Dear Saint John,
Lately, I’ve been marvelling at how smart the people I work with are.
Some can analyze statistics, identify trends, and make sense of information that, to me, looks like a sea of numbers. Others have a remarkable ability to connect the dots between issues like poverty, wages, housing costs, employment, food insecurity, homelessness, education, voter turnout, and so much more.
I’m grateful that the HDC team can explain complex data and social issues to people like me through reports, infographics, and data portals. As our research team has been working on a new report about food banks and community kitchens, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about poverty.
And honestly, the more I learn, the less I understand.
Not poverty itself. The numbers are there. The stories are there. The evidence is there. What I struggle to understand is how poverty continues to exist at the scale it does in a country like Canada.
Growing up, I thought of poverty as something far away. I pictured the images many of us saw in television commercials — starving children in distant countries in need of food, a well, or a school. Poverty was across the globe in places lacking the resources of a rich country like Canada.
I never imagined that poverty would become one of the defining issues facing communities here at home.
Today, food banks are serving record numbers of people. Families are working hard and still struggling to make ends meet. Children are growing up without access to things they need to thrive. People are making impossible choices between food, housing, transportation, medication, and utilities.
I don’t get it.
Canada is a wealthy country. New Brunswick is home to hardworking, caring, resilient people. We are surrounded by resources, innovation, and opportunity. And yet, every report, every statistic, and every conversation, seems to point to the same reality: too many people are struggling.
Not because they aren’t trying. Not because they aren’t working hard. Simply because the gap between what things cost and what many people can afford continues to grow.
I don’t pretend to have answers. That’s why I’m fortunate to work alongside people whose job it is to study these issues and help communities understand them.
What I do know is that poverty is not someone else’s problem. It isn’t happening somewhere else. It’s here. It affects our neighbours, our coworkers, our friends, and our families.
The more I learn, the harder it becomes to look away.
And maybe that’s where change begins, not with having all the answers, but with refusing to accept that this is simply the way things have to be.
Still hopeful,
Andrea
