April 24th - How Housing Insecurity & Poverty Challenges Impact Wellness

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Wellness and Healthy Lifestyle show on your
VOCM Now, here's your host, Doctor Mike Wall.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Doctor Mike Wall.
In today's episode, we're tackling a critical and often overlooked
aspect of our community's well being, poverty reduction and the
housing challenges in Newfland and Labrador. These issues aren't just
about numbers on a page. They're about real people, real struggles,
and the profound impacts these challenges can have on health

(00:33):
and people's quality of life.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Our special guest today is Dan meads Now.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
He's an expert working at the Transition House Association. Dan
brings a wealth of experience in addressing the housing crisis
and poverty reduction, not just locally but globally. With a
passion rooted in real world experiences, Dan offers a unique
perspective on how housing, insecurity and poverty directly affect health.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
And well being.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
We'll dive into the complexities of the housing situation in
Newfland and Labrador, exploring the skyrocketing costs of rent, diminishing
availability of rental units, and the alarming rise in visible homelessness.
Dan will shed light on the multifaceted nature of this
crisis its impact on different demographics, including students, middle class families.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
And those on fixed incomes.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
The conversation with Dan will also delve into the crucial
role of community organizations like the Transition House Association. They
work tirelessly to provide shelter and support for women and
children fleeing violence. We'll hear about the challenges they face
and the solutions they propose in these trying times. Importantly,
we'll discuss the broader implications of poverty and housing insecurity

(01:36):
on health.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
From mental health struggles to physical wellbeing.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
The link between financial insecurity and health is undeniable and
deeply concerning. So let's get to our chat with Dan Meads. Hi, Dad,
welcome back to the show.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Hey, next to chat away.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, it's great to have you back.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
First time you're on the show, you were telling me
all about your running and get outdoor trail work and
all the amazing things you've done for that.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
So they we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
A more serious issue, especially because it's so broad reaching
across the province. We're going to talk about how important
housing is for people and what it does for their health.
Can you give me a bit of a background on
what you do.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
In your professional life.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
Yeah, sure, you know. I love trail round, But my
real passion, the thing I spent most of my time
on doing, is working on housing busses and poverty reduction work.
That work started for me back in about two thousand
and four when I went to work for the United
Nations in West Africa, and I've been doing this type
of work all over sort of North America and the
rest of the world. And then I moved back home
about ten years ago here to Saint Jolen's and not

(02:35):
too long after that I started working where I work now,
they Transition Outs Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. And I'm
really lucky that this job allows me to focus on
some of the specifics around housing insecurity as well as
domestic violence, but also have a broader picture on what
poverty reduction should look like you Newfland, Labrador and what
the leons cap poverty really is right And.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
That's exactly why I wanted to reach out to you today.
I knew that you are the person who could give
us the insights and also take that lens on help,
which I think is so important, particular for this show
Can you tell us a bit about what your organization does.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, sure, So the Transition House Association works with the
eleven transition houses. Those are shelters for women and children
fleeing violence. So there's eleven of those transition houses all
throughout your FUI Land and Laborator and I have the
privilege of working with those shelters to help them work
together and help government understand the type of work that
they're doing. It solved some of the problems that come
up in the process of housing and providing services to

(03:31):
know for women and children that are fleeing violence and
new filand laborator. And so that includes some you know,
downstream things like housing supply and income support, but it
also includes a lot of upstream things like violence prevention work,
but also poverty reduction and housing insecurity work at that
top end of things to try to make sure that
folks are susceptible, so some of the things that often
lead to violent situations and stop women and children from

(03:53):
leaving violent situations if they do find themselves there.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
I mean, such a vulnerable population, women and children that
are in situations like that where they have no place
to go. They're depacing violence at home. They need a
safe place to live. But these days we're hearing about
challenges with housing across the board. I mean, I'm a
professor at the university. I hear about challenges with students.
I hear about challenges with people when it comes to
the cost of living in our province. Do you have

(04:18):
any optics on what the housing situation is like here
in a new plant laborator.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, And so I think there's a few things to
keep in mind. One of them is that New Filand
Labrador is no different than anywhere else in the country
at this moment. And so we are seeing housing security
at rates that we've never seen before. We're seeing it
exhibit itself in lots of ways that lots of us
who have traveled have seen in other places. And so
what's almost called rough sleeping right, kind of visual visible homelessness,
folks sleeping outside. That was the thing that we didn't

(04:46):
see a ton of in New Filanda, Labrador. And now
you know, we have a tint encampment and colonial building.
We're seeing these signs of housing and security and homelessness
all around us every day, and we're seeing some of
the knockout effects that come along with that type of
lifestyle as well. I'm sure we'll get into some of
those things. But when we talk about specifically around housing,
we're seeing the cost of rents skyrocket, right, We're seeing

