Local Poverty Reduction Roundtable wants to know ‘How’s your housing?’

The local Poverty Reduction Roundtable is asking Kawartha Lakes residents “How’s your housing?” on Nov. 22, National Housing Day.

Citizens can stop by the Coboconk Community Centre from 9:30 am to Noon, in a partnership event they are putting on with the help of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

“Housing is not an issue relegated to those who are living on the streets of Toronto or staying in the local shelter,” Marina Hodson says, co-chair of the Poverty Reduction Roundtable.

“Many residents face ongoing threats of eviction or homelessness due to unstable or poor employment, illness or mounting costs associated with utilities.”

All community members, local service providers, and all levels of government are invited to attend at the centre and share their thoughts on housing issues and their impact on the whole community.

“Given that over 50 per cent of all Canadians consider themselves to be living from paycheque to paycheque, it should not be surprising that even short interruptions in income can have catastrophic results,” Hodson adds.

Inadequate or precarious housing does not lead only to homelessness but to countless health concerns, she points out.

“Everything from the obvious ones related to symptoms of stress associated with potential homelessness to things like lung infections from damp or moldy conditions which the tenants choose to ignore because they have nowhere else to go.”

Housing impacts us all, says Hodson, as neighbours, as a community and as citizens who pay taxes. She says they want to ask the question “How’s your housing?” to try to come up with solutions so downstream health care costs aren’t created down the road.

Established in the summer last year, the main objective of the City of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Poverty Reduction Roundtable is the implementation of the recommendations of the Poverty Reduction Strategy action plan, first looked at in 2012.

The Roundtable also champions initiatives, programs and services that reduce the prevalence of poverty or reduce the impact of poverty for all residents of the City of Kawartha Lakes and County of Haliburton.