Survey says poverty is a problem in Red Deer

CAPRA will be working with the Vibrant Red Deer Needs Assessment Advisory Council on creating a poverty reduction and prevention strategy. The council will be making recommendations by the end of June as to what the needs assessment should look like. The assessment is expected to be completed in late 2019 after focus groups and one-on-one interviews are held this fall.

“We want to be able to say these are the things the community sees as important, and this is what we are going to be looking at to develop a needs assessment,” Souveny explained.

What the survey revealed is that many in the community, including RDC students, do not have a clear picture of how prevalent poverty is in their community.

“One of the things we were kind of surprised by was many students think it’s just the homeless people that are our only population living in poverty,” Souveny remarked. “The further conversations we had with the students, we were able to help them understand that as students they are often living in poverty, but they don’t identify it as that.”

Melissa Hillman, a recent graduate from Red Deer College’s psychology program, did much of the work for the survey and feels it was an important project to do.

“We’re a community. We should be working together to help one another,” she said after presenting the survey findings. “I think that Red Deer is a great community and I think we should focus on helping one another.”

The 526 survey respondents were divided into three categories – community members (61 per cent), those who lived in poverty (17) and service providers (13).

Some of the highlights from their responses include:

– Between 93 to 95 per cent disagreed with the statement that “Poverty is not a problem in Red Deer’

– 93 to 98 per cent believe poverty can affect anyone in their lifetime

– 64 to 69 per cent are aware that 1 in 10 people in Red Deer live in poverty

– 91 to 93 per cent believe a person may work full-time and still live in poverty

The survey was available online in February and March of this year, as well as at The Mustard Seed and through individual meetings.

by Troy Gillard and Sheldon Spackman

Survey says poverty is a problem in Red Deer

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