In memory of all the missing and murdered women and children, aboriginal women are walking from Victoria, BC to Ottawa from June to September 2008. Gladys Radek, who lost a niece to the Highway of Tears, launched the Walk4Justice to draw attention to all the missing and murdered women across Canada. The website, www.missingpeople.net has more information and links about the walk. Walk4Justice has created an online petition to gather the names of all the missing and murdered First Nations women across Canada. If you know someone who has been missing or murdered, Walk4Justice asks you to sign the online petition. Also see a Working TV video of the start of the march.

During the Governor General's tour of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside yesterday, women and residents blocked a local city councillor, Elizabeth Ball from entering the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, a community centre and shelter for women, because of her party's inaction on affordable housing and policies on homelessness, poverty, and the Downtown Eastside. Read more on David Eby's blog, and in a CBC article, "Governor General, councillor heckled in Downtown Eastside".

The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women has a new fact sheet, Women’s experiences of social programs for people with low incomes (in PDF). This fact sheet weaves together the voices of women with critical analysis and detailed evidence on how the devolution of social programs has impacted on diverse low-income women’s lives. It provides important evidence as to why and how listening to women’s voices is critical to knowing the real issues in policy making and programming. It combines existing quantitative research with new qualitative research based on the perspectives of policy makers, social service providers, low-income First Nations, immigrant, refugee women and women with disabilities from three Canadian cities.

L’impact des programmes sociaux : des femmes à faible revenu racontent (format pdf)
Ce feuillet d’information mêle divers témoignages de femmes à faible revenu avec une analyse critique et des informations détaillées sur l’impact de la dévolution des programmes sociaux. Il présente des informations concluantes qui soulignent l’importance d’écouter les femmes pour connaître les vrais problèmes auxquels doivent s’attaquer les politiques et les programmes. Il s’inspire du rapport intitulé Integrating the voices of low-income women into policy discussions on Canada Social Transfer (CST), une recherche qualitative menée en 2007 dans trois villes canadiennes avec des décideurs, des organismes de services sociaux et des femmes à faible revenu autochtones, immigrantes, réfugiées et handicapées. Des données quantitatives tirées de recherches antérieures viennent compléter le tableau.

Shelagh Day and Gwen Brodsky have authored a study entitled: Women and the Canada Social Transfer:
Securing the Social Union (in PDF) and (website). The report explains how social assistance and legal aid have been in decline in Canada for the past decade and how this has had devastating effects on poor women. The report calls for national standards, federal legislation, and new mechanisms to rescue the social union and to meet Canada's human rights obligations.

In July, women in the Downtown Eastside challenged Vancouver City council members to a House Swap. In a letter, the Power to Women group challenged the councillors to live for eight weeks off $610 a month in a hotel and on the street with no extra support. So far none of the city councillors have taken up the challenge. An article on The Dominion news site, "Downtown Eastside Women Ask Politicians for Housing Swap," goes into more detail about the conditions poor women are facing in Vancouver.

The BC Government has been hosting want they call a Conversation on Health with the residents of BC. In response, a coalition of community groups called the Women's Health Community Advisory Committee has released a report about women's health that calls on the BC government to go beyond medical issues and fund a range of social services. The report, Conversation on Women's Health (in PDF) calls on the government to increase welfare rates and minimum wage, build social housing and women-only shelters, and fund more medical services. See more in a CBC article, "Violence against women one of top B.C. health priorities: report."

Vancouver Island CBC Radio has a three part series on young women who are pregnant and homeless. The series talks to young women, service providers and others about the obstacles women face dealing with addictions, homelessness, poverty and pregnancy. Listen to Pregnant and Homeless (audio) on the CBC website.

Last week, at the National Aboriginal Women's Summit, the Minister for Heritage and the Status of Women announced five years of funding to build and support women's shelters on reserves. According to the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada news release, $56 million dollars will support 35 existing women's shelters and build up to five new shelters on reserves. Aboriginal women who live in the northern communities and off reserve are concerned because the funding does not include all aboriginal women. Read more in the CBC article, "Northern women 'excluded' from federal shelter announcement."

On Sunday June 3rd, hundreds of women, trans people and their allies marched through the streets of Toronto to a vacant building. Four Women Against Poverty Collective members had already entered the building, claiming it for affordable housing for women by women. The marchers erected a tent city outside the building but after a few hours the police forced the women away from the building. The Women Against Poverty Collective demands:

• We call on Mayor Miller and City Council to force developers to create safe affordable housing when they: ask for zoning variances, don’t pay their taxes, or allow their buildings to fall apart.

• We call on Premier McGuinty to immediately raise social assistance rates by 40% and to develop a coherent, well-funded province–wide housing policy that has timelines, clear number of units to be built, and accountability components included.

• We call on Prime Minister Harper to develop a coherent, well-funded Canada–wide housing policy and program, and to devote 1% of the federal budget to affordable housing.