(05:08):
the availability of rental units diminished and diminishing diminishers of
a bunch of reasons for that, a lack of government
funded supply as well as you know, some of these
short term rentals like Airbnb are causing some snifiing issues
as well. But we are seeing what can only be
described as a housing crisis here at Nutrientland and Labrador.
And so for those that aren't homeowners that have just

(05:29):
been renting or have been trying to find places to rent,
the pressures are real for them. But also for folks
you know who've got variable rate mortgage it is because
of inflation and interest rates going up, are seeing those
variable rates go higher and higher and higher. That functionally
increases the poverty line, right, And so when the cost
of everything goes up, your dollar goes less er, So
you've got to make more and more and more just

(05:50):
to make that poverty line. And we're seeing folks getting
edged out of the housing market who felt like they
were pretty comfortably in there and having to really rethink
what it means to be a homeowner today's in today's society,
and so, you know, everybody from the middle class on
the down are really getting pinched in the housing market.
Right now, we've seen some potential solutions, right c MFC

(06:11):
has said the New Fland Labrador needs sixty thousand new
units in the next within the next ten years just
to meet housing demand. That we could argue with the
number if we wanted to, and I know that lots
of politicians like to argue with that number. But no
matter what the number is, it's really big. Whether it's
sixty thousand or fifty thousand or thirty thousand, it's really big,
especially given the number of set the government New Fland

(06:32):
Labradors being able to manufacturers be able to build over
the last few years. And so that huge number that's
going to be required is really troublesome because there's no
plan in place right now that's going to come anywhere
near that giant number to start to impact the housing
market the way we needed to.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, it's interesting you just said something that you know,
I think maybe people aren't fully aware of yet, but
I came from Fredericktonner, originally Frederick ten There was all
these little strawberry box that were bald houses that were
built for the military after the war, and they were
all developed by CMHA. Can you explain quickly what that
process is that they're going through and how this might
actually help with expediting new homes, or at least they

(07:12):
believe it will.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, So there is some federal money coming into the
province and all provinces right now to try to expedite
some new builds and that what he's going to some
nonprofits that do housing work. It's also going to subsidize
so low guarantees in the private sector and some other
things in the private sector as well. What the hope
is is that you know, since the seventies, province is
like Newfoiland, Labrador, but lots of others as well haven't

(07:34):
done a great job of building subsidized housing. So we
see newflid labor housing units all over Newfilid Labrador and
most of them were built in the seventies. There is
this notion that if we have a big influx of
federal money now, we could try to get ahead of
what's already this housing crisis. Yeah, it is worth noting
that the amount of dollars coming in from the federal

(07:56):
government through CMAC is nowhere near the amount to build
that sixty thousand units. It's also worth noting, Mike, that
there is another side to this puzzle. Right, so many
of us have equity in our homes, and that equity
is what we're relying on down the road as part
of our retirement. Lots and lots and lots of Canadians
are in that situation. The result of sixty thousand new

(08:19):
homes being built in Newfounlandic and Laborator, whether the mixed
use or single dwelling whatever, would have a drastic impact
on the value of the current homes that are here. Right,
so supply goes up. What we're seeing is demand go down.
When demand goes down, prices also go down. This is
how the free market works. And so there is this
real tension between homeowners and vulnerable populations, which is that

(08:41):
in order to have people not rough sleeping, in order
to have everyone to have a home, which they deserve
and is a human right, we need to a ton
more housing supply. If we were able to have that
ton more housing supply, there would be a knock on
impact on the value of people's homes that they're currently
in today, and that's part of the reason that this
problem hasn't been tackled by governments the way that it
should be.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
We're here with anti poverty advocate Dan Meads talking about
the connection between our health and our income and housing security.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
We'll be right back after the break. Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
I'm here with Dan Meads talking about the connection between
our health and our income and housing security.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
When we think about that financial security and that financial
wellness that can also have an impact on our overall
health and wellness. Is there a correlation between housing security
but also financial security and poverty and health.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
Let me tell you a story about my friends in Hamilton, Ontario.
This was some work that I was a part of.
I was really lucky to be a part of it.
And it's a little bit dated now. We did this
work almost fifteen years ago. It was called a code
read report to Google. Code read to Hamilton, Ontario you'll
find this. What we did is we studied two different
postal codes in Hamilton. We studied the wealthiest postal code

