HOME & MARKET LOGO & STATIONARYFor this assignment we were required to give a new brand identity to an existing company. I chose to transform H&M Clothing into a small chain country lifestyle store called Home and Market. I created a new logo for it and applied it to stationary.

2141 Major Mackenzie Dr., Vaughan, Ontario, L6A 1W8, www.homeandmarket.ca

2141 Major Mackenzie Dr.Vaughan, OntarioL6A 1W8

Philip RocamoraManagerPhone: 905.306.1703Fax: 905.732.4160

Email: p.rocamora@homeandmarket.ca

NATURAL ATTRACTION MOVIE POSTERThis was a movie poster for a fictional movie called Natural Attraction. The film tells the story of howMother Nature falls in love with an all-electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster. I wanted to portray the attractionthat Mother Nature had on the supercar in the poster. All the imagery was compiled using Photoshop.

REGAL FILMS : A TESLA MOTORS PRODUCTION + GMA FILMS / STAR CINEMA g JENNIFER LEEe DINGDONG DANTES c KIM CHIU f MAJA SALVADOR w ERICH GONZALES m BONG REVILLA b ROBIN PADILLA

f ANGEL LOCSIN s ENCHONG DEE t WILLIE REVILLAME @ HAYDEN KHO > KRIS AQUINO | VHONG NAVARRO ª SARAH GERONIMO i JERICHO ROSALES ˆ TONI GONZAGA p RICHARD GUTIERREZ j IZA CALZADO ( YAM LARANAS

The romant ic s tory of how an a l l -e lectric supercar made Mother Nature fa l l in love .

NATURALATTRACTION.COM

DOT MAGAZINEThis publication was an entertainment and lifestyle magazine for the GTA. Dot refers to T-Dot, an urban slangname for Toronto. The cover for the holiday season featured an abstract Dundas Square Christmas tree. The circleor “dot” design element was scattered randomly throughout the edges of the pages to give the magazine a unique layout identity.

[welcome]

BEVERAGES

C2(IcedGreenTea) 1.00

Coca-Cola1.15

Sprite1.15

CanadaDry1.15

Sarsi1.15

MangoJuice1.25

LycheeJuice1.25

CoconutJuice1.25

MangoShake1.50

Sago1.50

Halo-Halo2.00

ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

MolsonCanadian 2.00

LabattBlue2.00

Budweiser2.00

BudLight2.00

Corona2.25

SanMiguel2.50

SanMigLight2.50

RedHorse2.50

This refreshing dessert drink is called Halo-Halo (Mix-Mix).

Sweet ingredients are mixed together in crushed ice, milk and ice

cream, then as you eat it, you mix it up again!

7107 RESTAURANT MENUThis was a brochure style menu for a fictional restaurant called 7107. The number refers to the number of islands in the Philippines. Specializing in Filipino cuisine, I wanted to portray an inviting yet sophisticated look to a cuisine that often gets overlooked. The cover welcomes diners in ancient Filipino script and the images of food are captioned with interesting facts and cornered with the Philippine Sun.

FAR EAST CITIES BOOK SERIESThis project was a book series collection featuring five East-Asian cities. Each book had a wrap around coverof the cityscape of the featured city in a duotone. The name of the city was written prominently in white in thecharacters of the country it is based in. The casing resembled bamboo and had a building skyline cut along the top which wrapped all the way around. This skyline design element was then carried on in the inside pages.

JANUARYSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

12 3 4 5 6 7 89 10 11 12 13 14 1516 17 18 19 20 21 2223 24 25 26 27 28 2930 31

FEBRUARYSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 56 7 8 9 10 11 1213 14 15 16 17 18 1920 21 22 23 24 25 2627 28

MARCHSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 56 7 8 9 10 11 1213 14 15 16 17 18 1920 21 22 23

24

25 2627 28 29 30 31

APRILSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 23 4 5 6 7 8 910 11 12 13 14 15 1617 18 19 20 21 22 2324 25 26 27 28 29 30

MAYSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat1 2 3 4 5 6 78 9 10 11 12 13 1415 16 17 18 19 20 2122 23 24 25 26 27 2829 30 31

JUNESun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 45 6 7 8 9 10 1112 13 14 15 16 17 1819 20 21 22 23 24 2526 27 28 29 30

JULYSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 23 4 5 6 7 8 910 11 12 13 14 15 1617 18 19 20 21 22 2324 25 26 27 28 29 3031

AUGUSTSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 5 67 8 9 10 11 12 1314 15 16 17 18 19 2021 22 23 24 25 26 2728 29 30 31

SEPTEMBERSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 34 5 6 7 8 9 1011 12 13 14 15 16 1718 19 20 21 22 23 2425 26 27 28 29 30

OCTOBERSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

12 3 4 5 6 7 89 10 11 12 13 14 1516 17 18 19 20 21 2223 24 25 26 27 28 2930 31

NOVEMBERSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 56 7 8 9 10 11 1213 14 15 16 17 18 1920 21 22 23 24 25 2627 28 29 30

DECEMBERSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 34 5 6 7 8 9 1011 12 13 14 15 16 1718 19 20 21 22 23 2425 26 27 28 29 30 31

*View an interactive version of this illustration at GM.COM/2011ANDBEYOND and see how General Motors is helping to shape America now and into the future. © 2011 GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY

*

2011 and Beyond | General Motors

2011 AND BEYOND

AND BEYOND

General Motors has and always will help to shape the United States of America. Let this interactive illustration walk you through the new GM of 2011 and beyond to see how.

EN-VThe future of personal transport

This concept vehicle developed by GM is the future of transportation. It is environmentally friendly and can operate autonomously, meaning no driver is required! Click the video to learn more.

http://www.gm.com/2011andbeyond

GENERAL MOTORS CALENDAR AND WEBPAGEI created this set in response to the need for GM to re-establish their image. The poster calendar was meant toremind people all year round of GM. The collage was meant to convey how GM has helped to shape America through its many innovations. An interactive version of the collage could then be found at GM’s website forpeople to learn more about these innovations for the year 2011 and beyond.

GILL SANS TYPE SPECIMANThis was a typographic speciman book for the Gill Sans typeface. The pages were laid out similarly throughout for consistency and the full alphabet of the font were shown in five different weights viewed in five different point sizes with 120% leading. The cover is inspired by old Penguin books that used to use the typeface and the trains reference the British Railway that used to use the typeface as well.

SKYLINE MAGAZINEThis magazine informed on urban development news in the GTA. The front cover had a featured project with the contents of the magazine listed at a 90° angle to make the words resemble buildings. The inside spreads were meant to appeal to a modern, urban audience.

SECTION PSATURDAYMARCH 20, 2010thestar.com

SLUM HOPEHosting the Winter Olympic athletic community may be over for Vancouver but hosting Canada’s poorest community still has no end in sight. P4

In a nation such as ours, we Canadians are able to enjoy a high quality of life. A standard of living known to be one of the best in the world. Poverty does not come to mind when we think of Canada.

But it does exist.

ARMINA LIGAYAOTTAWA BUREAUCanada is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet even as the nation is in the midst of an economic boom, there are still those who struggle to buy life’s necessities. Past and current governments have implemented a myriad of strategies to help the country’s most vulnerable. They range from boosting social assistance to, at the more punitive extreme, re-stricting employment insurance. Debate continues over what’s the best approach to eradicate pov-erty, assuming that is in fact a reachable goal. But recent statistics from the last decade seem to demonstrate a healthy trend and little-publi-cized phenomenon: Both the per-

centage and the absolute number of Canadians living in poverty is shrinking. Since 1996, the overall poverty rate in Canada has fallen steeply, from 15.7 per cent to 10.8 per cent in 2005, the most recent year for which numbers are available. That is a reduction of about one-third. According to Statistics Canada, about 3.5 million people were liv-ing below what it calls the low-in-come cut-off line in 2004. That is a 1.1 million drop from 1996. It begs the question: Are we win-ning the war against poverty? John Richards, an economist and professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, says this good fortune signals that anti-poverty initiatives imple-mented during the last decade are working. In his report for the C.D. Howe Institute, entitled Reducing Pov-erty: What has worked, and what should come next, Richards cred-its policy changes by the two se-nior levels of governments that he calls two parts “tough love” and one dose “soft love.” In the mid-1990s, several prov-inces tightened up the rules under which Canadians were eligible for welfare, Richards observes.

Those deemed employable by a social worker were not recom-mended for social assistance. At the same time, the reins were tightened around who qualified for unemployment insurance. Taken together, these “tough-love” mea-sures were strong incentives for Canadians to get into the labour market, Richards says. At the same time, Ottawa also rolled out the National Child Benefit, which supplements the salaries of families with low-to-middle incomes. Coupled with a rising labour market, the re-sult lead to a drop in the overall number of people living under the low-income cut-off, Richards notes. In Canada, there isn’t a standard measure of poverty. The most ac-cepted one, however, is the LICO.

