Baby food or a bus pass? A TV or a telephone?
About 100,000 Manitobans make these decisions every day. They live below the poverty line. Some are the poorest of the poor in the country.
Who they are and where they live will surprise you.
Features
- InteractiveMaking Ends Meet
- You don't have much money, but you do have a lot of choices.
- Live ChatWho's accountable?
- A round table on poverty.
- PerspectivesFighting poverty
- What stakeholders and anti-poverty activists say.
- FeatureWho's to say I am poor?
- Looking at the three low-income measures.
Headlines
- Results in Winnipeg's poorest area
- Welfare conditions spur complaint to province
- 1970s' Manitoba poverty experiment called a success
- New library program fights illiteracy
- Solutions-based program battles poverty
- Link between health and poverty
- Winnipeg program offers "Bright Futures"
- People with disabilities more prone to poverty
- Full-time worker sleeps at siloam
- Bankruptcy numbers on the rise
- School food programs keep focus on learning
- Refugees burdened by gov't loans
Profiles
- PerspectiveNewcomers
- Refugees have a particularly hard time making ends meet.
- PerspectiveSingle Parents
- Single parents are poorer than their married counterparts.
- PerspectiveThe Working Poor
- You can work and still be poor.
- PerspectiveThe Disabled
- Earn about $10,000 a year less than those without a disability.
- PerspectiveSeniors
- For many older Manitobans on fixed incomes the "golden years" aren't exactly brilliant.
- PerspectiveAboriginal people
- Manitoba has the largest per capita Aboriginal population in Canada.
Poverty by Area
Most of Manitoba's poor live in Winnipeg. The city’s poorest neighbourhood is Lord Selkirk Park where 68 percent of the people in the community live below the LICOs-IAT poverty line. Two-thirds of Lord Selkirk Park’s residents are Aboriginal and more than a third of them are nine-years-old or younger. More than half of Lord Selkirk Park’s residents age 15 years and older have no educational certificate, diploma or degree and the unemployment rate is 18.7 percent. The median household income is $15,552 and most people rent their homes for an average of $436 a month. Many residents of this community have moved here within the past decade - a typical pattern for those who move frequently in hopes of finding better accommodations, because of evictions, and changing circumstances.
- Legend (percentage low income):
- 0-19%
- 20-39%
- 40-59%
- Over 60%
*City of Winnipeg and Statistics Canada data showing family income in Winnipeg by neighbourhood. Some data is unavailable due to small neighbourhood population size.
Did you know?
Feeding the poor
Nearly 50,000 Manitobans received help from food banks last year, an increase of almost 20 percent from the previous year. Of those who receive food from food banks, nearly half are children. Winnipeg Harvest delivers food to programs in 26 schools across the city. The Winnipeg One School Division funds food programs in 41 of their schools.
Schedule
From March 22-26, CBC Television, Radio and cbc.ca will explore why so many Manitobans struggle with poverty and how they survive with Not Enough Money.
- Monday
- An overview - poverty's impact, the challenges and consequences.
- Tuesday
- New Canadians -a family discovers that life in Canada is much harder than they'd expected.
- Wednesday
- The Working Poor - meet a working professional who can't make ends meet.
- Thursday
- Solutions - finding ways to combat poverty. Desperate times and inspired solutions.
- Friday
- Accountability - join a round table discussion and post your questions on line.