(09:56):
and we studied the least wealthy postal code, all within
the municipality of Hamilton, Ontario, and we did a bunch
of really interesting work with folks there, and we used
a bunch of stats can data and work with the
individuals in those two communities, right the two Pulstal codes,
and we learned a ton of interesting things. The most
important thing we learned is that wealthy people in Hamilton

(10:17):
live twenty two years longer than poor people in Hamilton, Ontario.
That's the life expectancy different in Canada between whether you're
rich or whether you're poor. And interestingly, it's a binary difference.
So if you're living below the poverty line, that's that
twenty two year difference, whereas if you're living just slightly
above the poverty line, you can make up that twenty

(10:38):
two year gap. What does this tell us? What tells
us a thousand things that I found interesting all throughout
my career, but the most important one that it tells
us is this the negative impacts on one's health of
living in poverty because of the lack of choices that
you have. Right, so your home is not going to
be a place that's a healthy place, with healthy area.
You're not going to have the ability to do you know,
aspastos abatement and mold debate me. You're not gonna be

(11:00):
able to live in a healthy place. You're not gonna
be able to afford healthy food, You're not going to
have the time and the energy to invest in your
own health through exercise and all the other things that
we know make a difference in our quality of life
day to day, but also in our life expectancy, in
our overall health long term. That's the difference. It's a
twenty two year life expectancy difference in Canada. Now, I
want to be really clear, Hamilton, Ontario is where we

(11:21):
did this work. There's nothing special about Hamilton in this regard.
You could do that same work anywhere in Canada. A
wealthy postal code versus a postal code with mostly people
living in poverty, and you're going to find a very
similar life expectancy difference. And so people sometimes say, like,
you know, I understand that there are health impacts to
being poor. It's really hard to quantify. It's not hard
to quantify. We know the difference. It's more than two

(11:43):
days of life expectancy.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Wow, that's that's unbelievable. And that's length of life. Okay,
so let's talk about quality of light. When our life ends,
it's because our physical body has given out on us.
What are the mental health challenges that are associated with poverty,
housing security? Yeah, where you talk about this in the
same analytical way if we want to.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
There's a few ways we think about mental health.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Right.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
One of them is a little oversimplified, But for this conversation,
I think it's really useful, and that's to think about happiness.
Let's talk to people about how happy there we can
ask them that over decades and decades and decades. So
researchers at the University of Calgary did this work where
they had a longitudinal study over many decades where they
asked people how happy they were, and they correlated that
with income. Here's what they learned. If you make less

(12:25):
than sixty five thousand dollars a year in Canada, you
think more money would make you happy, and you're right.
If you made more than sixty five thousand dollars a
year in Canada, you think making more money would make
you happy and your role. So that's the hard cut
off around happiness. That's a measure of wellness perhaps, but
it's not a measure at mental illness. What we do
see is this really difficult feedback loop for individuals living

(12:49):
in poverty, especially with acute housing needs. So folks that
are really living home less or sleeping rough, those individuals
have a really tough feedback loop with mental illness and addictions.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
Sometimes we're really willing to separate addictions from mental illness,
but we really need to stop. And part of this
conversation needs to be the recognition that addiction is a
form of mental illness, and every time we make that distinction,
we're not really doing justice to folks that are suffering
with addictions in our communities. Some addictions messis illness are together.
And then there's this really tough cycle. Are you homeless

(13:22):
because of your uncontrolled mental illness? Does your uncontrolled mental
illness make you homeless because you're not able to make
some of the choices, or do some of the behaviors
take some of the action that are required to make
sure that you're able to earn some money and live
in a stable home. It is a tough feedback loop there,
and there's no easy answer. But here's what we've learned
from doing this work. Over the years. If you want

(13:43):
to break that feedback loop, you need to implement what's
called the housing first model. It's really simple. It says,
you can't address your mental illness, you can't address food
and security, you can't address any of the things that
are causing you to be homeless and suffering and having
ill health until you have a home. That's the first step.
A shelter is not a whole. Shelter is an eye

(14:05):
short term solution if you're experiencing acute homelessness. That is
not the same as a housing first model. We take
an individual, we find them a safe, appropriate place to live,
and then we provide wrap round supports to address all
those other things that we've talked about that are in
some ways causing homelessness and in other ways are caused
by homelessness. We get the homelessness stake in here first,

(14:26):
that we have way more success to you with everything
else that's coaleiling.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
That's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
So I've interviewed a team from twelve Neighbors in Frederick
and du Bunswick which really takes that exact same model
towards it. I'm sure that's a philosophy that's best practiced
around different communities like this, And I guess you kind
of took the next question out of my mouth, really
is that how does the stress of housing insecurity impact
individual's ability to manage their other life aspects like their employment,

(14:53):
like their education, Like why when we provide people with homes,
does this become easier to achieve?

Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, I think there's a there's a simple and a
complicated answer to this problem. The first, the simple answer,
leader or not, is that a sense of home provides
a sense of responsibility to oneself, but also that whole right,
once you have some safety, you can take some personal responsibility.
And while I do not think that personal responsibility is
the cause or solution to homelessness. When we're trying to

(15:21):
help people change their lives and move from a place
of poverty and homelessness and addiction and mental illness and
help them move to a different place in their lives,
helping them find a sense of self responsibility is an
important piece of that. Also, you know, little things like
providing them with enough money to afford food is also
very big on that list of things we could do.

(15:41):
But a whole allows folks to have a safe place
to call their own. Some dignity, some self respect, and
then some responsibility for their own actions and their own behaviors.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Okay, so let's now look at some specific populations within
that group and identify that. You know, obviously having a home,
having proper, adequate finances, maybe not the most and it's
ironoicy said. The happiness about that a certain threshold. I
went to Bhutan last year and in Bhutan there are
being extremely wealthy society, but they're the happiest in the
world because they seem to value having it not right,

(16:12):
and I think that's an important distinction between our culture
and theirs. But let's look at specific populations. How does
facing poverty impact the youngest people and our communities?

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yeah, a few things. Keep in mind, you feel the
Labrador has the highest child poverty rate in Canada today
at nine percent. So just breaking down what that means,
nineteen percent of kids in New fine Land and Labrador
today are living in poverty. Well stop worst metric in Canada. Yeah,
what do we know about kids who live in poverty?
They grow up to be adults who live in poverty,

(16:46):
who have kids who live in poverty. This is called
the intergenerational trap of poverty. We know, you know, there's
this there's this thing that says, hey, you know, how
can you tell whether or not someone's going to go
to university, or how can you tell whether or not
someone's going to be either or above the middle middle class?
And the answer is just a postal code is all
you need. Because if they grew up in poverty, they
tend to still live in poverty and have children that

(17:08):
grow up in poverty. Yeah, there are ways through this,
and there are ways around it. But one of the
things that we know happen to kids living in poverty.
We can't always just provide. We can't provide those children
with income, right. We need to make sure we're providing
that family with enough income to make choices they're going
to benefit those kids and benefit their health. The number
one choice that you can make for children and their

(17:29):
health is good, nutritious lit to full food. The flil
Labadora also has the highest rates of food insecurity in
all of kids, and so it's no surprise that we've
got a ton of children living in poverty. Those children
are experiencing food and security, and then they're having negative
outcomes at school. They're having negative outcomes at school because
You can't learn anything on an empty tummy. You just

(17:50):
can't do it. No kid learns to read, learns, math, learns,
any the behavioral things you want kids to learn in
school when all they're thinking about is how hungry they are. So,
if we really want to make a pop positive intervention
on poverty in Newflant Laborator, it's got to be a
generational change, and that generational change as to start by
making sure that we have fewer kids living in poverty.
You know, the government new for the Laborator has recently

(18:12):
and us what they're calling a poverty reduction strategy. I
think that's a bit of a generous description of this thing.
But one of the areas that they have a totify
is reducing childhood poverty. One of the things they've done
is increased the New Flent Libator child benefit by a
ton by almost three times. That's good public policy. That
makes eight toon of sins, and I'm really glad they
chose to do that've you know, there's lots of criticisms've

(18:33):
been made about the rest of this plan in lots
of ways, but I will say that increasing the New
Flind Laborator child benefit was a very good move by
the government for the laborator and that happens this month
and so we're we I can hope to see some
positive impacts on that childhood poverty number in the relatively
near future.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
I've been involved with different things like the health a
coort throughout the last number of years, and one of
the things that really come up with the social determinance
of health, and that's something that you know, obviously, we're
born into a certain set of circle stances, we have
a certain set of opportunities, and this really predisposes us
to different outcomes. And of course you can break that
cycle on your own, but that's very difficult because we
are developed a set of cards. Like you said, it's

(19:10):
a postal code quite often for people. When it comes
to another vulnerable population, I think of that is also
feeling a lot of stress financially these days. I think
about senior citizens and I know a new plant as
one of the oldest populations in the country. How is
poverty impacting some of those individuals.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Yeah, so poverty and seniors is a really interesting thing
for a few reasons. In in the seventies and early eighties,
povertyamiliar seniors rate was extremely high all over Canada. Government
implemented we wasn't called the Guaranteed Income Supplement at the time,
but now we call it the GIS or the Guaranteed
Income Supplement. This is an example of a basic income program.
It says, once you're a senior citizen, you're able to

