Solutions That Work

Fighting Poverty in Winnipeg

Edited by Jim Silver

The explosive and dramatic growth of poverty in Winnipeg, and strategies for combating poverty, are the subject of this collection. Some of the chapters discuss the severity and the consequences of poverty; others describe policy solutions, with a particular emphasis on community-based solutions. Included are chapters on: the growth and incidence of poverty in Winnipeg; the impact of poverty on, and community economic development strategies being developed by, Winnipeg’s Aboriginal community; community-based schooling as a response to inner city poverty; the experience with workfare in Manitoba; the importance of the minimum wage in combating poverty; and a wide range of small but innovative and exciting community development alternatives which are proving their worth in Winnipeg’s inner city. While the focus is on Winnipeg, and particularly Winnipeg’s inner city, where poverty levels are astonishingly high and still rising, the patterns analyzed and the policy alternatives offered are applicable to communities across Canada.

About the Author

Professor Silver’s research interests are in inner-city, poverty-related and community development issues. His most recent book is In Their Own Voices: Urban Aboriginal Community Development. Among other books, he is the co-author of Building a Better World: An Introduction to Trade Unionism in Canada, a revised, second edition of which will appear in 2008; and editor of Solutions that Work: Fighting Poverty in Winnipeg. He is co-editor of Doing Community Economic Development, scheduled for release in 2007. Some other recent publications include the following monographs, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba and available for free download from their website: Unearthing Resistance: Aboriginal Women in the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Developments; Safety and Security Issues in Winnipeg’s Inner City Communities: Bridging the Community-Police Divide (co-authored with Elizabeth Comack); North End Winnipeg’s Lord Selkirk Park Public Housing Development: History, Comparative Context, Prospects; and Gentrification in West Broadway? Contested Space in a Winnipeg Inner City Neighbourhood.

Professor Silver did an M.A. in Political Science at Carleton University, and completed a Ph.D. in Politics at Sussex University in 1981. He started teaching on a full-time basis at the UW in 1982. He was the recipient of the UW’s Robson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1985, the UW’s Atchison Award for Community Service and the Joe Zuken Citizen Activist Award in 1997, and is the 2007 recipient of the UW’s Erica and Arnold Rogers Award for Excellence in Research. He has been Department Chair since 2006.

Professor Silver is also the Co-Director of the UW’s new Urban and Inner-City Studies program.

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