Statistics Canada measures the number of families who are below the low-income cut-off (LICO), which means those who spend 20 percentage points more of their gross income on food, shelter and clothing than the average Cana-dian. This figure is often used as the unofficial “poverty line.”

By this measure, Canada’s poor are doing better, Richards says. However, Richards’ conclusions have riled-up poverty activists and economists who say the num-bers actually tell a different story.Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Al-ternatives, agrees that the portrait of poverty is rosier. But, she says, this change has nothing to do with government policies. Any effect from anti-poverty initiatives has been swamped by the massive

economic growth Canada is ex-periencing, she argues. “What you are seeing here is that Canadians will work when there are jobs. It is coincidence with the tough love measures that more people got jobs,” she says. What’s more, Yalnizyan adds, comparisons between today and a decade ago are problematic. In 1996, Canada had gone through two transformational re-cessions for the labour market, she points out. The first one was in 1981-82 and it took the coun-try about eight years to climb out of the rut. The next came in 1991 and Canada began emerging from that only in 1997. “Why aren’t anti-poverty activ-ists jumping up and down and saying this is good news?” she asks. “It’s because it’s the wrong

reference point. You’re compar-ing a period of massive economic growth and sustained growth to a period in which an economy was totally cobbled.” Step back 20 years and the pic-ture isn’t as drastic, Yalnizyan points out. In 1980, the number of Canadi-ans living under the low-income cut-off after taxes was 11.6 per cent, according to Statistics Can-ada, far lower than the 1996 peak of 15.7 per cent. At SFU, Richards agrees that the recent upswing in the economy is a key component in moving Canadians out of low-income misery. But he also feels that gov-ernment decisions still played a crucial role. Plus, he points out, the overall poverty rate is still lower today at 10.8 per cent than 20 years ago. “The improvement in the econ-omy is one obvious underlying reason,” says Richards. “But it didn’t produce the same benefits in the 1980s, during the improve-ment from the early 1980s reces-sion. I say there must be some re-ally big policy changes that have taken place.” Richards does acknowledge that there is an adverse side effect to stricter welfare policies: People

who can’t get employment are much worse off. However, he argues that the late 1980s are a comparable time frame of prosperity with greater access to social assistance, yet Canada seems to be faring better now.

“The second half of the 1980s was a period of very generous welfare. It’s often referred to as the target where anti-poverty groups want to return. But we

now have in the latter part of this decade better outcomes than in the boom times of the late 1980s” when welfare rates were at their most generous. Jean Swanson, co-ordinator of the Carnegie Centre Action proj-ect in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, said restrict-ing access to employment insur-ance and welfare only punishes the poor. The poverty activist said she has watched Canada’s home-less epidemic multiply what she says is 10-fold over the last de-cade. “If these policies continue when we hit a depression, it will be a disaster,” she says. Another sore point is that child poverty numbers have not budged at all since 1989 when Cana-dian parliamentarians stood up and promised to do their best to eradicate it within a decade. Even today, 11.7 per cent of children under 18 are living below the low-income cut-off line. Compared to the late 1970s, which Yalnizyan says is the most similar economic period to to-day, more people are working and families are better educated. However, Canadian household income is either at the same level or lower, she points out.

“So the two things that people are told to do to get yourself out of welfare is get an education and get yourself a job. And Canadians have done that in spades over the course of a generation,” she says. “So we’re either running faster to stay put or falling behind. And I think that is a very telling story about what’s not working. And if it’s not working now, when is it going to work? In the next reces-sion?” Michael Shapcott, a long-time poverty activist and policy analyst at the Wellesley Institute in To-ronto, says the big flaw Richards is making is the assumption that all the people who are off welfare are now gainfully employed. “What you see in our economy is that it has not been generating high-end jobs in auto plants,” he

said. “What it is generating is ser-vice sector jobs and positions in retail sales, which tend to be at the low end of the income range.” When looking at actual incomes of Canadians, the gap has wid-ened between the country’s most vulnerable and the most affluent, Shapcott points out. In 1980, the disparity between the top income-earning category and the lowest was $83,000, ac-cording to Statistics Canada. By 2005, that gap had reached $105,400. Take a closer look, and it’s only the top 20 per cent of income earners who saw their salaries rise, he says. “The story is that yes, lots of people got dumped off of welfare because of tightened eligibility rules. But they haven’t suddenly gotten a wealth of prosperity.”In fact, he says, there are indica-tors that suggest the situation is far more dire than the statistics indi-cate, including record numbers of tenants being evicted from their homes and a rising dependency on food banks.“In Canada, we have these end-less discussions over what the numbers are and what do they tell us? And we really should be fo-cusing on the reality.”

