Quality of life report shows Halton slipping

By PAUL MITCHISON
Burlington Post

Quality of life in Halton has declined since 1990, according to a report issued by the Halton Social Planning Council. The finding is the result of a Quality of Life Index designed to monitor key indicators of social, health, environmental and economic life in Halton. The report states Halton's relative quality of life has dropped more significantly than the Ontario average. "This is somewhat surprising since Halton is often perceived to be an affluent and thriving community," said the report. The indicators reveal progress in some areas and setbacks in others - while the suicide rate is down there are more people on welfare and longer waiting lists for social housing. "We looked at a number of indicators, we were trying to get statistics we could get on a regular basis," said Ted Hildebrandt, senior planner with the Halton Social Planning Council. Halton scored an 81.7 on the index, which used 1990 as a base year with a 100 score. That lagged behind the Ontario average, which stood at 86.4. The social indicators reveal many problems because of the present economic climate - difficulty in accessing public housing, larger numbers of people forced on to welfare and an increase in the number of children being cared for by welfare authorities. These problems sow the seeds for long-term problems, according to Hildebrandt. "The logical next step is where do we go from here." SEE MORE PAGE A4

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The Quality of Life in Halton 1997 report will be presented to Halton politicians early in the new year. On the health front, there has been a 21-per-cent increase in the number of low-weight babies with a low weight per 100 live births, compared with 5.1 today. This is an indicator of poverty, said the report, and a warning sign about the number of kids at risk of a host of problems which would prevent their healthy development. On the plus side, the rate of suicide dropped in spite of economic problems and higher bankruptcies. That surprised officials, in that it differed from other trends which link economic difficulty with suicide and poor health. On the environmental front, there were some positives. Those include improvements in air quality, more waste diverted to recycling and a reduction in effluent spills. The preparation of the Quality of Life Index also raised a number of problems and issues, relating to access to information. It was difficult to obtain Information from some public institutions, governments and government-funded, non-profit organizations as there has been a drop in public spending and staff available in these organizations to collect, organize and distribute information. There had been significant reductions in Ontario government public spending in the 1990s. Hildebrandt admitted the study doesn't include some information which might have been useful - such as the percentage of people living under the poverty line and statistical changes in average life expectancy. Those figures were more difficult to obtain, he said, although he feels the report does manage to include some important social indexes which point to the need for action. Statistics Canada published this data on a national, provincial and CMA (Census Metropolitan Area) level, but Halton falls in the middle of Toronto and Hamilton, with Burlington grouped with Hamilton. The greatest difficulty was encountered in collecting labour force data. Halton does not have recent data beyond the 1990 Census on labour force for such variables as the number of persons working and the number of persons unemployed. Much of the funding for the report came from Health Canada and several local social planning agencies worked cooperatively to develop a framework. Last October, a report was issued looking at Quality of Life in Ontario.

© Ontario Social Development Council & Social Planning Network of Ontario