This year's Nobel Peace Price went to the founder of the microcredit bank, Muhammad Yunus. An article in The Dominion newspaper, "Microcredit and Women's Poverty" critiques microcredit for not doing anything to change the structural conditions of poverty. The article argues that microcredit fits nicely into the idea that poverty is an individual problem, therefore shifting the responsibility of poverty from governments onto the backs of poor women.

Across the country there are two projects involving low income women taking photographs of their lives. In Saskatchewan a group of First Nations women are photographing what they see everyday as part of a project called The Marginalization of Indigenous Women. In New Brunswick, a group of low income women were asked to take photos of their joys and frustrations. Some of photos were of a electricity bill, a fridge door or a luxury cruise ship docked in the harbour. Read more about these two photo exhibits on CBC: "First Nations women use 'photo voice' to tell stories," and "Saint John display exhibits the power of poverty."

In November, women who use the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre (DEWC) asked the centre to be remain open after regular hours and act as a shelter for homeless women. With the help of volunteers, the Elder's Council and staff members the centre acted as shelter to over fifty women each night. In December the provincial government granted to centre a one time funding of $80,000 to allow DEWC to operate as an emergency shelter for women for the next couple of months. Read a press release about the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre and a CBC article, "Women occupy Vancouver drop-in centre."

A number of websites have sprouted up to protest the Conservative cuts to the Status of Women Canada. The cuts will also end funding to women's organizations that do lobbying, advocacy or research on rights issues, and the closure of most of the federal agency's regional offices. A group of Halifax women started the site: www.thewomenareangry.org about the cuts. Another site, the statusreport.ca is dedicated to raising awareness of the cuts. Read a CBC article, "Women upset with cuts to Status of Women Canada take protest to the web."

A book of life stories of seven women who have triumphed over addiction, poverty, and illness in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in BC. George Ryga was a BC playwright and a writer who's work was both deeply political and empathtic to the struggles of women, the poor, and native people. The editors of In Plain Site: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver, set out to create a space for the voices of women who are seldom heard on their own terms. The editors interviewed seven women, transcribed the tapes, and then reviewed the stories with the women. An excerpt from one women's story from In Plain Sight is available online on the Tyee. The woman, Pawz, says, "Down here a lot of crap happens to a lot of people, it's not just me. If this story applies to you, don't lose hope."

Pivot's report, Beyond Decriminalization: Sex Work, Human Rights and a New Framework for Law Reform presents the results of two years of research and in depth discussions with eighty-four sex workers from various aspects of the sex industry in Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton. The report moves beyond the question of criminal law reform by looking at what kind of reforms would be required in a number of different areas of law including labour, municipal, immigration, and family law, in order to protect sex workers in the event that the adult sex industry is decriminalized. Katrina Pacey, Pivot lawyer and author of the report says, "The bottom line is that sex workers want access to the same legal and human rights protections that are afforded to other Canadians. Decriminalization is only the first step to making this possible." Pivot's Sex Work page has more information on their work to empower sex workers to determine the laws they would like to see governing sex work.

PhotoVoice is a participatory action research method pioneered by Carolyn Wang. PhotoVoice is a process that enables community members to produce photographs to document their experiences. The photographs become the basis for group discussion of community issues and concerns. The photographs and words become tools for social change, by providing resources to raise consciousness and influence policymakers. "Low-income women are often subject to careful scrutiny and surveillance by others. Rather than putting them under the lens, photovoice puts them behind the lens and allows others to see the world through their eyes" The Prairies Women's Health Centre of Excellence website has the details of this project.

The Status of Women Action Group's (SWAG) Women's Economic Justice Report documents over forty interviews held with women between September 2005 and April 2006 to discuss how women would benefit from a Guaranteed Livable Income. The report contains the article "The Strong Case for a Guaranteed Livable Income," Revenue Canada data on women's income, facts on women and poverty, and where to learn more or get involved.

A women's activist group in Regina has been trying to get a transition housing shelter for women established. The director of this group says that although Regina does have some battered women's shelters, not all women who require temporary housing qualify. Other shelter resources are not directed to the needs of homeless women. However, despite her efforts to funding, her proposals have always been rejected because it wasn't believed that a shelter like the one proposed would help combat homelessness to a large degree. For more information read the Leader-Post's article on the subject.

Two new reports from the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre, Every Woman’s Centre, Sydney and the Pictou County Women’s Centre in Nova Scotia have been released. Struggling to Survive: Women on Employment Support and Income Assistance Provide Their Priority Areas for Policy Reform is a 30 page publication (in PDF) and Survival Strategies: Women on Employment Support & Income Assistance (ESIA) in Nova Scotia Provide Their Key Recommendations for Policy Reform (21 pages, in PDF).

The lack of resources to help Nunavut's homeless, in particular its homeless women, has driven a homeless woman to organize a protest. She hopes to inform both government and the public about the difficulties of being homeless in the far north. This woman's actions are profiled in a CBC article regarding homelessness in Nunavut.