P2  TORONTO STAR  SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

POVERTY IN CANADAP3  TORONTO STAR  SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

POVERTY IN CANADA

Drawing the line against poverty

’

,

What you are see-ing here is that Ca-nadians will work when there are jobs.

ARMINE YALNIZYANECONOMIST

,

,If these policies continue when we hit a depression, it will be a disaster.”

JEAN SWANSONECONOMIST

How to solve the homeless issue

A homeless lady in downtown Toronto. Poverty incidences have been increasing in the city of Toronto as well as its surrounding suburbs.LYN CALARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A pair of children, and a mother outside a homeless shelter in Montreal.NATHAN DIONISIO/CANADIAN PRESS

FERGUS HODGSONTHE CANADIAN PRESSNumbers on the homeless in Can-ada vary, but regardless of which estimate one accepts, any home-less person is one too many. Trag-ically, the policy responses, while numerous, have not addressed the primary cause: the restrained supply of private housing, which for the last two decades has been a significant reason the homeless proportion of the population has grown so rapidly. Given Canada’s relative eco-nomic prosperity, homelessness would seem to be unwarranted, and our cold climate makes it of especial concern. Every winter at least one homeless person freezes to death, and by not correctly ad-dressing the associated suffering, which ought to jolt us into action, we perpetuate what has become a growing tax burden. Canadian taxpayers already fund an estimated $6-billion for direct assistance to the homeless. Addi-tionally, homelessness amplifies associated problems that impede participation in society and place expenses elsewhere. Without a home, individuals are more likely to lose their job, suffer from mal-

nutrition and fall into substance abuse. Increased flow-on costs to unemployment assistance, medi-cal care and policing are inevi-table.v While charities and government agencies have responded, their ef-forts appear futile, as the homeless population continues to expand. Federal public housing assets are now more than a third of a trillion dollars, more than double what they were three years ago. Yet, the waiting list has grown even more rapidly and remains years long. Voluntary and state-sponsored shelters consistently fill beyond their intended capacity, particu-larly during these winter months. A recent CBC report on home-lessness in Saskatchewan provid-ed an insight into the key, unre-solved problem. Unemployment in Saskatchewan is only 4.5 per cent, yet the shelters are at capac-ity. According to a Regina shelter worker, “It used to be easy to find a place, hard to find a job. Now it’s the other way around.” Chari-table agencies and municipal sur-veys affirm that a majority of the homeless are willing and physi-cally capable of employment, and approximately half already have

jobs; they simply cannot afford housing. As housing costs have greatly outpaced wage increases, a mini-mum wage or low paying job now

fails to cover the cost of maintain-ing a residence in Canada’s major cities. Calgary serves as just one example. During the past decade,

incomes in the city increased by 34 per cent, yet house prices increased 156 per cent. Unsur-prisingly, the Calgary Housing Company, the municipal low-cost housing provider, reports a wait-ing list of 4,200 individuals. Higher house prices tend to draw more resources into the con-struction industry. However, that capital inflow has been channeled away from low-cost housing by a plethora of impediments: onerous building codes and inspections, city green belts and zoning ordi-nances, approval and consultation delays, and mandatory licensing within the relevant professional or journeymen designations. These restraints promote homo-geneous, middle-class neighbour-hoods, and they artificially inflate the cost of housing while limiting the consumer’s discretion over quality. The more invasive deed man-dates, such as lot size require-ments and single-family re-strictions, are perhaps the most perverse. Such rules stop poorer families from combining their purchasing power and sharing a home, and they insure the homes fit the desired profile of the town

planners, not the profile of those who need them most. Conse-quently, these policies tend to in-crease the supply of housing suit-able for middle- and upper-class people while restraining the sup-ply of housing at the bottom of the spectrum. These effects of building regula-tions are felt most strongly over the long-term, particularly in cities experiencing steady growth and an influx of migrants. While the barriers may have limited effect on existing homes and businesses, the less desirable outcomes accu-mulate over the decades. The lack of new, consumer-driven housing is not easily visible, even if the symptom, homelessness, is. The prevailing focus on govern-ment housing and short-term treat-ment for homeless is like placing an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff. It may be necessary after the fact, but it does not address why so many people fall off the edge in the first place. Rather than address the symptom – homelessness – governments should address the cause – a lack of housing – and do away with the numerous, short-sighted and destructive impedi-ments to housing access.