(19:50):
receive a basic income, a guaranteed income supplement, and that's
going to get you by Now. Whether that numbers and
not or not, we can have that discussion, but it
is certainly far higher than any other incomes or rate
in Canada. And so that GIS, that Guaranteed Income Supplement
for seniors, reduced poverty among seniors in Canada drastically overnight.
What that tells us is this, there's no secret to

(20:12):
how we end poverty in specific populations. You can pick
up by age, you can pick up by gender, doesn't matter.
Give people enough money to live and you can reduce poverty.
Doesn't solve all the problems, of course, it doesn't solve
all the problems, but it does go an awful long
way to allowing people to make the choices they need
to make in order to meet their basic needs. And
that's really what has happened in Seniars. And so while

(20:32):
there are still a problem with seeing poverty in Newfland,
Laboratory and all across the country, that rate tends to
be significantly lower than working eache people because once you
qualify for that guaranteed income supplement, you tend to be
doing a fear bit better. Now, sixty to sixty four
year olds here in New Finland and Laborator, that's a
different that's a different problem altogether. And again government New
Fild Labator is targeting that population between sixty and sixty

(20:56):
four is trying to improve their incomes. If you're fifty nine, however,
you're still out a lie in this province and that's
a real shame.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
We're here with anti poverty advocate Dan Meads talking about
the connection between our health and our income and housing security.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
We'll be right back after the break. Welcome back. I'm
here with.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Dan Meads talking about the connection between our health and
our income and housing security. Let's get back to the episode,
and I guess we can get into some specific stories now,
because I know you deal with people on the front
lines on a day to day basis. Can you share
any examples of how lack of housing or poverty directly
impacts in individuals health.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think what people need to realize.
The number one thing that I want to tell folks
to contextualize what it means to live in poverty and
how that impacts your health is think of yourself when
you're not taking care of yourself. Okay, so thinkve yourself
when you're feeling really great. You've got lots of time
to make sure that you're preparing good food and that
you're consuming that in a way that makes you feel good.
You're spending some time outdoors if that feels good to you.

(21:57):
You're exercising, you've got some sort of a balance between
what you consider work and what you consider the rest
of your life. You're spending some time with your kids
if you've got children and you're feeling pretty good. So
that's like one set of circumstances that I can identify
for myself as like making me feel pretty good. So like, personally,
I feel good when I'm eating in a way that
feels my body well, when I'm running every day, when
I'm spending time outside, ideally outside with my kid, she's eight,

(22:21):
she's really fun. It's a great way to spend time.
If I'm doing those things, generally, I feel pretty good.
If you're living in poverty, you don't have the ability
to make those choices. Almost ever, there is this notion
that people living in poverty are sitting around doing nothing right,
they don't have jobs, or they're really just wasting away
their time. It couldn't be further from the truth, especially

(22:42):
when you have a minimum wage in this province so
far below with the poverty line. Anybody you know make
a minimum wage, they're living in poverty. They're living in
poverty even though they've got that job that you see
and end of the job, you don't see that they're
heading to when they get off this shift serving you
coffee or making your hamburg Those individuals are the world,
or we've got tens of thousands of them in Newfilated Liberator.

(23:03):
Those individuals don't have the time to think about how
they're going to feed their bodies well, how they're going
to spend time outside, exercising, reducing stress, all of those
things compound. Yeah, if you dig you to its furthest
extreme and you think about the folks that are sleeping
outside tonight. You know, in early January in Neufilated and Labrador.
When it's below zero outside and you're not wearing a

(23:26):
great downfilled jacket, how does that impact your health? Doing
at night overnight overnight? You don't need to be a
doctor to know the difference there that there's a meaningful
difference in rough sleeping and sleeping inside your home with
the furnace on it. These these choices that we're making
as a society that say hey, it's okay for folks
working full time to live in poverty and not be
able to take care of themselves. They have impacts on

(23:49):
us as individuals because these are our neighbors. This is
our community, right and so then we're seeing some of
the knock on effects of having so many people living
in poverty. It also has a ton of economic costs
to our probits. And this is a story that I
don't think people if Land Laborator are telling you or
hearing enough. There are four major costs that poverty has
on our community days. The first one is the health system,

(24:11):
right first and foremost. Property costs the health system ten
billions of dollars a year across candidate, It's unbelievable. The
second one is the justice system. When you have so
many people living in poverty, they have no choice, and
it is not a choice but to turn to some
activities that are against the law. That has an impact
on our justice system, the education system. Our education system

