Child Poverty in Ward 43

by John Laforet
posted on July 20th, 2008 at 20:40:22 pm

I realized that I did not re-cap the poverty meetings I’ve attended yesterday as previously planned. I thought it was probably best to talk about child poverty in my community and then talk about what came out of the poverty reduction meetings in Scarborough. It just seems to flow better that way. 

Child Poverty in Ward 43 (City Ward Report on Child Poverty)

Just to put it in perspective I’m going to start with some City of Toronto data (which I will exclusively rely on for the purposes of this post) and go into some discussion. Stylistically speaking “City” will refer to the municipal government, while “city” will refer to Toronto as a whole. 

Key Facts:

Ward 43 has the highest rate of child poverty in all of Scarborough and the third highest rate of child poverty in the city of Toronto. 

41% of children in Ward 43 under 14 live in poverty compared to 30% across the city as a whole. 

In total Ward 43 has 5125 children under 14 living in families below the low income cut off and only 985 of those children receive subsidized childcare. 503 children are on a waiting list. The City believes of the 24 000 subsidized spaces, Ward 43 is entitled to 1029, still more than 4 000 spots short of even just the number of children below the low income cut off. 

The LICO – Low Income Cut Off is defined as $22,964 for a family of two or $34 572 for a family of four. It is also commonly referred to and generally accepted as the “poverty line”.

In neighbouring Ward 44 where half as many children live in poverty and the incidence is both the lowest in Scarborough and the 4th lowest in the City overall, there are 46% more subsidized childcare spaces than the City feels is equitable. Ward 43 by contrast has 41 fewer subsidized spots than the City believes it ought to.

As of July 10th (when I began to research the hard numbers on vacant childcare spots) there were 113 vacant subsidy spots in Ward 43, representing over 20% of the current waiting list. Ward 44 had 44 vacant subsidy spots and as of July 18, had 48 vacant spots. This represents more than the 41 spots the City believes Ward 43 deserves under the equity guidelines. As of July 18th, Ward 43 had 110 vacancies. Lets hope the City fills vacancies at a faster rate then this usually. Here is a link to the Children Service’s page that makes this information public. 

Discussion of Child Poverty in Ward 43 and Toronto

While I believe child poverty everywhere must be addressed, I think it is important to focus most on neighbourhoods and communities where child poverty is highest. When it comes to practical applications of poverty reduction, I believe the City does have the opportunity to lead through programs and support to low income families. It should start by immediately filling all vacant childcare spots in Wards where the City has stated too few subsidized spots are available to children. The City should re-allocate the vacant subsidies in Wards where the city believes there are too many subsidized spots to those below the equity guidelines. While I do not believe the 24 000 current subsidized spots is enough, particularly when over 100 000 children are eligible for subsidized daycare, I do think that the current spots do need to be distributed fairly first, and that new money also ought to be distributed in a fair way across all city wards in future.

In places like Ward 43 where child poverty is so overwhelming the City should work with local school boards, the province and outside groups to support breakfast programs in all K-8 schools to give children a fair shot at learning. It has been said repeatedly it is far more difficult to learn on an empty stomach. This spring, I spoke with a woman at a community event who runs a breakfast program at a local school in my community. The challenges facing these programs in just ensuring they have the resources to go all year are immense. They ask parents to send $5 a week to school with their child if they are able to help cover the cost, but the reality is many parents cannot afford to. 

In the absence of daycare spaces, after school programs become even more important, especially for school aged kids. Not only do they provide children with an opportunity to either enhance their learning outside of the classroom or participate in some sort of physical activity, but they allow parents to buy time before needing to pick up their children after work. 

