Community activists in Manitoba who understand the urgent need to address our housing affordability crisis have good reason to celebrate these days. The Canadian CED Network along with other community organizations led by Make Poverty History Manitoba, have pushed hard for an increase in shelter benefits for people on social assistance so that they could have better access to a safe and affordable place to live. On June 19th the Province of Manitoba held an event to announce a new program that would do just that, and the Canadian CED Network was there to voice its support.

Through Rent Assist the Manitoba government will increase shelter benefits for people on social assistance to 75% of median market rent, as called for by the community. We were happy to hear that Rent Assist will actually go beyond what the community called for by allowing low-income Manitobans to continue to access the program even when they move off of social assistance and into training and employment.

Despite strong investments in social and affordable housing in Manitoba, private market rents continue to increase at a rate that forces people with low-income, including many who are employed, to choose between making monthly rent payments or having enough food to eat. Safe and affordable housing is not just a basic right, but also a necessity for people to fully participate in community and economic life. 

The Province of Manitoba often refers to employment as the best path out of poverty. As a community economic development network, we actively support the creation of economic opportunities, particularly for those who are most disadvantaged. But we also know that we cannot expect successful training and employment outcomes, for those who are able to work, without stable housing first. Furthermore, we know that there are many people on social assistance who are unable to work.

By putting more money into the pockets of low income people, the Rent Assist program will help meet the housing needs of those who are unable to work, while improving housing stability for those who are able to work, so that they can succeed in their transition to training and employment.

manitoba_works.jpg

[From left to right] Jobs and the Economy Minister Theresa Oswald;
Karl Anderson, Shoppers Drug Mart employee; Amir Baksh, owner/
operator of two Shoppers Drug Mart stores; Shawn Mahoney,
Executive Director, Opportunities for Employment; and Kirsten Bernas

Even when adequately housed, many people on social assistance face multiple barriers to employment. Transitions to the labour market must be facilitated by supportive training and employment opportunities that consider the need to develop hard, soft and life skills. The Canadian CED Network promotes social enterprise, as one example that has demonstrated significant results. Social enterprise is a mission-driven business model that creates jobs for people with barriers and helps ensure that they succeed in those jobs by providing access to comprehensive supports that will address their barriers. The Province of Manitoba has played an important, supportive role in growing the social enterprise sector and recently announced that it would be working with community stakeholders to develop a Manitoba Social Enterprise Strategy to further develop these training and employment opportunities.

Last month’s announcement included the introduction of Manitoba Works!, a new program to provide people on social assistance with greater access to supports as they transition into more traditional employment. We know that many individuals on social assistance have deep-seated and complex barriers. The Manitoba Works! model acknowledges this reality and will ensure that when participants move into employment, they don’t immediately lose access to the supports they receive during the prescribed training period. This continuity of supports moves us closer to providing what is needed to secure long-term attachment to the labour market, which will benefit both participants and employers, while helping generate a greater return on our investment in employment development for people with multiple barriers.

Together, Rent Assist and Manitoba Works! will help ensure that low-income Manitobans with barriers to employment, are in a better position to access and succeed in training and employment opportunities. These programs complement other important actions that are being taken to help low-income Manitobans access affordable housing and new employment opportunities. We still have a lot of work to do, but these are two examples of initiatives that fit within a comprehensive and integrated package of actions that need to be taken to reduce poverty and social exclusion and build strong communities in Manitoba.

Kirsten received a BA (Honours) in Economics from the University of Manitoba as well as an MA from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. Kirsten represents CCEDNet on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives‘ Alternative Federal Budget Steering Committee, Make Poverty History Canada’s Steering Committee, Make Poverty History Manitoba‘s Executive Committee, and on the Winnipeg Food Policy Working Group

< BACK

This week I was fortunate to attend the Tamarack Institute’s Community: Programs and Policies event that took place in Kitchener, Ontario.

Tamarack’s President, Paul Born, who helped co-found CCEDNet 15 years ago, has been described by Frances Wesley as Canada’s leading community organizer. So the stellar lineup of speakers he was able to gather should not have been a surprise. But it was a tremendous opportunity to have people like John McKnight, Peter Block, Sherri Torjman, Al Etmanski, Vickie Cammack and Paul himself together in one space with 150 participants for four days of learning. 

