Despite a strong year of legislative action on housing and poverty, Food Banks Canada says there is still more to be done in BC.
The organization recently released their poverty report cards for the whole country, where for the second year in a row BC got a D+.
The grade included four sections such as experience of poverty, poverty measures, material deprivation, and legislative progress. They say that when it comes to housing, the province got a failing grade.
“In BC, 46.6 percent of respondents said they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, an increase of 7.5 percent points from the year prior,” said Food Banks.
“BC has the highest proportion among all the provinces of people reporting that housing is unaffordable. While it scored best among the provinces for the percentage of income spent on fixed costs outside of housing, on average, residents still spend more than 50 per cent of their income on fixed costs like Internet, transport, groceries, and utilities. “
Other failing grades include healthcare with 27.3 percent of residents struggling to access it, 21.8 percent dealing with food insecurity, and nearly a quarter of people missing three or more items for a decent standard of living.
They add that the poverty rate is higher than the national average, at 11.6 percent.
“The poverty rate among seniors in BC is 6.4 percent overall and 14.3 percent among seniors who live alone,” said Food Banks. “The poverty rate for those who lived alone was 24.5 per cent in 2021, which is higher than the Canadian rate of 21.5 per cent for this group.
They say for lone women with kids, the poverty rate is at 17.8 percent, while couples with kids have a rate at 5 percent. While child poverty is lower in the province than the national average, poverty among those aged 18 to 24 is higher at 18 percent.
Food Banks says that the province has introduced plans to support those in need, including a housing plan, rent caps, eliminating childcare waitlist fees, and providing funding for food infrastructure.
They recommend the provincial government to introduce a new strategy to lower poverty by 50 percent by 2030, keep BC Housing’s budget at $1.2 billion per year, increase access to childcare, and to have every political party respond to the expert panel on basic income.
