A lost decade

This rate rose to of persistent poverty appear in the numbers of homeless 19.7% in 1995 and then fell back to 16.2% in 2000, families and individuals living in shelters and on the spurred by economic and employment growth in the late street,8 the 100% increase in the use of food banks 1990s.2 Although the economic engine was operating since 19899 and the reports of local service agencies full stea [...] By the end of the 1990s, the especially Canada’s largest cities – is now significant.11 combined incidence of low income and the poverty gap was higher than it had been at the end of the 1980s in all areas of the country – with the exception of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.6,7 Whereas low income families were able to “catch up” after the 1981-1982 recession, they were left behind in the 1990s. [...] Across the was found in these large cities, the rate of increase of country, there were 431,490 more poor people in 2000 the poor population over the decade was higher in the than in 1990.36 All the growth in the number of poor suburbs than in the larger central cities. [...] This increase was due CMAs (rural and urban areas just outside the largest cities), to a rise in both the rate of poverty and the size of the the poverty rate was consistently lower than it was in the urban population. [...] Although it may appear that the remain- from the beginning to the end of the decade in these der of the CMAs experienced a better recovery than did the large urban areas, the proportional increase (19.1%) large cities, the reduction in poverty from the mid-decade in the number of poor people outstripped the increase spike to the end of the decade was 18% for both CSDs (14.6%) in the size of the ov