The Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership (SPRP) was established in 2010 and has evolved from a long history of community collaboration. The partnership is based on mutual commitment to multi-sectoral and sustainable poverty reduction in Saskatoon.
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Land Acknowledgement
The SPRP is a collaborative group of community partners from across sectors, demographics and experiences that works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Saskatoon ( misâskwatôminihk)is a city with rich histories. It is located on the South Saskatchewan River on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We acknowledge the people of Nêhiyawak, Dakota and the Round Prairie Métis who played a key role in establishing what we now call Saskatoon. We respect our ancestors and cherish our relationship with one another as we work together on a journey to end poverty in Saskatoon.
SPRP
SPRP
Since 2010, the SPRP has achieved the following:
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Identification of key policy options prioritized for action to reduce poverty. The priority policy options relate to income support, housing, increased health and social service resources in core neighborhoods, child care, and return-to-work programs;
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Development of a collaborative leadership model and structure to build accountability and guide action across sectors; and
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Completion of A Preview to the Saskatoon Community Action Plan to Reduce Poverty
12 Bold Ideas to
Eliminate Poverty
SPRP 12 Bold Strategies to Eliminate Poverty
Income and Assets
The monetary and non-monetary things that people accumulate in order to fully participate in their community.
Income can come from a variety of sources, in-
cluding employment and assistance programs.
Assets can be monetary (like savings, insurance
and investments) but more often are non-mon-
etary and consist of things like a house, car,
other possessions, and can include other safe-
ty-net based items such as identification, ac-
cess to family, friends and other supports.
Social Enterprise
An organization with primarily social objectives and an overall mission to serve the public good. In addition to
providing social programs and/or support
services, a social enterprise will operate one
or more profit enterprises to generate earned
income, creating opportunities for employment
and mentorship.
Access to Good Food
Food poverty, often referred to as household food insecurity,
can be triggered by a crisis in finance or person-
al circumstances, but may also be a long-term
experience of not being able to access healthy
food or not having facilities to prepare it. It en-
compasses both the affordability of food and
its availability within local communities.
Limited food affordability and availability have
multiple negative impacts on health and well-
being, including limited consumption of healthy
food resulting in consumption of a high pro-
portion of processed foods high in fat, salt and
sugar. It is important to ensure that people can
access healthy foods in a socially acceptable
way and have sufficient certainty about how
they will secure healthy foods for themselves
and their households.
Health
The Social Determinants of Health
(SDoH) are the conditions under which people
are born, grow, live, work, and age. They include
factors such as socioeconomic status, educa-
tion, employment, social support networks, and
neighborhood characteristics. These social fac-
tors have a more significant collective impact
on health and health outcomes than health
behaviours, health care, and the physical en-
vironment. SDoH, especially poverty, structur-
al/systemic racism, and discrimination, are the
primary drivers of health inequities.
Poverty is both a cause and a consequence of
poor health. Poverty increases the chances of
poor health. Poor health, in turn, traps commu-
nities in poverty.
Housing
Includes affordability, safety,
appropriateness, and availability of housing.
Many people are faced with physical condi-
tions, types of housing, location, costs and
other circumstances that make their housing
inadequate for their needs. People living in
poverty are often precariously housed, on the
verge of eviction, constantly moving and/or in
spaces that are unsafe, creating a cycle that
often leads to homelessness. For the purposes
of the 12 Bold Ideas, there is a need to look
at the intersection of sheltered/housed and
unsheltered/without housing, and where/how
systems both provide housing and eliminate it.
Justice
The system that is composed of part-
ners that interact with community members
from the point leading up to a crime to release
back into the community after the conviction
(and all the stages in between) involving police,
community support agencies, remand, correc-
tions, lawyers, judiciary, the governments(s).
Transit
The City of Saskatoon operates a
public transit system. It is important to note
that with the removal of the Saskatchewan
Transit Corporation (STC) and Greyhound Can-
ada from Saskatchewan, people have no means
to move throughout the province/country in an
affordable way. While the 12 Bold Ideas is fo-
cused on free-to-use City of Saskatoon public
transit, there may be opportunities to include
policies and practices that address the move-
ment of people into and out of Saskatoon.
Technology
Access to devices and connec-
tion to the internet is an essential community
and household need. Governments must build
public policy that addresses the growing tech
divide because it is critical to eliminating pov-
erty, increasing access to employment, educa-
tion and literacy.
Public Washroom
A public and open
space that provides toilets, sinks, supports for
health-related needs, supports for families with
small children, garbage disposal, sharps dis-
posal and/or a space for people to get access
to safe, clean, potable water.
Education
The system that provides the
learning environment for children from pre-K to
Grade 12. For the purposes of the 12 Bold Ideas,
post secondary is not included in the Bold Idea.
Childcare
The formal and informal sys-
tem that provides care for children when their
families are at work, school or other situations
where care is required. In Saskatoon, childcare
includes licensed facilities/homes and unli-
censed private homes.
System Navigation
In complex systems
there are overwhelming barriers and road-
blocks for people who are trying to find the help
they need to access the right local services and
activities. How people move through the sys-
tem(s), where they see barriers, how the sys-
tems discriminate and marginalize are all part
of this navigation. For the purposes of the 12
Bold Ideas there is a divide between reacting
within the current systems to provide system
navigation AND dismantling the inefficiencies
so that system navigation isn’t required. Good
public policy and systems that are designed
with users for the users is critical in the next
steps to eliminate poverty.