(24:33):
costs us a lot more when we have so many
people arriving to school with empty bellies and all of
the knock on impacts that has there. And then the
fourth one is what we call intergenerational costs of poverty,
and that's what we've talked about, kids that are growing
up or tend to be adults who are living in
poverty and then have children that are also living in poverty. So,
you know, it would be really great if we said,
anybody living in any filin labat or housing unit today,

(24:55):
who's going to be given the tools, the income, the food,
the tools, the training they need to make sure their
children also didn't grow up in a new FULI labor
housing unit. However, that's not the case. We're seeing generation
after generation after generation of people that are forced to
do that same thing, so live in the same block
of subsidized housing af their parents lived in. Want to
clear Mike, I'm not suggesting was there anything wrong with

(25:16):
living in subsidized housing, but it is in casion of
a lack of income, and the lack of income is
what's causing some of these big nocks that have health, education, justice,
and intergenerational costs to us as taxpayers. So it's an
awful lot cheaper, way more affordable for us. So we
address this poverty today than it is to allow the
next generation of people to grow or a newfilent Labrador.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
So, Dan, you just said something I really wanted to
talk about today, and that was the healthcare system. When
we think about poverty, what are some of the health
challenges that will be unique to individuals that are facing
financial insecurity as compared to others.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
So the differences are many, but it's really important to
think about the things that cost us just little bits
of money can often be prohibitive to folks who are
living in poverty, even those working poor that we talked about,
who are living in sort of modest poverty, right, so
just below the poverty line. And so if you've got
a fee at the pharmacy that's cost seven or eight dollars, Well,
for those of us that are working and living about

(26:15):
with poverty line, maybe that seven or eight dollars isn't
something we even noticed, but that could be the difference
in somebody actually picking up the prescription that their doctor
has prescribed, or not picking up that prescription because they've
got to use that seven or eight dollars to send
one more day's lunch to their kids' school. And so
it's those little choices that make a difference. There's also
the long term problems that we see when people have

(26:36):
no choice but to live unhealthy lifestyle all day long,
so eating unhealthy foods. I can remember the conversation I
had early in my career. I was living and working
at Calgary, Alberta, and I was talking to a great
guy who was living on the street and I asked him.
I was like, hey, you know what do you eat
most days, Like what's normally on the menu? They said, Oh,

(26:57):
if I've only got a couple of bucks, I'll definitely
buy a bag of to Ridos because it makes me
feel full all day. There's so many balaries that five
dollars for a big bag of Doritos, that's that's going
to make me not think about my stomach for a
majority of the day. Whereas you know, that guy definitely
wasn't picking up broccoli, he wasn't thinking about nice chicken breasts.

(27:17):
He was picking up something that was going to make
him feel satiated, and it certainly wasn't the healthiest choices
for it. And so you know, it's really easy for
the us that are making different choices to that to
feel some sense of judgment, right or you know, we
hear this argument all the time. I'm not going to
give money to pain in handlers because I don't know
what they're going to do with the money. They might
buy cigarettes or alcohol. Thankfully, nobody judges what I do

(27:38):
with the paycheck I get Mike. No one wonders if
I'm drinking a beer, whether that thing or the wrong thing.
And I think that sense of judgment that we have
on people living in poverty, it's important for us to
check in ourselves when we have that, because it's not
fair to judge the choices folks are making, even when
they're living in poverty, even when they're paying hadl When
we're choosing whether or not to give them a few
bucks out of our pocket, those individuals get to do

(27:58):
with that money whatever they feel like. Bet for them
at the moment, even if those things are objectively not
healthy choices. So folks think, yeah, Bobery, you are facing
those things right where they don't have the ability to
make the broader healthy lifestyle choices. But also day to day,
if you're in a situation where you don't have a
ton to look forward to, where you're not sort of
planning for tomorrow and the next day and the next day,

(28:21):
you're not thinking about those big financial choices, sometimes it
does become like cheesier to think about, you know, short
term things that are going to make you feel okay,
including apple all cigarette and I have a significant negative
impacts on those individuals health.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, and I also think about when it comes about
the health and the health care. I'm guessing that individuals
who are struggling with having a home are also not
ones that have family doctors and specialists and people like
that to avail of to help you know, them with
their health as well, and that might add an additional
stress on the emergency.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
Room, for example, where they have no place to turn.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
Absolutely, we see your visits to moot people that need
poverty way way, way higher than the rest of the population.
Because anything that's chronic or emergent isn't getting treated, isn't
getting assessed, And then even if it does get assessed,
that we're not seeing folks that are taking prescription meds
in the way that they're supposed to you over a
long term. So then you way with more emergency visits,
you end with more stays in acute care. And we

