ABSTRACT

The income level of households has been widely used in Canada as a basis for proposing and implementing poverty-reduction projects. Although the average poverty rate has been decreasing at the national level for years, small and medium-sized cities are experiencing high and growing poverty over the same fiscal years. In this study, we identify the main challenges and differences in addressing poverty in a small-sized city in Canada by examining related academic literature and analyzing past poverty-reduction projects at municipal, provincial, and national levels in the city of Saint John experiencing a long history of generational poverty. Our findings show that the generic recommendations of poverty-reduction projects at provincial and national levels have failed to address and reduce poverty at the municipal level. Despite significant discrepancies between small and large cities, these recommendations and action plans were not customized for the city of Saint John. We argue that poverty should be addressed from a multidimensional perspective, as income has not efficiently specified poor communities in smaller cities in Canada. We ultimately recommend how poverty could be reduced in such cities through building an integrated database collecting data of vulnerable individuals as well as their financial and non-financial needs and demands.

摘要

家庭收入水平在加拿大被广泛用作提出和实施减贫项目的依据。尽管多年来全国的平均贫困率一直在下降，但在同一财政年度，中小城市的贫困率却越来越高。在这项研究中，我们通过查阅相关学术文献并分析圣约翰市过去在市、省和国家层面的减贫项目，确定了在加拿大一个小城市解决贫困的主要挑战和差异。世代贫困的悠久历史。我们的研究结果表明，省级和国家级扶贫项目的通用建议未能解决和减少市级贫困。尽管大小城市之间存在显着差异，但这些建议和行动计划并不是为圣约翰市量身定制的。我们认为应该从多维的角度来解决贫困问题，因为收入并没有有效地确定加拿大小城市的贫困社区。我们最终建议如何通过建立一个综合数据库来减少这些城市的贫困，该数据库收集弱势个人的数据以及他们的财务和非财务需求和需求。