TORONTO STAR SPECIAL SECTIONThis special section of the Toronto Star was meant to complement the recently completed 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Talking about the issues of poverty in Canada, the strong headline on the front was meant to immediately draw attention. A powerline is integrated into a line graph continuing throughout the rest of the section, interacting with a hydro pole, and a pair of shoes hung on shoestrings.

ARMINA LIGAYAOTTAWA BUREAUCanada is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet even as the nation is in the midst of an economic boom, there are still those who struggle to buy life’s necessities. Past and current governments have implemented a myriad of strategies to help the country’s most vulnerable. They range from boosting social assistance to, at the more punitive extreme, re-stricting employment insurance. Debate continues over what’s the best approach to eradicate pov-erty, assuming that is in fact a reachable goal. But recent statistics from the last decade seem to demonstrate a healthy trend and little-publi-cized phenomenon: Both the per-

centage and the absolute number of Canadians living in poverty is shrinking. Since 1996, the overall poverty rate in Canada has fallen steeply, from 15.7 per cent to 10.8 per cent in 2005, the most recent year for which numbers are available. That is a reduction of about one-third. According to Statistics Canada, about 3.5 million people were liv-ing below what it calls the low-in-come cut-off line in 2004. That is a 1.1 million drop from 1996. It begs the question: Are we win-ning the war against poverty? John Richards, an economist and professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, says this good fortune signals that anti-poverty initiatives imple-mented during the last decade are working. In his report for the C.D. Howe Institute, entitled Reducing Pov-erty: What has worked, and what should come next, Richards cred-its policy changes by the two se-nior levels of governments that he calls two parts “tough love” and one dose “soft love.” In the mid-1990s, several prov-inces tightened up the rules under which Canadians were eligible for welfare, Richards observes.

Those deemed employable by a social worker were not recom-mended for social assistance. At the same time, the reins were tightened around who qualified for unemployment insurance. Taken together, these “tough-love” mea-sures were strong incentives for Canadians to get into the labour market, Richards says. At the same time, Ottawa also rolled out the National Child Benefit, which supplements the salaries of families with low-to-middle incomes. Coupled with a rising labour market, the re-sult lead to a drop in the overall number of people living under the low-income cut-off, Richards notes. In Canada, there isn’t a standard measure of poverty. The most ac-cepted one, however, is the LICO.

Statistics Canada measures the number of families who are below the low-income cut-off (LICO), which means those who spend 20 percentage points more of their gross income on food, shelter and clothing than the average Cana-dian. This figure is often used as the unofficial “poverty line.”

By this measure, Canada’s poor are doing better, Richards says. However, Richards’ conclusions have riled-up poverty activists and economists who say the num-bers actually tell a different story.Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Al-ternatives, agrees that the portrait of poverty is rosier. But, she says, this change has nothing to do with government policies. Any effect from anti-poverty initiatives has been swamped by the massive

economic growth Canada is ex-periencing, she argues. “What you are seeing here is that Canadians will work when there are jobs. It is coincidence with the tough love measures that more people got jobs,” she says. What’s more, Yalnizyan adds, comparisons between today and a decade ago are problematic. In 1996, Canada had gone through two transformational re-cessions for the labour market, she points out. The first one was in 1981-82 and it took the coun-try about eight years to climb out of the rut. The next came in 1991 and Canada began emerging from that only in 1997. “Why aren’t anti-poverty activ-ists jumping up and down and saying this is good news?” she asks. “It’s because it’s the wrong

reference point. You’re compar-ing a period of massive economic growth and sustained growth to a period in which an economy was totally cobbled.” Step back 20 years and the pic-ture isn’t as drastic, Yalnizyan points out. In 1980, the number of Canadi-ans living under the low-income cut-off after taxes was 11.6 per cent, according to Statistics Can-ada, far lower than the 1996 peak of 15.7 per cent. At SFU, Richards agrees that the recent upswing in the economy is a key component in moving Canadians out of low-income misery. But he also feels that gov-ernment decisions still played a crucial role. Plus, he points out, the overall poverty rate is still lower today at 10.8 per cent than 20 years ago. “The improvement in the econ-omy is one obvious underlying reason,” says Richards. “But it didn’t produce the same benefits in the 1980s, during the improve-ment from the early 1980s reces-sion. I say there must be some re-ally big policy changes that have taken place.” Richards does acknowledge that there is an adverse side effect to stricter welfare policies: People

who can’t get employment are much worse off. However, he argues that the late 1980s are a comparable time frame of prosperity with greater access to social assistance, yet Canada seems to be faring better now.