(29:18):
all know the cost of a hospital bed is far
more than the cost of a shelter bed, and the
cost of a shelter bed is far more than actually
housing somebody appropriately for that same amount of time. The
other anything more expensive than the hospital is in jail cell,
which is of course also one of the knock on
impacts of having such a high population living in poverty
in the province.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
We're here with anti poverty advocate Dan Meads talking about
the connection between our health and our income and housing security.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
We'll be right back after the break.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
You're listening to what we broadcast of the Wellness and
Healthy Lifestyle Show with doctor Mike Wall and listen live
Thursday nights at seven pm and Sunday's at four pm.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
I'm here with Dan Meads talking about the connection between
our health and our income and health and security let's
get back to the episode. I guess that brings us
down to some solutions. Now, you know, what are some
preventative measures that we can take to impact these in
particulars keep on the focus of health here for the
sake of the show, you know, mitigate these health iNTS

(30:19):
when it comes to poverty and housing.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
Income, income income. Any time we have this conversation and
the first solution proposed isn't a meaningful income increase for
those on income support? And if you land Laborador, we
are completely missing the boat. So what I'm what I'm
really getting at here?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Right?

Speaker 4 (30:40):
Income support rates are currently below half of the poverty line.
Right now, they're forty two percent of the poverty line
for most folks on income support. That means if you
were to double income support, people would still be living
in poverty. They'd still be in a position where they're
choosing between rent and food, between food and diapers for
their kids. We define to weigh and it's not difficult

(31:01):
public policy. It's just an investment, that's all. It is
to make sure that folks have enough money to make
better choices for themselves and their families. And if for
them to do that, even if it was eighty percent
of the poverty line, which is sort of a general
statistic that those of us that do this work, that's
a bit of a metric. Right, we say, hey, if
you're not going to pay people directly to the poverty
line and income support, get them to eighty percent and

(31:23):
then provide them with some housing benefits and some other
things to make sure that they can make ends meet.
That would make a huge difference in their ability to
choose healthy lifestyles as opposed to unhealthy lifestyles. It also
means that, you know, the other knock on effects, kids
going to school, hungry, all those things, Those all of
those degative knock ons go way down when folks have

(31:45):
got enough income to make those choices. Ultimately, if you
want people in your community to not win poverty, you've
either got to give them enough money to afford the
basic needs or subsidize those basic needs so they don't
need as much income. So are we more subsidized housing
units or we need to pay people on income and
support enough to afford market rate housing. Those are the

(32:08):
two solutions. Like we talk about poverties being complex, we
talk about the solution to the need to be complex
I agree with all of those things intellectually, except we're
not doing the easy bits by either providing them with
enough income to choices in afford housing or provide enough
subsidized housing that they don't meet the income. You've got
to do one of the other otherwise we're going to
continue to see increases in controlssness.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, and I guess so another role would be that
if there is funding, there's also funding to organizations that.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Are going to help and assist with this.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
How do those types of community groups play a role
and helping facilitate change.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yeah, so you know, it's a complicated answer, and I
want to be really a new one. Part of the
beauty of this longer conversation is I get to give
you a more complicated answer on this. I would love
to not building more shelters. I would love to see
the proms in the NEWFILD laborate or be committing to
reducing the number of shelter beds instead of increasing the
number of shelter beds. The problem is because we're not
doing the things that would be required for folks to

(33:07):
have their own stable market rate or subsidized housing. We
don't have a choice but to braase the number of
shelter beds. So in a perfect world, we're investing less
in the community sector, We're investing less in emergency responses.
In a perfect world, we don't meet as many folks
doing this housing and security work. We don't need as
much of that. We're always going to need some emergency shelters,

(33:28):
We're always going to need frontline staff dealing with mid
to ill listed addictions. I'm not suggesting that we don't
need a robust, nonprofiting community sector. I'm saying if we
did a better job of addressing these problems upstream, I
would happily be out of a job eagerly. And I
had to tell you the people that I know that
work all over the country, we would love to be

(33:50):
able to not do these types of interviews. We would
love to have less to do. We would love to
see fewer people needing shelter as opposed to more people
leading shelter. There's this really interesting thing that happens in
the specific world of shelters for women and children seeing violence,
and that's this. Over the last five to ten years,
so not a long time frame, we've seen not just

(34:10):
an increase in need, so demand for transition houses, but
an increasing complexity of need of those individuals that show
up at our doorsteps. What I mean by that is
that in the seventies and eighties and nineties, even up
to ten years ago, we had this idea of what
a woman who needed shelter because of domestic violence looked like,
what her situation was. We knew she was in her forties,

