Root causes of local poverty
How much poverty do we have in our upper Kedron Brook valley community and what might cause it?
There are a couple of ways we might approach this question.
We can have a look at the Census statistics and find out how many people there are on a range of measures that link to socio-economic status.
Let’s have a look at each of these.
10.3% of us are separated or divorced.
1065 of us need assistance because of profound or severe disability.
529 of us were unemployed at the time of the Census.
27.1% of us have a family gross income of less than $1000/week.
1295 one parent families.
2231 of us are renting the dwelling we live in.
There are 472 State Housing rental dwellings.
Another way would be to look at the figures on the My School website for each local school. These show an Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (shortened to ICSEA). The percentage of children in the school are shown for the bottom quarter lower middle quarter upper middle quarter and top quarter and it is also possible to compare each school to the national average on this.
So here are some of the local figures:
These are the percentages of children in each local school in the bottom quarter on the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage. The national figure is 25%.
For Ferny Grove State High School the figure is 21%. For the seven primary schools in this upper Kedron Brook valley community the figures are: 14% 7% 23% 28% 16% 12% and 28%. Notice that most of these figures are below the national figure of 25%.
Why do some families fall into this bottom quarter on the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage? Why are some people not so well of as others?
Of course in one way the answer is simply no matter how well off we all are some of us will be the least well off simply because we are not all identical.
Maybe a better question is: The children and families that are falling in the bottom quarter on Community Socio-Educational Advantage – is this a real problem? Are they struggling? Are they being left behind? Are they poor and desperate and disadvantaged in a way that just simply shouldn’t need to be happening around here locally.
Another question is: Are there things we can be doing even quite simple straight-forward things that would make a real difference in improving the life circumstances of the families in the bottom quarter? What would help?
Are we one of those families? Do we need help?
If we are not one of those families if we are in the upper quarter are we part of the solution or part of the problem for the people at the bottom?
Britain’s Centre for Social Justice has been set up to unearth the root causes of poverty and disadvantage. They say that income is one of them. So is family breakdown poor education addiction debt and welfare dependency.
What do you think are the causes of poverty and disadvantage that you experience personally or observe locally?
What for example is causing family breakdown locally? What can we do to support the development of strong healthy families?
Where does addiction start locally? Addiction to cigarettes alcohol drugs all the other addictions? What addictions can you think of? Where are they being started locally? What helps maintain them? Is there anything we can do about it?
What drives people into debt around here? Do we have enough access to good financial education and counselling? Is this something you could be part of providing?
Are our local schools providing a good education to all the children who attend them? Are there any reasons why they aren’t able to do this in every case? What can be done to make it 100% good education for all our children.
We’re not a huge community. There’s no reason for poverty and disadvantage to exist here unless we’re not taking steps to fix it. We’re not a bad community and one way that shows up is the lack of support services here compared to how many there are in some of the parts of Brisbane where there are a lot of problems. That doesn’t mean we don’t have need. It can mean we don’t have services readily available locally to help. But we can fill the gaps ourselves. All we have to do is recognise there is a need out there.
We could start with the schools and the children in the bottom quarter. We are not talking huge numbers of people and we could all make such a difference.
I’ll leave you with it. What could you do?