Mark Holmgren's Blog
The challenges we face with respect to building more affordable housing are complex to state the obvious, and resolving them calls for an integrated set of strategies that go far beyond the actual building of more housing. Here are some of the challenges we need to address: AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM People cannot … Continue reading Affordable Housing is an Economic Problem
Originally posted in November 2018 on the Edmonton CDC Blog. In Edmonton, approximately 140,000 workers are identified as low income earners (earning below $16.31 per hour), according to the Edmonton Social Planning Council (source, page 79). Four in five of these workers are over the age of 20 and 60% are women. The Canadian Payroll … Continue reading Living Wage IN a Livable Economy
I was at the gathering where Premier Notley and Minister Sabir announced legislation that would improve benefits to recipients of AISH. I support these improvements (read more). My math indicates a 6% increase to the AISH benefit. Some critics say it should have been higher, given the length of time since the last increase. Some … Continue reading THERE’S MORE TO DO TO IMPROVE AISH, ISN’T THERE?
I have written in the past about what I call the pendulum swing or the bandwagon effect. I think this is what has happened with respect to collective impact over the past 10 years. I suggest it also occurred in the late 1980s when outcome measurement rode into town on its stallion named Logic Model. … Continue reading Collective Impact as Uprising
Note: In addition to writing about community change and penning commentary, I am a story teller. I write fiction and spoken word. This piece is a mix of fact and fiction, often called "faction." One of my small luxuries in life is having someone come to my house weekly and clean it. I tell myself … Continue reading LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY
Yes, perhaps an odd title for a posting, but bear with me. I was on my way back home from meeting downtown with Alberta Government colleagues who also work in the poverty reduction arena and I heard this call-in show about winter tires and more to the point about whether or not winter tires should … Continue reading Mandatory Winter Tires and Poverty
As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest. - Nelson Mandela I have been doing research for a keynote I am doing next month on the socio-economics of poverty. I am speaking in … Continue reading I am angry about poverty
