The First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society is calling on the province to offer low-income families a break when it comes to child care, public transit, and housing.
This comes after the group issued its annual report card yesterday where it noted child poverty in BC fell to a record-low rate of one in eight children (13.3%) during 2020.
That includes 24 hundred kids in Prince George who were living below the poverty line.
Executive Director, Adrienne Montani told Vista Radio with pandemic support running out along with sky-high inflation, it’s up to the province to make child care as accessible as possible.
“For low-income families, it should be nothing, it should be free. We also have those looking for the $10-a-day formula for families with moderate or higher incomes and make it something that is much more affordable.”
Montani also stated low-barrier access to public transit should be made available to kids in all corners of the province.
“We like free transit for teenagers so that they can get to high school and back without having to pay – right now that is in the Lower Mainland. But, wherever there is public transit that should be free, the province has already made it free for children under 12 but we would like teenagers included.”
“Really, there should be a low-income pass as there is for seniors, for all low-income households so that would help ease the burden who use transit because those families on low incomes can’t afford vehicles,” added Montani.
First Call is also lobbying for vacancy control in the province. Montani stated new renters paid on average 24% more than the previous tenant for a two-bedroom unit according to data released by the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation.
“When someone moves out, landlords can raise the rent to whatever they want in between tenants based on what the market will bear. It really disadvantages those low-income families and lots of families are staying in poor housing situations because they know they don’t have another option.”
“The government could do something about that. I know it’s hard but they could do something like tying the rent to the unit so it doesn’t escalate when there is a changeover in tenants.”
The poverty rate for one-parent families in Prince George is 37% – pretty much on par with the provincial mark of 38%.
Children in couple families in the city who are poor, the rate is just over 3.5%.
The average poverty rate in fifty-nine BC First Nations was 29.2% in 2020.
Furthermore, 13% of children between the ages of 0-17 in the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George were from low-income families in 2020.
The percentage of kids in this age group living below the poverty line was a little higher in Bulkley-Nechako (15.5%), Kitimat-Stikine (17.6%), and Stikine (17.6%).
The Skeena-Queen Charlotte regional district was one of four in BC that had more than one in five children living in poverty in 2020 with a rate of 21.9%.
A link to the full report can be found here.