I’m going to share some of the graphics that came from the City’s Ward Specific reports on children. Please click the following link and select “High Proportion of Children Living in Low-Income Families” and “Electoral Wards”. The red dots are the high proportions. Notice how Ward 43 is almost entirely red except a small portion of Seven Oaks in the north east corner and all of Guildwood in the south? Because these two neighbourhoods have next to no child poverty, what this means is in the areas that do the incidence is far higher than the reported 41%. There are a bunch of other comparisons you can do between standardized test scores, library registration of children under 12, etc. and incidence of child poverty as well. The data is really compelling, take a look… I can’t discuss it here or this post will turn into a novella in no time!

The next graphic is a chart that compares Ward 43 family income to that of the City of Toronto. I’ve made it as big as I can here.

I want to provide some perspective on these numbers. The LICO – Low Income Cut Off for the purposes of this chart is defined as $22,964 for a family of two or $34 572 for a family of four. Almost 20% of families live on less than half what is considered to be the poverty line. That means a single mother with one child and an income of less than $11 500 or a two parents with two children and an income of less than $ 17 500. Those are nearly impossibly low sums to live on, particularly while raising a child. You will also notice in Ward 43 of families living on less than 50% of the LICO, single parents make up significantly more of these families in Ward 43 than in the city as a whole.

The solution to low income is obviously a having a higher income. But that requires an ability to work, particularly under conditions that will make earning a higher income possible. This generally means full time. Below is a chart I’ve put together using City of Toronto data on average daycare costs. Consider the barrier daycare costs create to even being able to seek employment. 

Keep in mind the costs below are both averages and monthly. 

Age of Child	0-18 months	18mo. to 2.5 yrs	2.5 to 6 yrs	6+ yrs
Average Cost	$ 1132.74	$ 1024.64	$ 794.75	$ 614.66

Just how is a single parent supposed to make it work? How can a two parent family become a double income family with such high child care costs? It seems clear to me that the solution is a program either similar to Quebec’s much discussed $7 a day system of child care or an expansion of Toronto’s income based subsidy system. 

I believe the City should immediately fund the 15 000 children currently on the waiting list to receive daycare subsidies, and begin to budget annually for a ramping up of the childcare subsidy until at least the 112 000 children living in families with incomes under $40 000 who are also eligible have the opportunity for subsidized childcare. The City should also find a way to expand the current system to allow single parents who are looking to enter the workforce to immediately receive a subsidized daycare spot for their child once they’ve formally accepted an offer of employment. This would be a step that would allow parents to re-enter the work force by removing an existing barrier.

I also have an idea for something the City should stop doing.

The text below comes directly from the City of Toronto’s Employee Guide. It is on page 37 between “Fitness Centres” and “Meditation Rooms”. I’ve been having trouble with the graphic, so I’ve included the text in italics below as well.

“Employees who work directly for the corporation of the City of Toronto are eligible for priority admission to any of the City’s 58 directly operated child care programs or its home child care program. In addition, employees may be eligible for a child care fee subsidy. Priority admission does not apply to employees of the agencies, boards, commissions and corporations. 

For more information about child care centres, call 416-392-3317.

For more information about home child care, call 416-392-3366.”

Children’s Services states that Toronto’s current licensed daycare capacity only covers 21% of Toronto children. Further, it would stand to reason that the City’s 58 directly operated child care programs would be prioritized not for city staff, but for low income families. I don’t even want to get started on the “employees may be eligible for a child care fee subsidy” portion. – This should stop. According to the City’s website there are 1921 children on waiting lists for the some 3043 spots the City directly operates. These numbers are as of July 20th 2008. Why should the pool of 33 000 city employees have first dibs on these spots? Do you think the 1921 families with children on waiting lists for City operated daycare spots are aware of this? I wonder if the 88 000 families who are eligible but not receiving subsidies for childcare are aware of the child care provisions made specially for City employees. 

The good news is the City sees the importance of child care to maintaining a solid civil service, the bad news is the City’s approach to maintaining this is compromising the private sector’s ability to compete for a talented pool of people who attempt to balance a family life with a career. 

 

 

Tags: Child Poverty, Scarborough, Ward 43