Income

• Individuals experiencing homelessness are heavily stigmatized, dehumanized and perceived to be less competent and trustworthy.
• A 2020 count by the BC Non-Profit Housing Association in Metro Vancouver found there were 3,634 people experiencing homelessness; among them, 1,029 unsheltered and 2,605 sheltered.
• Present approaches are failing, as evidenced by the rapidly increasing number of people experiencing homelessness.

Trying something new

• We gave a one-time cash transfer of $7,500 to people experiencing homelessness in Vancouver.
• This lump sum, equivalent to the 2016 annual income assistance in British Columbia, provided people the financial freedom to pay rent and meet other living costs.
• The cash transfer also represented a dignified way to empower people to escape homelessness.

Our participants

• The 50 participants in the cash group were informed about the cash transfer only after completing the baseline survey.
• We lost contact with around 30 per cent of participants during this time while some relocated away from Vancouver.
• The workshop consisted of a series of exercises to help participants brainstorm ways to regain stability in their lives.
• Coaching consisted of phone calls with a certified coach trained to help participants achieve their life goals.

What we found

• That means the cash transfers actually saved the government and taxpayers money.
• Cash recipients increased spending on rent, food, transit and things like furniture or a car.
• That challenges the stereotype that people in homelessness would squander money they receive on alcohol and drugs.
• However, around 50 per cent of participants in our study moved into housing just one month after the cash transfer.
• But despite that, they were still below the poverty line and nowhere close to meeting the living costs in Vancouver.

• The government of Ontario has projected significant increases in demand for child care as a result of lower fees.
• In these early days, we are not aware of evidence of this happening, but anecdotally this seems to be the case.
• To prevent this, Ontario, and indeed all provinces, need to double down on removing barriers to child-care subsidies for low-income families.

Lower-income families have less access

• In Canada, many children spend a significant part of their day in early learning and child care, whether in centres or home-based settings.
• With the introduction of new child care agreements across Canada, all families are eligible for substantial fee reduction.

$10 a day is a hardship for many

• Before the federal government announced the introduction of Canada-wide early learning and care agreements, most parents who received a child-care subsidy in Toronto paid well below $10 per day.
• Since their fee contribution was set based on financial eligibility criteria, this means that $10 per day would be a hardship for many of these families.

Complicating factors

• Wait lists for child care can be long, with some parents having to get in line even before their child is born.
• One complicating factor is that parents find it hard to evaluate the quality of care their children receive, with many being unaware of whether it is licensed or not.

Disadvantages compounded

• It is concerning that children from lower-income families are less likely to have access to any form of licensed care.
• Low-income families tend to have limited knowledge of the child-care sector and tend to live in neighbourhoods with fewer child-care spaces per child.

Remove work/study requirements

• To address this inequity, all work/study requirements for fee subsidies should be removed.
• However, for vulnerable and marginalized groups, access to early learning and child care remains uncertain.
• Samantha Burns receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and The Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

• A hasty autumn budget included additional revenue funds for schools, coming as a relief to many school leaders.
• Twelve months later the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is under pressure to dig deep into his coffers again.
• Usually, discussions of school funding focus on revenue funding, which is related to pupil numbers and pays for salaries and other running costs.

Knowledge gaps

• The fact that schools are in disrepair is not news – it has been the case for many years.
• But it has not been addressed for two fundamental reasons: lack of data and lack of funding.
• But its findings do little to convey the detailed knowledge that would be needed to plan a strategic, school-by-school refurbishment and rebuilding programme.
• The government says that recent cases of crumbling concrete led to a “loss of confidence”, resulting in hurried orders to vacate affected buildings.

Lack of funding

• The incoming coalition government, however, felt that money was not being targeted appropriately, and that much was being lost in bureaucracy.
• Thirteen of the schools with Raac were approved for rebuilding under Building Schools for the Future, but had their funding withdrawn when the scheme was scrapped.
• The coalition government announced the Priority School Building Programme in 2011 to address the most urgent repair and rebuild needs, but it has seen funding fall to well below the amount needed for the job.
• A chronic shortfall of both capital funding and system knowledge cannot be allowed to put the education – and lives – of children at risk.

• Instead, the first step is consulting traditional medicine, which cultures around the world have been using for thousands of years.
• Traditional medicine encompasses the healing knowledge, skills and practices used by a variety of cultures and groups.
• In recognizing that traditional medicine and other alternative forms of healing are critical sources of health care for many people worldwide, the World Health Organization and the government of India co-hosted their first-ever Traditional Medicine Summit.

Critical health care for many

• In many countries, traditional medicine costs less and is more accessible than conventional health care.
• And many conventional medicines come from the same source as compounds used in traditional medicine – up to 50% of drugs have a natural product root, like aspirin.

A framework for traditional medicine

• In the past, WHO has developed a “traditional medicine strategy” to help member states research, integrate and regulate traditional medicine in their national health systems.
• The WHO also created international terminology standards for practicing various forms of traditional medicine.
• The practice of traditional medicine varies greatly between countries, depending on how accessible it is and how culturally important it is in each country.

Acupuncture – a case study in safety and efficacy

• But leaders at the summit emphasized a need for more research on the efficacy and safety of traditional medicine.
• For example, acupuncture is a traditional healing practice that entails inserting needles at specific points on the body to relieve pain.
• Still, acupuncture is the most commonly used traditional medicine practice across countries, with 113 WHO member states acknowledging their citizens practiced acupuncture in 2019.
• There’s also some evidence supporting the use of traditional medicine, including acupuncture, meditation and yoga to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.