I am a bit embarrassed to confess that despite asset-based community development being such an important foundation of CED, I had never before heard John McKnight speak in person. He is clearly a treasure and reminded me in many ways of CCEDNet’s own eminent American luminary, Stewart Perry. John’s talk on the opening morning emphasized how local action is the foundation of community and democracy – the most concrete way that people can improve their daily lives. He reminded us that a huge set of invisible possibilities exist in every neighbourhood waiting to be creatively discovered. 

One possibility I never imagined was getting to sing Bruce Springsteen with John, under the direction of Choir!Choir!Choir! later that afternoon.

Peter Block challenged participants to decommodify labour and reclaim the commons. Community building is not valued today because its impacts cannot be easily monetized, so the way we vote with our dollars becomes all the more important, creating a ‘conscious economics’ where people understand the impact of their spending. 

Sherri Torjman, another founding member of CCEDNet and one of Canada’s leading social policy analysts, did a marvellous job of clarifying how policies and programs can encourage or inhibit positive shifts in behaviour. There were many municipal government employees at the conference, who shared valuable insight on some of the areas where municipal governments have more or less flexibility, and what strategic roles governments can play to frame issues in ways that foster local engagement.   

A recurring theme throughout the conference was the need to resist the pull towards big systems, big institutions, and centralization. John identifies six unique functions that neighbourhoods provide better than services that can be bought or provided by institutions: 

• Health: most of the determinants of health are non-medical and driven by socio-economic factors that happen in communities.
• Security and Safety: research shows that knowing your neighbours and time spent outside the house are much bigger predictors of neighbourhood safety than the size of the police force
• Economy: most employment is provided by small businesses, and most people get employment through word-of-mouth connections
• Environment: heating, cooling, transportation and waste generation are processes that happen largely in neighbourhoods and their impact on the environment can be significantly mitigated by neighbourhood systems
• Food: eating more fresh, local food reduces your intake of chemicals and preservatives used in industrial food production and reduces the impact of transportation of foods on the environment
• Care: institutions can provide services, but not care. People can care for each other. There is no replacement for a supportive network of caring people. 

John outlines these in greater detail in his book The Abundant Community. The push back from centralization reminded me of the good work being done in the UK by Locality with their Local By Default campaign. 

The last point I’ll make is one that was prominent here and has been consistent through my time at CCEDNet and even back to my days studying social work: it’s all about relationships. Whether it’s the increasingly blurred boundaries between social, economic and environmental priorities, or the personal neighbourhood connections that are the foundation for healthy, strong and inclusive communities, relationships are the new frontier of the living system era that is emerging in our 21^st century. Fortunately, events like this help us to re-connect with old friends and make new ones. Thanks to Paul and his team at Tamarack for their great work.

Additional Resources:

• The Abundant Community by John McKnight and Peter Block
• Deepening Community by Paul Born
• Shared Space: The Communities Agenda by Sherri Torjman

Michael Toye is the Executive Director of the Canadian CED Network, having worked in various other capacities with CCEDNet since 2000. Michael has also taught courses on CED and social enterprise at Concordia University and has written a number of articles and other publications on CED and the social economy, including co-editing the book, Community Economic Development: Building for Social Change.

Read Michael’s blogs

Follow Michael on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

< BACK

You may have seen from some of our 15th anniversary blog posts that the concept and practice of community economic development originated in the United States. 

Although the tools and strategies for creating inclusive and sustainable communities are constantly evolving differently in different places, the values and principles guiding those efforts remain remarkably perennial. 

Those tools and strategies are constantly evolving because CCEDNet members, being a pragmatic bunch, tend to be continually learning, innovating and building on what works to enhance their impact and improve community well being. 

But in recent years, we have increasingly realized that CED alone is not enough to create the inclusive and sustainable communities our members’ seek.  We need to be part of a bigger framework for systems change, and a broader coalition to make that happen. 

