In 2021 VCC released a report, Examining Calgary's Emergency Food Assistance System, which sparked various conversations and led to I Can for Kids becoming a Champion in the Spring of 2021. I Can for Kids started out focusing on childhood hunger, trying to fill a gap in the food system by addressing summer hunger. The pandemic pushed I Can for Kids to find a more dignified way of providing food supports to kids and their families and they found that innovations like a shift to gift cards provide financial relief to households, dignified and autonomous access to foods, and enables healthier eating. The goal is to understand the underlying conditions that give rise to food insecurity in order to change outcomes for kids.

The Justice Sector Constellation has been working for over a decade, seeking to intervene at the intersection of poverty and the legal system so that everyone facing a legal issue can access the justice sector resources and services they need. Great progress has been made in educating about the relationship between poverty and the legal system, including an interactive online module, Poverty and the Law-Expanding Perspectives.

Effective income support programs are the result of effective municipal, provincial and federal policies, and advocating for effective policy requires information-sharing, collaboration and coordination within the human services sector. Vibrant Communities Calgary co-chairs the Social Policy Collaborative, a group of community organizations committed to working together to inform the development and implementation of public policy that improves the economic and social wellbeing of Albertans. This group aims to bring a clear and collective voice to government to advance policy opportunities.

We recognize the need to address the root causes of poverty. Often the opportunities to effect systemic change are rooted in policy changes. We work with Champions and other collaboratives on various policy and advocacy-related matters, like the Social Policy Collaborative’s work and recommendations on income support, to press for sustained changes.

We speak up and speak out as the need to capture the attention of decision-makers is required in pursuing long-term changes in the systems we use.

Our work with the Alberta Living Wage Network has led to in-depth discussions around why it’s important for all employers to pay a living wage. The evidence is clear that increasing wages for the lowest-paid employees can also be an effective spark for the economy because the lowest-paid workers are more likely to spend in their communities. This is especially important as policymakers talk about a just recovery.

We question how much more information we need to gather before we act. Action comes in numerous ways, big and small. We greatly appreciate and honour the voices of lived experience and the sentiment behind the phrase ‘nothing about us without us.’

Our work with the Canadian Poverty Institute has provided important findings on the depth of poverty, food security, and poverty broken down by each ward in Calgary. These findings challenge the stigma around poverty, showing that individuals in poverty can be highly educated or work multiple jobs, yet individuals may still be confronted with circumstances that are out of their control, reinforcing the fact that poverty is not about individuals, it’s about systems.

As we consider how we impact poverty in our communities, we must look at intervention and prevention.

While many social change efforts are typified as prevention, the majority of effort particularly in the social services sector can be identified as intervention. Food banks, shelters, reading support programs, policing, health services, mental health supports, etc. mostly deal with individuals who have already experienced a crisis and require an intervention to help prevent further challenges.

One question to think of is, which efforts prevent poverty from occurring, and which efforts are supporting those who have already entered a state of poverty? As a general rule, primary prevention efforts usually stem from impacting the conditions or causal systems that create the problem; while intervention efforts focus on meeting immediate, usually individual needs in real time.

VCC uses a collective impact approach, an intentional way of working together and sharing information, for the purpose of solving a complex problem like poverty. 

• We do this through an active governance structure that includes guidance from our Indigenous Advisory Committee and the lived experience of Poverty Talks! members.
• We also bring members of the community together to address the root causes that contribute to poverty. We convene, support, advocate and build public will.