Child poverty in Toronto up by record numbers, new report finds

A daycare centre in Ontario, photographed on May 29, 2018. (The Canadian Press) /Darryl Dyck)

The number of children and families living in poverty in Toronto was the highest in all of Canada in 2022, a new report has found.

Released on Tuesday, Fighting for Our Future: Child and Family Report Card, Toronto 2024 revealed that the number of impoverished children in the city is up by record numbers two years in a row.

Between 2020 and 2021, child poverty in Toronto increased 3.8 percentage points from 16.8 per cent to 20.6 per cent, which is highest amount on record in a single year.

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That record was broken between 2021 and 2022, when the rate jumped by another 4.7 percentage points to 25.3 per cent, which amounts to 117,890 children living in poverty.

The report’s authors, SPT and Family Services Toronto’s Campaign 2000, analyzed the latest available taxfiler and census data from 2022 to determine their findings. They specifically looked at how child poverty rates have increased in Toronto’s 25 wards since 2020 – and they have in all of them.

“In a city as wealthy as Toronto, there should be no reason why over a quarter of our children are living in poverty,” Jin Huh, SPS’s executive director, said in a release.

“In fact, in some census tracts, we have seen child poverty rates as high as 61 per cent.”

On a granular level, the report found that the city’s downtown east area has been especially affected by child poverty with Toronto Centre topping charts at 36.6 per cent.

The ward, bounded by the Don Valley Parkway to the east, Bay and Yonge streets to the west, The Esplanade and Mill Street to the south, and Rosedale Valley, and Charles and Bloor streets to the north, has one census tract in Moss Park where child poverty reached 56 per cent.

Scarborough-Guildwood came in second with a child poverty rate of 34.1 per cent, while Humber River-Black Creek placed third with 33.9 per cent.

In nine of the city’s wards, 30 per cent or more children and families are living in poverty.

Census tracts are smaller geographic area than a ward and provides greater insight into neighbourhood-level data. Most of the child poverty in the city was found to be in census tracts in the inner suburbs, including northwest Toronto and Scarborough, and the downtown core. Forty of them were found to have extremely high rates ranging from 40 to 61 per cent, according to the report.

Chris Brillinger, the executive director of Family Services Toronto, said while homeless is highly visible in the downtown east community where he lives and works, child and family poverty in general tends to be something that is a “bit hidden” and not often top of mind, despite the great challenges many households face to make ends meet.

He said many families experiencing poverty are struggling on a daily basis with many parents being forced to make the seemingly impossible decision to work more and parent less to provide for their kids.

“Literally, it’s how am I going to put a meal on the table tonight,” he said, adding the number of children impacted by food insecurity is higher than ever before in Toronto and across the country.

Brillinger noted that Toronto Centre is a part of the city where there is a high concentration of subsidized family housing, including several co-ops. He also said the downtown east area is one of the few remaining places in the core that has “relatively” affordable housing stock.

Beth Wilson, a senior research and policy analyst with Social Planning Toronto and one of the report’s co-authors, said more than half of all children in one-parent families live in poverty.

“That’s three times the rate of children in couple families. We’re seeing how the elimination of pandemic-related benefits has been disproportionately impacting these families, most of whom are led by women. Without meaningful interventions, the problem is likely to get worse,” she said in a release.

The report also found that child/family poverty in the city disproportionately affects Indigenous, racialized, newcomer, and non-permanent residents.

Huh, of SPT, noted that every child has the right to live free from poverty, adding that her organization’s research has found that government policies can have a “significant and positive impact” on poverty rates.

“The solutions … are available to us, but they require political will,” she said.

Brillinger agreed.

“The government needs to step up to support people and we need to work together to move the bar,” he said, adding during the pandemic government support helped significantly reduce child poverty – at least temporarily.

“It's amazing what we can accomplish when we put our minds together.” … We know we can do better.”

Among other things, SPT’s report calls on the City of Toronto to take a human rights approach to affordable housing, food security, and access to transit and technology, ensure livable incomes and inclusive economies, address systemic inequality, and develop a fully funded Third-Term Action Plan for its Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Social Planning Toronto’s report, which was supported by Family Service Toronto’s Campaign 2000, was released in tandem with two other similar reports titled Tackling Child Poverty: A Call for Bold Solutions and Ending Child Poverty: The Time is Now. These studies found child and family poverty rates have been similarly increasing in Ontario and across Canada.