So it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that when the mainly-US New Economy Coalition (NEC) formed last year, we immediately saw many similarities in vision and a parallel evolution of thinking.  We were pleased when they agreed to accept a Canadian member, and when their President, Bob Massie, came and gave a rousing talk at a reception for CCEDNet members during the Social Enterprise World Forum last fall.  The significance of this connection is reflected in our 2013 Annual Report.

With that background, hopes were high for NEC’s first conference and Annual General Meeting that took place over the past weekend in Boston.  The ambitious program included two sessions we had proposed, one by Mike Lewis from the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal on scaling up community economic development to co-operative economic democracy and one by Béatrice Alain from the Chantier de l’économie sociale on the history and success of Québec’s social economy.  But those were just 2 of 46 (!) remarkable workshops with something for just about everyone. 

The diversity of perspectives and insights in the plenary panels and workshops was outstanding.  To give just one example, in the opening plenary, Ed Whitfield of the Fund for Democratic Communities went beyond his powerful critique of the ‘Teach a Man to Fish‘ parable to the illustrative ‘Teach a Man to Ham Sandwich‘, drawing on the philosophy and social analysis of James Brown. I encourage you to skim through the program to see the titles of the other plenary sessions and workshops. 

Among the 650 participants, there were a good number of Canadians present, many of whom gathered on the grass outside the main plenary hall for our regional caucus on Saturday afternoon to share resources and ideas. 

Love being with so many fabulous folks, like Clare Goff @NewStartMag Memories of @CCEDNet_RCDEC confs. #CommonBound pic.twitter.com/KsIDF72QZe

— Michael Toye (@mike_toye) June 6, 2014

The opportunity to meet in person so many people I know only by name (and so many others I should) is one of the best parts of these events like this.  I was amazed when on the first day, Clare Goff of New Start Magazine in the UK happened to sit down at my table – after we had first met by phone just a month earlier for an interview. 

The New Economy Coalition is still in its early stages.  But if the people at this conference are any indication, Bob was exactly right when he described the NEC as a “vast and diverse force for transformation operating at the centre of our moment in history.”  We are #CommonBound for a very promising future.

Congratulations especially to the extraordinary NEC staff team who pulled an amazing conference together, and the many others who helped make it happen. 

< BACK

This is Part 4 of a 4-part series. Click here to read the first in this series. 

Notes from 2002: Contemplating the Future 

CCE/CCCR’s history has been one of organizing, networking, leveraging and then consolidating gains, and, at times, making some unfortunate mistakes. Its accomplishments, such as they are, can only be understood in terms of the tremendously talented, spirit filled and committed band of people that make up the CED field in Canada today (2002). Ultimately they are the people working in the trenches, wiring together the economic agendas and projects that help meet social goals. We in CCE have been like sponges, soaking up learning from those forging results on the ground and then moving to other settings to play our part in transferring what we pick up. And, to our credit, we have maintained our abiding commitment to create means by which people doing such incredibly difficult but important work can communicate with each other in a way that we might all learn from. We have contributed to some progress, but in the larger picture, it feels like after 25 years we are still running towards first base.

None of us can afford to contemplate the future through rose coloured glasses. Impoverishment continues to affect each and every one of us, as citizens and as community residents. Power continues to be rarely exercised in a way that adequately links the economic, social and environmental interests of citizens and communities. The broader policy environment, while beginning to mouth the importance of community led innovation and development, remains poorly informed about what it takes to get durable results, although headway has been made in Manitoba and Nova Scotia.  In other jurisdictions, such as B.C. and some Federal Agencies (HRDC), we are going backwards it seems.

When I think about the last decade (1992-2002) and contemplate the next, I come to one major conclusion – we had better make more progress in the next decade than we have in the last. This is not to take away from our collective contributions thus far, merely to state the obvious challenges we face as we continue to organize and leverage our best into a movement to change systems to be more supportive of community-led development.

But I believe we can take heart. Through CCEDNet, CEDTAP and other community and regional efforts across Canada we are weaving a tapestry of experience, learning, encouragement and leadership. We can discern the common interests of Isle Madame off Cape Breton and the distressed neighbourhoods in the North End of Winnipeg. When we look closely we can see the connection with the work Quint Development Corporation is doing in the core neighbourhoods of Saskatoon with the work of the Nadina Community Futures Development Corporation in B.C. We are constructing a chorus and are finding our voice. We may not yet be singing off the same song sheet, in fact, one might say we are still writing the music. Nevertheless, I am confident that as we organize, as we network, as we learn from each other, we will succeed in leveraging a community chorus that will be heard.

