| Nov 20, 2014


An article we ran last week about families facing financial issues as winter approaches has engendered vigorous and varied responses from readers. Because the article focussed in part on two cases of people who are struggling, the responses have included offers of help as well as questions about the details of the particular cases.

The response to the article also raises questions about what supports are available in our region and how they can be accessed, and about how sufficient the social safety net in rural Frontenac and Lennox and Addington is. These will be explored in the paper over the next few months, particularly in the context of a new program coming on stream in the new year to address the needs of individuals and families in Frontenac County who are at risk of homelessness.

All of these responses are legitimate, given the open- ended nature of the article and the issues it raised. The backdrop to the article was the coming of winter and the uncertainty that comes with that.

It is one thing being poor in the summer and quite another in the winter. Heat and hydro are truly essential services for us. Without them we would literally freeze in the dark.

Those of us who have enough money and/or physical strength to buy oil or gas or get wood together for our needs are the lucky ones.

However very few of us are more than one or two pieces of misfortune or bad judgement away from facing a starker reality. We might be able to pay for a new furnace, or finance one, we might be able to deal with the loss of one income in a family for a time, we might have supportive family and friends, but two or three setbacks piled on top of each other would devastate even those of us who think we have a secure and stable income and family life.

As we get older - and the demographics in this region are well documented - the risks to our health increases and our ability to rebound from financial misfortune decreases.

We have social programs and a health system to support us. Sometimes they are subject to abuse and at other times they are not sufficient for the needs that are out there, but they do put us way ahead of people in most countries around the world.

However, our local communities are growing slowly or not at all, and community institutions such as churches, seniors' clubs, even service clubs are all less viable than they once were, and our families are also not as strong as they were in the past.

Our local municipalities have little or no capacity to help us; we are dependent on programs administered in Toronto, Kingston or Napanee for social support.

I have been interviewing seniors in recent weeks in preparation for a series of articles commemorating the 150th anniversary of Frontenac County next year, and one of the things that has clearly come out is that life was not easy in this part of the world 50 or 100 years ago. People did freeze and they did go hungry; the effects of poverty are not new around here.

If we can help each other through it, as we tend to do, so much the better for all of us.

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