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio of any province;...

Posted by Nick Falvo under aboriginal peoples, Alberta, budgets, Child Care, education, fiscal policy, homeless, housing, HST, income, income support, income tax, Indigenous people, inequality, labour market, macroeconomics, NDP, poverty, progressive economic strategies, public infrastructure, public sector procurement, public services, seniors, small business, social policy, student debt, taxation, user fees, women, workplace benefits. March 21st, 2018Comments: none The...