“The second half of the 1980s was a period of very generous welfare. It’s often referred to as the target where anti-poverty groups want to return. But we

now have in the latter part of this decade better outcomes than in the boom times of the late 1980s” when welfare rates were at their most generous. Jean Swanson, co-ordinator of the Carnegie Centre Action proj-ect in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, said restrict-ing access to employment insur-ance and welfare only punishes the poor. The poverty activist said she has watched Canada’s home-less epidemic multiply what she says is 10-fold over the last de-cade. “If these policies continue when we hit a depression, it will be a disaster,” she says. Another sore point is that child poverty numbers have not budged at all since 1989 when Cana-dian parliamentarians stood up and promised to do their best to eradicate it within a decade. Even today, 11.7 per cent of children under 18 are living below the low-income cut-off line. Compared to the late 1970s, which Yalnizyan says is the most similar economic period to to-day, more people are working and families are better educated. However, Canadian household income is either at the same level or lower, she points out.

“So the two things that people are told to do to get yourself out of welfare is get an education and get yourself a job. And Canadians have done that in spades over the course of a generation,” she says. “So we’re either running faster to stay put or falling behind. And I think that is a very telling story about what’s not working. And if it’s not working now, when is it going to work? In the next reces-sion?” Michael Shapcott, a long-time poverty activist and policy analyst at the Wellesley Institute in To-ronto, says the big flaw Richards is making is the assumption that all the people who are off welfare are now gainfully employed. “What you see in our economy is that it has not been generating high-end jobs in auto plants,” he

said. “What it is generating is ser-vice sector jobs and positions in retail sales, which tend to be at the low end of the income range.” When looking at actual incomes of Canadians, the gap has wid-ened between the country’s most vulnerable and the most affluent, Shapcott points out. In 1980, the disparity between the top income-earning category and the lowest was $83,000, ac-cording to Statistics Canada. By 2005, that gap had reached $105,400. Take a closer look, and it’s only the top 20 per cent of income earners who saw their salaries rise, he says. “The story is that yes, lots of people got dumped off of welfare because of tightened eligibility rules. But they haven’t suddenly gotten a wealth of prosperity.”In fact, he says, there are indica-tors that suggest the situation is far more dire than the statistics indi-cate, including record numbers of tenants being evicted from their homes and a rising dependency on food banks.“In Canada, we have these end-less discussions over what the numbers are and what do they tell us? And we really should be fo-cusing on the reality.”

P2  TORONTO STAR  SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

POVERTY IN CANADAP3  TORONTO STAR  SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

POVERTY IN CANADA

Drawing the line against poverty

’

,

What you are see-ing here is that Ca-nadians will work when there are jobs.

ARMINE YALNIZYANECONOMIST

,

,If these policies continue when we hit a depression, it will be a disaster.”

JEAN SWANSONECONOMIST

How to solve the homeless issue

A homeless lady in downtown Toronto. Poverty incidences have been increasing in the city of Toronto as well as its surrounding suburbs.LYN CALARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A pair of children, and a mother outside a homeless shelter in Montreal.NATHAN DIONISIO/CANADIAN PRESS

FERGUS HODGSONTHE CANADIAN PRESSNumbers on the homeless in Can-ada vary, but regardless of which estimate one accepts, any home-less person is one too many. Trag-ically, the policy responses, while numerous, have not addressed the primary cause: the restrained supply of private housing, which for the last two decades has been a significant reason the homeless proportion of the population has grown so rapidly. Given Canada’s relative eco-nomic prosperity, homelessness would seem to be unwarranted, and our cold climate makes it of especial concern. Every winter at least one homeless person freezes to death, and by not correctly ad-dressing the associated suffering, which ought to jolt us into action, we perpetuate what has become a growing tax burden. Canadian taxpayers already fund an estimated $6-billion for direct assistance to the homeless. Addi-tionally, homelessness amplifies associated problems that impede participation in society and place expenses elsewhere. Without a home, individuals are more likely to lose their job, suffer from mal-

nutrition and fall into substance abuse. Increased flow-on costs to unemployment assistance, medi-cal care and policing are inevi-table.v While charities and government agencies have responded, their ef-forts appear futile, as the homeless population continues to expand. Federal public housing assets are now more than a third of a trillion dollars, more than double what they were three years ago. Yet, the waiting list has grown even more rapidly and remains years long. Voluntary and state-sponsored shelters consistently fill beyond their intended capacity, particu-larly during these winter months. A recent CBC report on home-lessness in Saskatchewan provid-ed an insight into the key, unre-solved problem. Unemployment in Saskatchewan is only 4.5 per cent, yet the shelters are at capac-ity. According to a Regina shelter worker, “It used to be easy to find a place, hard to find a job. Now it’s the other way around.” Chari-table agencies and municipal sur-veys affirm that a majority of the homeless are willing and physi-cally capable of employment, and approximately half already have

