Central Station Community Centre kicked off its Poverty Awareness Month last week with a report meant to shine a spotlight on some of the challenges those living in poverty in our community grapple with every day.
The information gathered in the Bringing Poverty to Light Social Impact Report is meant to provide some context for Central Station’s work, said board chair Phillip Vallelly.
“For many, Central Station is a place of refuge: a warm shelter on cold days, a hot cup of coffee, a food hamper, and above all, a space where people feel supported, guided, trusted, and loved,” he said. “Yet for others, Central Station has sometimes been misunderstood as enabling dependency, providing resources that might discourage self-reliance.”
The agency itself takes a long-term view of its work and the people they serve, Vallelly explained, working day-to-day to meet urgent needs while also offering support for sustainable change.
“Transformation takes a long time. Changing communities takes a long time. Changing the lives of individual people can take a lifetime,” he said.
“Using the data that we’re learning to collect and we’re learning to use properly in its context, we’re responding with greater efficiency, we’re able to build sustainable systems and prioritize relationships, all with the goal of transformation,” Vallelly continued. “Jesus demonstrated this same approach, offering tangible help, but also investing in people’s long-term growth and dignity.”
Executive director Anita Wiebe shared some sobering statistics driving the need for Central Station’s services.
“When we look at Winkler, we’ve got a population of approximately 13,745,” she said. “Our unemployment rate is at 4.2 per cent, which, when compared to the provincial average of 6.2 and the national average of 6.7, it doesn’t look so bad. But 16.8 per cent of our population, including 18 per cent of women, live in low income households. Often this is because of part-time work or low-wage jobs.
“When we look at the child poverty rate, with 23 per cent of the population under age 14, it highlights the importance and the necessity of addressing child poverty as well,” Wiebe continued.
Thirty-six per cent of Winklerites have no advanced education.
“We know that education remains a barrier here,” Wiebe said.
Winkler is also facing a major housing crisis, with a 0.3 per cent vacancy rate.
“All of these things make it hard for some of our most vulnerable groups in our city to be in a position where basic needs are met, where they’re able to find safe and affordable housing, and where they can thrive mentally, physically and spiritually,” Wiebe stressed.
One of Central Station’s strategies to help focuses on building a sense of community by offering programs and services that bring people together.
“Our desire is for healthy relationships, that they would be connected and engaged with community networks, and that they would just feel part of things,” Wiebe said, pointing in example to the community suppers which feed hundreds of people every Monday night. “It’s not just a place for people to come who need a warm meal or could save on groceries … we want it to be a place to connect.”
Other initiatives like the Community Care Program walk alongside struggling families to help them get the supports they need to thrive.
Wiebe shared the story of a single mother who had fled an abusive relationship in another country to settle in Canada. Through Community Care, she was able to find accessible housing, get financial counselling, access medical care, and find other supports available to her and her children.
“When I look at that, the services offered to support clients in a really holistic way, and bringing everybody around to the table, that’s what we want to do,” Wiebe said.
Central Station’s final strategy revolves around affecting change at the broader level by way of policy and systems advocacy.
“Our hope is to affect the social infrastructure,” Wiebe explained, noting a great example of this is Central Station’s partnership with Central Community Homes, which purchased all of Winkler’s social housing units years ago. Today, Central Station oversees the upkeep and management of those properties, working closely with tenants.
Like Vallelly, Wiebe noted the agency has many big, long-term plans for the community.
“We want to move from alleviating poverty to reducing it,” she said. “We need to create a long-term sustainable change that helps lift individuals and families out of poverty for good.”
That’s where the social impact report data comes into play, as it provides a tangible accounting of what the agency is doing and what still needs to be done.
“It allows us to measure growth and success of programs and policies that we’re advocating for,” Wiebe said. “And we’re able to show facts, knowing where we started and how far we’ve moved the needle.
“And with collecting and analyzing this data, we can ensure that the policies that we’re advocating for are based on real needs here in the community.”
“Poverty is here”
Social impact director Krista Rempel provided an overview of the data in the report, stressing that while it’s easy to get lost in the numbers, it’s important to remember they represent real people who are struggling.
“Many people who I discuss poverty with, even homelessness, often aren’t aware that it even exists here in Winkler,” she said. “Poverty isn’t always obvious, but if you were to work just one shift here at Central Station you would see a very different reality.
“You would meet people struggling … to find food, secure a place to sleep, get to the grocery store, to afford their prescriptions, to find a job, to get out of bed, to build friendships, to overcome addictions, or even just silence those relentless thoughts of suicide.
“Poverty here doesn’t look like the images we expect, but it is here, and it is devastating. Seventeen per cent of our residents live in poverty. That means nearly one in six of our neighbors and our friends and our family are struggling to make ends meet, or at some level of poverty. Nearly one in four children experience food insecurity.”
A person relying on Employment and Income Assistance (EIA) receives just $276 a month for their basic needs—not nearly enough.
“That leaves them with about $9 a day to purchase things like medication, transportation, food, all the things that some of us take for granted.
“The [national] poverty line is around $25,000 per year. EIA rates for a single person annually is around $11,000,” Rempel shared. “So how do we expect people to thrive in that situation and to improve their mental health so they can actually lift themselves out of poverty?
“Our goal today is not to bring light to our work, but rather to highlight the struggles that created these needs that we work to fill,” she said. “We want to shine a light on the quiet, invisible battles that are happening every day in our community.”
Rempel urges people to reach out to Central Station to learn how they can get involved to help change lives.
“There’s lots of opportunities, even if it’s just a listening ear,” she said. “You can volunteer, whether it’s helping out in a community meal or mentoring someone.
“You can donate. Every contribution goes towards some of these programs that we’ve mentioned. And they do take quite a bit of support to keep them running.
“Or you can advocate. You can advocate for the people, your neighbours, your friends, your family … advocate for the policies and changes that are required to support people in a meaningful way.
“Most importantly, you can choose to support people. Not just their struggles, but their potential. We can extend compassion instead of judgment and hope instead of indifference.
“Winkler is a community of resilience and generosity and faith. We all together have the power to build a future where poverty is not a reality.”