One of our most revered orators in Canada’s CED movement is Rankin MacSween. He is the Executive Director of New Dawn Enterprises in Cape Breton and was the dinner speaker at CCEDNet’s National Policy Conference in March 2001. His great-grandfather was a Gaelic-speaking Cape Breton subsistence farmer.  He recounted one of the earliest stories he remembers from his childhood, a story his great-grandfather told him about when he was a young man. “The practice in the community was that every fall the men would go to Boston, a thousand miles away, to work for the winter, and then each spring they would return.”  “And how did you get to Boston” asked Rankin.  “The way I got to Boston was I walked.”  “How did you ever walk all the way to Boston?”  “Well it wasn’t just me. There was Rory Hector, Red Angus, Dugal Peter, Dan Rory. I don’t think I could have walked to Boston alone. But I didn’t have to walk alone. We walked to Boston together. “

As another leader in our movement, Paul Born, would say, we have to build the road as we travel it. I am indeed privileged to be walking the road with so many dedicated people, both within CCE and the many other people across Canada who are working so hard to strengthen communities. My goal for the Centre for Community Enterprise and the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal is that they will evolve into organizations that can continue being a vital contributor to building the road, long after I pass on.

Mike Lewis is well known in Canada and internationally as a practitioner, author, educator, and leader in the field of CED and the social economy. His experience cuts across the full range of functions connected to community renewal and development. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal and is a founding member of the Canadian CED Network. Mike is also the co-author (with Pat Conaty) of The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-state Economy.

Read other stories gathered to celebrate CCEDNet’s 15th anniversary >>

< BACK

This is Part 3 of a 4-part series. Click here to read the first in this series. 

Building the Base continued… 

A strategic addition to this agenda came into play in 1991. The National Welfare Grants (NWG) program announced a competition to fund CED related research as one of their priorities. Ironically, I never opened the envelope until 2 days before the closing date. I immediately got on the blower to Nancy Neamtan in Montreal and suggested that IFDÉC (who had organized the 1988 international conference) and CCE put in a joint proposal to research urban CED in Canada. I put together the proposal the next day and several weeks later we were awarded a research grant. Many products came out of this project, the most well-known of which is the book “Reinventing the Local Economy” which Stewart Perry and I wrote. It was the first Canadian book to attempt to define what works, identify the characteristics of best practice, and to begin articulating what needed to happen in the policy arena if we were to leverage better results across the country. Just as important, the research became another organizing and networking device to advance the overall agenda. Making Waves was used to weave together all of this into a series of stories and case studies that got the word out to people who were not willing to wade through a major tome.

NWG, a tiny but effective unit in the former federal department, Health and Welfare Canada, became an ongoing ally and source of support. Indeed, this tiny organization was perhaps my most positive experience of government actually playing a real partnership role. They listened, they thought strategically and they sought to build relationships focused on advancing the field. Without them, the work of building a national network would not be as far along as it is today. Guy Brethour and Evariste Theriault, the two key staff people with whom we liaised, became trusted partners. (Interestingly, Evariste, in the year 2000, was the last person in the department that carried the history of this period. He was instrumental in securing HRDC funding for CCEDNet’s first National Policy Conference in March 2001).

One of the major initiatives that NWG took under the leadership of Brethour was to organize a major symposium on CED out of which the book “Community Economic Development: Perspectives on Research and Policy” emerged. This event not only helped further the process of defining the field in Canada, it enabled many practitioners to come together for a full three days, a rare opportunity. At this Kananaskis summit, many of the people there, presenting papers and leading discussions, were among those that many years later would help found the Canadian CED Network. I remember well a hotel room meeting where a number of us thrashed around how we could leverage the small gains we had made thus far into something more significant and durable on a national scale. (My memory is fading but I distinctly remember Dal Brodhead, Bill Ninacs, Rankin MacSween, Flo Frank, Sandy Lockhart and Michael Swack being there).

