Poverty in Muskoka is a public health crisis, too

Wrong time for a decrease in charitable giving in Canada, writes Michaele Robertson

“Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius

The world we see today looks very threatening to many of us. In March, daily life changed overnight. Disease made us rethink what love and closeness should look like and how it should be expressed. And the abundance we previously took for granted suddenly ended. School was over. Travel ended.

The outlook has been bleak. In the past months, lineups and scarcity have been our common experience. Many of us have lost jobs. Daily routines have been suspended. And we have all worried about whether there will be enough of everything. It hasn’t always brought out the best in us. But sometimes it has.

Perhaps, most compellingly, we have had a taste of powerlessness. Even hopelessness. People who never imagined themselves doing so have had to ask for money or food to keep themselves going.

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We worry about the welfare of our children. Will their learning suffer? Will they be safe? Are they lonely? Sad? If we are working from home, we are probably juggling the demands of our working life with child care, home schooling, and the daily domestic routine we desperately try to maintain.

It can be overwhelming.

Our recent taste of scarcity, insecurity and anxiety mirrors the daily lived experience of the poverty cycle for many Muskokans. No strangers to lineups and scarcity, more than 13 per cent of our residents spend hours waiting for services that will get them through the month. Everything is a weighted decision. If they have to use their data plan to connect with essential help, they are choosing not to spend the money on some other essential for the family. Job insecurity is a fact of life. Food insecurity is too. Across all income groups, parents have recently been struggling with home schooling, but in areas of rural poverty, like Muskoka, families lack access to broadband, multiple devices and speakers and printers. Children in poverty fall behind. Social isolation is pervasive. The cycle grinds on.

Poverty is overwhelming.

We have all seen inequity in this shutdown period. Our perspective has been altered — radically so, in some instances. We have been shocked by long-term-care tragedies, essential workers’ hours and pay scales and the dangers medical professionals face daily. We may complain about working from home but understand that, in so many respects, it is a mark of privilege. Nearly 40 per cent of workers do not have this option.

All of us now have some small direct experience of what it means to be fearful about the future. To lack. Muskoka may have few cases of COVID-19 but it has a steep curve of poverty. Right now the organization, Imagine Canada, is reporting a 31 per cent decrease in charitable giving in Canada. That’s the wrong curve to flatten. Poverty in Muskoka — poverty anywhere — is a public health crisis, too.

Michaele Robertson is a member of Residents Against Muskoka Poverty. You can learn more at rampupmuskoka.ca.