Community Foundation hosts Vital Conversations

By Gillian Slade on October 5, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNGillianSlade

In addition to putting the spotlight on nine key issues affecting the community, there was a conversation hosted by Community Foundation to identify issues and possible solutions.

Community Foundation brought together 150 people to talk about causes that matter, under the banner of Vital Conversations.

“I’m really pleased with how it was, for a first attempt,” said executive director Chris Christie.

The plan is to identify a couple of issues with solutions that can be tackled, she said.

Attendees moved from table to table to participate in different topics.

There are 478 households representing 821 people on a waiting list for affordable housing in Medicine Hat, Vital Conversations states.

We should be lobbying for rent control, said Rita Bessant, executive director CORE Association. She says this is particularly important as there is a trend of one dominant landlord in Medicine Hat and they are increasing rents.

Speaking from a landlord’s perspective, financial businessman Craig Elder says a downfall of rent control is that if being a landlord is not a good investment that could mean fewer rentals available in the long run. It may also influence what a landlord spends on upkeep of the property.

Short-term residential accommodation and/or transitional housing is needed locally. More subsidies for people on a low income and housing for people with disabilities, were also raised as significant issues.

Capital funding to renovate an existing under utilized property would address some of these issues, said Cori Fischer, executive director Canadian Mental Health.

The idea of charitable agencies finding the tenants for the landlord and taking on the management of those tenants, was an attractive idea, said Elder.

“It is always valuable to have dialogue, it is so important,” said Elder.

On average, each Canadian spends $1,700 a year on private health insurance and/or health expenses not covered by medicare, the Vital Conversation document states.

Affordability of health care not covered by the province, access to mental health supports and to physicians and specialists, were the main issues under discussion.

In the 1980s it was determined that people with mental health issues could manage on their own in the community, and since then things have fallen apart when it comes to supporting them, Ann Pudwell suggested.

Another felt there is too much dependency on the health-care system, and that other groups need to step in.

In the past year, 1,120 Hatters have been collecting employment insurance benefits, Vital Conversations states.

There are lots of minimum wage jobs but it is more difficult to get jobs with career prospects and benefits that come even close to what there used to be, one discussion claimed. Full access to education could be a solution but educating people for a career for which there is little demand is not going to help either.

A human resource employee of a local company talked of receiving 300 resumes for an advertised job that did not require secondary education. The situation changes significantly though when the job is in a specialized field.

Key points of the conversations could also influence future funding to charities from Community Foundation, said Christie.

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