jobs; they simply cannot afford housing. As housing costs have greatly outpaced wage increases, a mini-mum wage or low paying job now

fails to cover the cost of maintain-ing a residence in Canada’s major cities. Calgary serves as just one example. During the past decade,

incomes in the city increased by 34 per cent, yet house prices increased 156 per cent. Unsur-prisingly, the Calgary Housing Company, the municipal low-cost housing provider, reports a wait-ing list of 4,200 individuals. Higher house prices tend to draw more resources into the con-struction industry. However, that capital inflow has been channeled away from low-cost housing by a plethora of impediments: onerous building codes and inspections, city green belts and zoning ordi-nances, approval and consultation delays, and mandatory licensing within the relevant professional or journeymen designations. These restraints promote homo-geneous, middle-class neighbour-hoods, and they artificially inflate the cost of housing while limiting the consumer’s discretion over quality. The more invasive deed man-dates, such as lot size require-ments and single-family re-strictions, are perhaps the most perverse. Such rules stop poorer families from combining their purchasing power and sharing a home, and they insure the homes fit the desired profile of the town

planners, not the profile of those who need them most. Conse-quently, these policies tend to in-crease the supply of housing suit-able for middle- and upper-class people while restraining the sup-ply of housing at the bottom of the spectrum. These effects of building regula-tions are felt most strongly over the long-term, particularly in cities experiencing steady growth and an influx of migrants. While the barriers may have limited effect on existing homes and businesses, the less desirable outcomes accu-mulate over the decades. The lack of new, consumer-driven housing is not easily visible, even if the symptom, homelessness, is. The prevailing focus on govern-ment housing and short-term treat-ment for homeless is like placing an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff. It may be necessary after the fact, but it does not address why so many people fall off the edge in the first place. Rather than address the symptom – homelessness – governments should address the cause – a lack of housing – and do away with the numerous, short-sighted and destructive impedi-ments to housing access.

P4  TORONTO STAR  SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

POVERTY IN CANADA

There are all manner of people in the DTES who need help, who need access to nursing and psychological counsel-ling. They need a place to live with that kind of in-house support but it shouldn’t be concen-trated in one area

An alley along East Hastings St. in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The area is known as “Canada’s poorest postal code.”AJ HAO/GETTY IMAGES

GARY MASONVANCOUVER BUREAUThe greatest legacy of the Van-couver 2010 Winter Olympics will be the incentive it gave poli-ticians to do something about homelessness. But any hopes that the Games would spur civic leaders to finally address the sys-temic problems of the anguished Downtown Eastside have all but vanished. This is too bad because the time has long since passed to end the suffering there, to halt bad poli-cies that serve only to perpetu-ate the abuse and despair found around virtually every corner. And if fixing the problems there means confronting and ultimately ignoring the stale and often self-preserving dogma of the poverty industry that has bloomed in the area, so be it.

It is time the Downtown East-side became a neighbourhood that welcomed everyone, the middle class and the business class. It is time it became a neighbourhood that respected and accommodated the poor, but is not just a neigh-bourhood for the poor. It won’t be easy. Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu recently released a discussion pa-per on the Downtown Eastside (DTES) entitled Project Lock-step. Unlike the dozens of well-intentioned papers that have gone before it, this one may have fixed upon an idea that could ultimately drive the change necessary for the neighbourhood to be nursed back

to health. Or not. The report calls for the cre-ation of a new position: director for the most vulnerable. Okay, not the catchiest of job titles, I agree. But nearly everyone who has studied the area or who has tried, in various roles, to do something about the complex problems that exist there, ap-plaud the recommendation. I do as well. The wisdom behind the idea is this: while there have been many well-meaning programs and strategies for dealing with the DTES over the years — ah, decades — there has not been an over-arching vision for the neighbourhood. There has been any number of housing plans but no grand blueprint for how the DTES could and should be transformed so it resembles, dare I say, a more nor-mal, less dysfunctional community. This is what many believe a so-called czar of the DTES could provide. It sounds wonderful — in theo-ry. But talk to anyone who knows anything about the unrelenting and often oppressive politics of the area and you won’t find one who can imagine a harder, per-haps more thankless job. You see, fixing the DTES ultimately means engaging in some kind of showdown with the collection of social agencies, poverty groups, activists of all stripes who have consistently opposed changes that upset the status quo. Consensus on a future for the area among this group is un-achievable. It’s amazing the power it wields. Many of the city’s business and political elite cower in the pres-

