By Alicia Draus

City organization aims to end poverty by 2030

Feb 15, 2017 | 1:57 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — The city that ended homelessness is now looking to tackle an even bigger project: Ending poverty in all its forms and ensuring wellbeing for all.
 
“Poverty really is not just about money, it’s about an ability to thrive in our community,” said Celina Symmonds, city councillor and co-executive director of the Medicine Hat and District Food Bank.
 
THRIVE is the name of the new initiative. It was unveiled to the community on Wednesday, and highlights the ambitious goal of ending poverty in the region by 2030.
 
“It is doable,” said Jaime Rogers with the Medicine Hat Community Housing Society. “This community, this city of Medicine Hat has done tremendous things for those most vulnerable. This is doable, absolutely.”
 
The plan is the result of nearly a year’s worth of work. Alina Turner was a consultant for this plan and said much of that work revolved around listening to first hand accounts.

“We didn’t start with research, we actually started with a community voice first and the lived experience voice in particular because we wanted it to be a bottom up perspective,” she said.

The group held forums and surveyed over 300 people. Over the consultation process, the Poverty Reduction Leadership Group was able to come up with 13 key strategies.
 
Those strategies include leadership and systems change, community system planning, income security, affordable housing and food security.
 
Within each key strategy are recommendations for ways to help the community eliminate poverty.
 
Symmonds says when it comes to food security, programs like the Food First Pilot are a step in the right direction.

“When we look at food banks across Canada, they’re looking at different ways of service,” said Symmonds. “Things like fresh grown food, looking at community kitchens and creating inclusive spaces for people talking about food and having food security.”
 
THRIVE focuses on revaluating how existing organizations run to help eliminate poverty.
 
Turner also said that it’s not about starting over, but better utilizing existing programs. One of the major barriers for those looking for help is that there is no one-stop shop. It can be difficult for people to find out what services are available and how to access them, and often miss out on key pieces of information.

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Turner said that one of the main recommendations for the community system planning priority is to create a service and funding hub where people can go and learn about all services available to them.
 
While that could mean a new building, it doesn’t have to.
 
“So your public library, your recreation centres, your food bank, those are naturally occurring community hubs that we can leverage and enhance with this additional component of matching people to the right services,” said Turner.

The plan includes a list of key milestones to achieve the overall goal of ending poverty.
 
One milestone is to reduce the number of households in extreme core housing need down to 1,000 or less by 2020 and have no one experiencing extreme core housing need in 2030.
 
Another is to reduce by half the percentage of people working full-time and earning just a living wage, and then reduce it by 2030.
 
Turner admitted the goals are ambitious.
 
“If we don’t set that goal now, we don’t have that sense of urgency,” she said.
 
All those involved said that the key to success comes down to community involvement.
 
Before anything else happens, a council of champions will be created, and from there a strategy will be rolled out on how to implement recommendations and track progress with annual reviews.

Information about the program and the full report can be found at www.thrivemh.ca.