Not long after the symposium, Lloyd Axworthy, Minister of Human Resources Development Canada, announced the social security reform process, which was to include cross-country parliamentary committee hearings. (Lloyd had many years before been inspired by the Bedford Styvessant project in New York City, one of the largest CDCs in the US). The “reform” process provided the next platform for organizing. By this time, people were getting to know each other, although we were still fragile and fractured.  Making Waves had been around for 5 years. CCE books and publications were getting out. Symposiums and independent research was happening. The work in Quebec was making huge strides.  Many of us were being asked to speak at diverse forums – First Nations, governments at all levels, universities and even the Conference Board of Canada.

I decided to approach Guy Brethour for some help in funding travel and meeting costs for what I framed as a national policy advisory group to CCE. The objective was twofold. The explicit purpose was to convene leading practitioners from across Canada to formulate a considered intervention in Axworthy’s “reform” agenda. This necessitated meeting, analysis, deliberation, consensus building and then communicating with and animating CED organizations to participate in the cross-country parliamentary hearings. The tacit objective was to finally have an opportunity for practitioners to work together at a common task of substantive public policy importance. In the process, I believed that the electricity created by so many talented, committed people coming together would galvanize people to take the big step of committing the time, energy and money needed to forge a national infrastructure.

The strategy worked. Several national meetings were held involving about 35-40 people. Analysis was done collectively. Papers were prepared. Policy recommendations were formulated. Making Waves published the results. CCE stimulated CED organizations to get in front of the parliamentary committee right across the country.

And, critical to our objectives, a small group was formed of people committed to do the work necessary to formally move towards establishing a Canadian network. Paul Born, then the Executive Director of the Community Opportunities Development Association (CODA) out of Cambridge, Ontario, took the lead to write an initial concept paper and not long after, working together with CCE, organized the first gathering held in 1997. The 16 organizations who committed funds, time, energy, sweat and a few tears to make this happen became the founding members of what initially became known as the Digby Network, (sometimes referred to as the Digby Dicks) but which eventually became incorporated in 1999 as the Canadian CED Network. By June of 2002, CCEDNet had grown to almost 200 members and was poised to hold the largest pan-Canadian CED conference ever held in Canada in Winnipeg the following September.

There is one other stream to this historical snapshot that will be of interest to those curious about the evolution of the field. One of the elements in CCE’s mission is to develop more effective capacity for technical assistance. By 1995, we had done probably 600 projects that cut across most aspects of the field. The challenge as we saw it was how to build a system that would link respected, experienced providers of technical assistance into a network that could make quality technical assistance to emerging CED initiatives more financially accessible. We knew that building effective development organizations was difficult at the best of times and the right assistance at the right time could save a lot of heartache and help make more effective use of scarce resources.

In 1995 and early 1996, CCE organized a network of people from Newfoundland to the Pacific who committed an annual budget of person days they were willing to contribute at a rate of $300/day. Meanwhile, the McConnell Family Foundation had new leadership in Tim Brodhead and were moving towards CED becoming part of their funding stream. We approached McConnell. They expressed an interest in hearing more about what we named the Social Economic and Employment Development Technical Assistance Program, or SEEDTAP for short. We submitted a proposal. The project officer came back to us asking for a market study to be done. He also explicitly expressed concern that CCE could well be in a conflict of interest position if it proceeded to be the vehicle through which such an initiative would take place. This just made me mad. Coupled with the workload we were all carrying, and being somewhat resentful – I somewhat immaturely interpreted the conflict of interest comment as a challenge to CCE’s integrity – we declined to undertake the market study. Nevertheless, this initiative was the seed from which the CEDTAP program housed at Carleton University emerged, a program for which CCE became one of many technical assistance providers from across Canada.

Read Part 4 of Mike Lewis’ Notes by an Aging Co-Founder

Mike Lewis is well known in Canada and internationally as a practitioner, author, educator, and leader in the field of CED and the social economy. His experience cuts across the full range of functions connected to community renewal and development. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal and is a founding member of the Canadian CED Network. Mike is also the co-author (with Pat Conaty) of The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-state Economy.

Read other stories gathered to celebrate CCEDNet’s 15th anniversary >>

< BACK