In our last couple of surveys, we’ve asked Urban Exchange participants to do a lot of thinking about poverty. Last spring, you told us how you’d define poverty. And this spring, you told us how you’d measure our progress toward addressing poverty.
For our most recent survey, Urban Exchange teamed up with Peg – a group of organizations who are developing a community indicators system that will track progress on social, economic, environmental and other issues here in Winnipeg.
To start with, Peg is focusing on indicators that it can use to measure poverty in Winnipeg.
What’s an indicator? Blood pressure and heart rate are basic indicators of your general health. Gas mileage and tire wear are basic indicators that show how your vehicle is doing. Indicators of poverty in a city might include things like average household income, unemployment rates, or the number of people who have access to affordable child care.
More than 500 people responded to our one question survey, which asked participants to pick seven indicators from a list of fourteen possible indicators of poverty. These are things that can be measured – and might help us understand how we’re doing to address poverty as a community.
What topped the list? Affordable housing and ability to afford the basics were at the top of most respondents’ minds, followed by income, education, employment and health measures. The chart below shows the breakdown of your responses:
The volunteers on the Urban Exchange Working Group would like to send out a big THANK YOU to everyone who shared their thoughts on this topic.
You can expect Peg to be up and running this fall – check it out for yourself and follow the progress that we as a community are making in Winnipeg. We’ll be sure to post a link as soon as Peg is ready.
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