In Canada, women earn eighty-seven cents for every dollar earned by men. Women are less likely to be employed than men and are overrepresented in precarious jobs. Twenty-six per cent of female-led lone parent families live in poverty, compared to twelve per cent of those led by men. Given these statistics, it is somewhat unsurprising that payday loan use tends to occur more often in female-headed households.
Despite the fact that a sizeable portion of the population use the internet to access health resources, many Canadians still face barriers to digital equity.
ACORN Canada’s Fair Banking/End Predatory Lending Campaign calls for an inter-jurisdictional strategy to tackle the high-interest lending that further entrenches poverty within our communities.
This evaluation reports on the outcomes of ACORN Canada’s Protect Your Privacy-Online! project, funded by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. This project consists of three workshops, offered in four Canadian cities and is designed to educate lower income Canadians about the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). PIPEDA is Canada’s Federal legislation that establishes rules for how private-sector organizations must protect the online privacy of Canadians.
Ce document analyse les résultats d'un sondage qu’ACORN Canada a mené à l’aide sur un échantillon de ses membres dans le but de comprendre pourquoi ils se tournent vers des services financiers alternatifs tels que les prêts sur salaire à taux d'intérêt élevé.
Le sondage révèle que la majorité des 268 répondants utilisent des services financiers à taux d'intérêt élevé, tels que les prêts sur salaire, qu’en dernier recours parce que les banques traditionnelles leur refusent les services de crédit adéquats.
This paper analyzes findings from a survey by ACORN Canada of a sampling of its membership to understand why they turn to alternative financial services such as high interest payday loans. The survey finds that the majority of the 268 respondents turn to high interest financial services such as payday loans as a last resort because they are denied adequate credit services from traditional banks.
LES BANQUES CANADIENNES NE RÉPONDENT PAS AUX BESOINS DES COMMUNAUTÉS À FAIBLE REVENU.
Avez-vous obtenu un pret sur salaire aupres de The Cash Store ou D’Instaloans en Ontario apres le 1er Septembre 2011?
Did you take a Payday Loan from Cash Store or Instaloans in Ontario after September 1, 2011?
As an organization of low and moderate income people, the issue of housing affordability is a priority concern for our members. Specifically, our members are concerned about the desperate need for deeply affordable rental housing that is affordable in the long term. Almost half of Ontario renters live in unaffordable housing. Yet since 1990, less than 9 per cent of new developments in the province have been rental housing. Urgent action is required to address this housing crisis, we call upon the provincial government to take leadership to create real affordable housing options.
Hamilton is in an affordable and livable housing crisis. This is a trend seen across most major Canadian cities, that will worsen with no government action. The City of Hamilton has a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable. If the city continues on its current path of protecting developers and landlords over working class communities, more and more tenants will lose affordable housing or be forced to remain in unsafe and unhealthy conditions.
New ACORN report illustrates how Burnaby’s self-made housing crisis works.
Toronto ACORN's Affordable City Platform
Read BC ACORN's submission to the Province's consultation on the poverty reduction strategy.
Ontario ACORN surveyed 212 low-to-moderate income families across the province, to explore the impact of high child care costs. The survey revealed that many parents are forced to forgo work, education, savings, and basic necessities to pay for child care.
This groundbreaking report maps out the strategies and practices that lie behind today’s most successful advocacy campaigns both in Canada and abroad. In the process, it demonstrates how and why they succeed in creating lasting change on the issues they address while so many others fail. Based on a study by authors Jason Mogus and Tom Liacas that looked at mostly U.S.-based case studies, this report now presents similar innovations in Canada by reviewing in depth case studies of eight breakthrough Canadian campaigns. The report’s goal is to transmit a model that can be learned and replicated by other campaigners for how to blend grassroots participation and organizing with disciplined central planning to win.
Nova Scotia ACORN's municipal platform
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner and ACORN Canada Present: Protect your Privacy - Online!
Results of BC ACORN's survey of Surrey candidates
This election season, ACORN sent out a nine-question survey to all elected candidates running in this year’s municipal election in Ottawa. Out of the thirty-eight respondents, the majority were in favour of many of the proposed changes that were outlined in the survey.
Through correspondence with the City of Ottawa, it was suggested to ACORN--by the individual responsible for administering polling station locations--that the city uses voter turnout rates as the primary criterion for where to locate polling stations. This is extremely problematic, for it goes against democratic principles for voting to be made more convenient to those who more regularly exercise that democratic right; instead, the more democratic criterion for the location of polling stations would, of course, be based on population density.
ACORN Canada’s free income tax sites are a staggering success, ensuring low income Canadians get every penny that is owed to them through the tax refunds, credits, and benefits.
In a 2012 report, the Metcalf Foundation developed a new definition of working poverty. This definition is based on income, rather than hours worked, and excludes students and those who do not live independently. Applying that definition, the authors then used data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and the Census to estimate how many people in Toronto were living in working poverty, where they were living and working, and to describe their family lives, education and age.
This brief report by the Wellesley Institute builds on the Metcalf analysis to consider the impact of working poverty on self-reported health. How do people who are working and poor (working poor) describe their health? How does their health compare with others who are poor but are not in the labour force (non-working poor)? How does their health compare with those who are able to work and support themselves and their families (working non-poor)? Finally, how have these three groups’ perceptions of their health changed over time?