Wellness and poverty in the Monashee:Are we getting better?

Like most other communities in Canada, issues of delivering local social programs remain a challenge.

The growing number of homeless individuals and families unable to generate enough income to sustain a good living, and increasing numbers of people suffering from various forms of disabilities ending up being marginalized by society all contribute to challenges local agencies and communities face as government downloads services to the local level.

In Canada, much of our population lives in our cities, however small communities and rural areas face unique problems associated with poverty.

Isolation linked to poverty, and the lack of capacity communities have to discover and address problems all contribute to an environment where poverty issues can fall between the cracks.
East of Vernon, the White Valley Community Resource Centre (WVCRC) a non-profit organization in Lumby gathers most of the government support to deliver social programs in this area.

This past Monday it made a presentation to Lumby Village Council where it asked for an increase of financial support from the village as well as Area’s D and E of the North Okanagan Regional District.

The centre provides a number of programs including drug and alcohol counseling, child care referrals, family support and initiatives for youth and seniors.

The centre currently receives $4,500 a year in the form of an annual grant that’s administered by NORD for the area. The request is to see the regional district increase it to $10,000.

The village would pick up about 30 per cent of that cost, and on Monday, council agreed to support the request. According to Mayor Eric Foster, this is the first time in 12 years that the centre has asked for an increase in its NORD grant.

The NORD directors must still consider a decision on the request for the balance of the funding for Areas D (rural Lumby) and E (Cherryville).

“The center provides a very useful service to the community,” said Foster.

He pointed out that it is challenging for non-profit organizations such as the centre to operate financially, he added, “This is core money to help with the insurance, the light bill and items like that.”

Foster also hopes that increased assistance from the community will allow the centre to access funding from senior governments. “They have cash in hand from the community so they have bargaining power,” he said.

But the question remains, what are we buying?

Today in the Monashee there remains a long list of successes that WVCRC can identify, but there are also failures based on poor planning, delivery or simply not enough money to complete or sustain the task.

Like other social service organizations in Canada, services are often limited to the funding that’s made available by government.

But identifying problems and the creative ideas as to how to solve them are entirely the domain of a community.

We would like you our readers, to let us know what you think of the state of local social programs and services in the Monashee, what are the gaps, what are the opportunities?

Tell us about the problems and failures that you see as well as the successes.

Enter your topic on this subject in the blog below, or send us an email and we’ll post it for you.

Email Us: treks@uniserve.com