(34:31):
she had a couple of kids, she'd experienced abuse a
number of times, and eventually had been in a position
in her life to make the choice to seek shelter
and try to break that cycle of abuse. Now we're
seeing women of all ages, much younger and much older,
who are presenting with uncontrolled addiction, uncontrolled mental illness, and
a ton of complexity, engaging in street life in a

(34:51):
way that we'd never seen before. And those individuals are
all equally deserving a good place to stay, but their
need for those wrap round supports is much much higher
for that complex population than we've ever seen before. And
so if we're going to continue to do this work
where we're sheltering and we're trying to do this emergency
response around homelessness, we've got to honor and recognize the

(35:12):
increased complexity and fund and train our staff ording need
to try to meet those people where they are and
address those complex needs as opposed to just saying, hey,
we know you need a bed, We do you need
a place that's safe for you and your children right now?
We've got to start thinking very, very differently about what
that urgent response looks like. And it's not just in
Transition Head, this is in all homeless shelters all across

(35:34):
New for London Labradory. That response needs to be really
nuanced and honor and recognize that complexity of care in
a whole new way if you want to have any
chance of breaking that cidecle See.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
That's an interesting perspective is that you only get when
you talk to somebody like yourselves. And one of the
things that I'm learning through this is when I talk
about health, as I talk about running, and sometimes I
talk about nutrition, but sometimes talk about bigger issues that
are challenging our community in a lot of ways. And
I think that if there was a message you would
give to the individuals that may not be in that
poverty line circumstance and may see homelessness and poverty being

(36:08):
an issue, but may not understand it. What would you
encourage them to do to learn more or to understand
how it plays a large role and does impact a
lot of people in ways we may not have thought
of before.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, there is this comforting thing that non of us
who aren't or and have never been need to eat
poor due and we do this intellectually. It's an emotional response,
and lots and lots and lots of us do it.
I have at lots of stages in my life as well.
And that's the thing that there is something fundamentally different
about me. Maybe it's the choices I've made. Maybe it's
how hard I've worked. I somehow deserve to not live

(36:42):
in poverty. And those people I see that I walk
past on Water Street or staying at Colonial Building, those individuals,
there's something different about them that caused this to happen.
I would love it if folks listening would just take
a moment and rethink that, because I can tell you
from a lifetime of experience that it is just luck

(37:02):
that has made me talking to you on the radio
today as opposed to sleeping in a tent and below
zero temperatures. It is just luck that makes that difference.
There's a thousand little times in my life. If things
have gone just slightly differently, I'd be in that tinted
colonial bewelding in any notion that I somehow deserve this
comfortable life that I've gotten and that those individuals deserve

(37:25):
the uncomfortable life that they are living. It's a comforting
lie to tell yourself, but it is a lie, and
it is important for us to question that at every
opportunity we let it seep into our minds that there
is somehow a fundamental difference between poor people and people
who are earn't poor. There is no difference. Those are
our neighbors, those are our friends, and anybody who's paying

(37:47):
attention in neucileated elaborador over the last five years and
in the next five I can assured you it is people.
You know. It is your family, it is your friend,
It is your neighbors who are offering in the same
way and it's new to them, and so I you know,
the one thing I would ask people to do is
just rethink this us and mentality that somehow you're different

(38:09):
than your neighbors who are living in poverty. You urge different,
You're just a little more lucky and that that just happens.
It's not very comforting to you, but it is the truth.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah, that's that's horrifule. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
And you know from somebody who works in the field
that you have an interesting perspective that I wanted to
hear from today, and I really appreciate you sharing us
of broader scope on the challenges we're facing opinion, but
also specifically as it relates to hell. Thanks so much
for joining me again today, Mike.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
It's always good to talk to you. Thanks for your
interest in this.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
I like to thank Dan for joining me today and
sharing his knowledge on the pressing issues of poverty, reduction
and the housing challenges in Newfoundland. His insights remind us
that these aren't just distant problems, but real life situations
impacting many of us in our community. From the housing
crisis affecting a wide spectral or society to the struggles
faced by vulnerable populations like women and children fleeing violence.

(39:00):
Dan's expertise has shed light on these critical topics. Some
key takeaways from today's episode include the importance of understanding
the complex relationship between housing and security, poverty and health.
This issue is a community concern, and it calls for
a collective response. Remember, we can all play a part
in making a difference, whether it's through supporting local organizations,

(39:20):
advocating for policy changes, or simply being more aware and
empathetic towards those struggling in our community. Every action counts.
Thanks for tuning in. I'm your host, doctor Mike Wall.
We'll see you back here next week for another episode
of The Wall Show on your Voci