Poverty In Canada Essay

It is generally accepted that poverty is a serious social problem in Canada, and one of its most obvious indicators is homelessness (Chappell, 2014). However, the practice of 'squeegeeing ' among entrepreneurial homeless youth in Toronto during the 1990s reveals that social welfare policy development did not address poverty and homelessness sufficiently at that time. In response to concerns about the income-generating practices of youth who are homeless, the Government of Ontario passed the Safe Streets Act (SSA) in 1999. The provincial government designed the SSA to regulate and eliminate indicators of poverty in public places, including squeegeeing and panhandling, rather than address the root causes of this social problem (Esmonde, 2002). The implementation of the SSA is detrimental to vulnerable individuals affected by poverty and homelessness in Ontario because it aims to enforce regulations rather than create valuable community supports and social programs. While squeegeeing and panhandling has decreased since the implementation of the SSA, a reliance on policing and the criminal justice system to enforce the SSA results in what O 'Grady, Gaetz, and Buccieri (2011) refer to as the "criminalization of

The issue of poverty is multifaceted and far too broad to address in this paper, but it is important to understand its connection to social policy like the SSA. According to Chappell (2014), "poverty has no single official or universally accepted definition; every country has a different view of poverty and, even within the same country, people 's views on poverty change over time" (p. 239). Although it is hard to define, poverty is deeply entrenched in the development, implementation, and public response to Ontario 's passing of the SSA in