ence of its representatives. For years now it has sold and we have bought the specious notion that any attempt to dilute the neighbourhood of its concentra-tion of poor, addicted and men-tally ill is an attack on the most vulnerable. As a result, nothing ever gets done to improve the lives of those living there. Actually, that’s not true. There has been a steady increase in the num-ber of agencies and services to deal with the burgeoning vol-ume of lost souls who arrive to avail themselves of, among other things, free clean needles with

which to inject themselves. Geoff Plant, the immensely re-spected former

B.C. attorney-gen-eral who is wrapping

up his 18-month stint as the first and last Civil City com-missioner, spent much of his time in the job pondering the

problems of the neighbour-hood. He put it this way to me.“Sometimes the wall of protection that is

built around the Down-town Eastside by well-in-

tentioned advocates has the effect of shutting the rest of us out in a way that encourages an isolation-ism that sooner or later turns the place into the ghetto that it is and shouldn’t be,” he said. “It should be diverse and wel-coming. And I think it can be that way while at the same time pre-serving its historical character.” All this makes me skeptical about the success any DTES czar would have, as much as I like the idea. Is there anyone out there with the kind of fortitude and royal jelly it would take to pull change off? Who had the Zen-type nature to deal with the abuse that would come with the job? Would the person have the

unwavering support of the three levels of government that would be imperative to do the job? Or would the mayor or premier back down at the first sign of trouble or upset? Bringing real change to the

DTES would have its ugly mo-ments, I guarantee you. But un-less we’re prepared to deal with them and live through them and ultimately believe that bringing a healthy orthodoxy to this neigh-bourhood has to be better than what exists today then nothing will ever change — to our ever-lasting shame. What needs to be done? My goodness, where do you begin? For starters, you need to have a true housing mix. That is, a sen-sible ratio that spans all income levels. The conversion of the old Woodward’s site to a massive condominium development with a mix of market and non-market housing is a start. But it sits on the edge of the worst parts of the DTES. That concept needs to spread throughout the neighbour-hood. I don’t imagine any scenario in which the poor who have lived there for years are kicked out. But nor do I accept that someone who has arrived from New Brunswick six months ago and is living in a single-room occupancy hotel on welfare is “entitled” to live in the DTES because “he’s part of the neighbourhood.” There are all manner of people

in the DTES who need help, who need access to nursing and psy-chological counselling. They need a place to live with that kind of in-house support but it shouldn’t be concentrated in one area, in my view. The province has already be-gun buying up some of the worst, scummiest hotels in the area, which are being renovated and will be handed over to a non-prof-it agency to be run. This is good. It should help give those who have lived in the most squalid of conditions for years a new sense of pride. This, too, is good. I don’t envision the DTES being turned into a Yaletown, the trendy former warehouse district to the south that imagines itself as Soho north. Nor do I imagine a neigh-bourhood with 40-storey-high shimmering condo towers. The DTES can be different, can be edgier, maybe an artist’s colony of some sort. Something that in-corporates the old neighbourhood into a revitalized one. But it can, and has to be, a district that welcomes a much broader segment of society, peo-ple who’ll take pleasure in look-ing after their streets and who will support a new generation of butchers and bakers and candle-stick makers. People, more im-portantly, who won’t tolerate drug dealers on their corners, who will insist that some order and civil-ity be brought to bear in the area in which their children are being raised. Who knows what is to become of the DTES? Will the Olympic spotlight finally cause us enough embarrassment and humiliation that we, as a society, say enough is enough? Say we will no lon-ger be held hostage by the well-meaning but ultimately self-serv-ing interests of a few? A lot of questions need to be an-swered but it seems like only time will tell.

There has been any number of housing plans but no grand blueprint for how the DTES could and should be transformed so it re-sembles, dare I say, a more normal, functional community.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Canadian Slum

T-SHIRT DESIGNSI was involved in co-creating these t-shirts that were sold at the Mabuhay Festival in 2009. The words “Hoy!” and “Astig” mean “Hey!” and “Cool” in Filipino. They came in a variety of different colours. Currently, these t-shirts are still being offered for sale.

Property of Philip Rocamora © 2011