The Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction

The Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction has been doing magnificent work in tackling poverty in Hamilton. I received an email from Tom Cooper of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, in which he provided selected highlights of this good work. I wanted to share an excerpt with you, which Tom kindly agreed to have me post. Tom wrote:

The Roundtable has adopted a 'change framework' that looks at poverty reduction investments in key points in the lives of children, youth and their families. Prior to the start of the economic downturn, Hamilton was one of the few (if only) communities in Ontario to see a reduction in poverty in the last census - with more than 6,000 individuals moving above Statistic Canada'slow-income cut-off.

More recently, in the last year, more than $27 million has been leveraged from governments, funding organizations and individuals towards poverty reduction priorities. 47,000 children youth and families in Hamilton have been provided with enhanced financial and social assets.

As well, Hamilton's efforts have been recognized provincially (through the province in part adopting our framework in the Ontario Poverty ReductionStrategy), federally (the Roundtable was recently recognized by theCanadian Urban Institute for its work) and internationally as we routinely host guests from countries as far away as New Zealand as a community of'best practices' around our work on poverty reduction.

Congratulations to the good folks at the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction and their networks, who have worked very hard, and continue to work very hard to battle poverty in Hamilton.

Visit http://www.hamiltonpoverty.ca/ where you can learn more about this important and worthwhile effort, as well as see a more fulsome account of their many accomplishments.

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