Building Our Human Services Capacity

Mississauga is a growing, vibrant community where people want to live
Mississauga’s Human Services sector is a national leader in collaborative and cross-sectoral work. Representatives from Social, Health and government sectors continually come together to identify gaps and align priorities with a view to providing exceptional social and health services. This commitment to service excellence has contributed to Mississauga’s reputation as a great place to live. The community welcomes approximately 11,210 new residents every year, 80% of whom are new immigrants

Key issues of concern
As excellent as our Social and Health services are, they are unable to fully and adequately respond to the needs of the community. The social and health infrastructure doesn’t have the capacity to support the current population, let alone the projected growth. Over the last 20 years the provincial and federal governments’ support for human services has not kept pace with the growth in population. 

The result is an ever widening per capita gap in services for residents who live in Mississauga vs. those who live outside of the 905 / GTA in Ontario.  Compared to the average Ontario community, our city receives 40 to 60% of the funding for Child Care, Child Welfare, Health Care, Developmental and Adult Services. This inequity directly affects the quality of life in our community.

The health and social services in Mississauga struggle to meet the needs of seniors, new immigrants, youth, parents and their children and other vulnerable residents or people seeking social and health support.  Many are waiting lengthy periods of time for access to service, whether it is housing, support for seniors, child care, mental health services for children and youth, assessments for children with developmental challenges. New immigrants to Canada experience great difficulty in becoming fully integrated into our society in a reasonable length of time because of barriers to employment, lack of supports and other issues such as racism and discrimination.

Over 21% of Mississauga children (over 38,000) are living in poverty doubling since 1990. This is higher than both the provincial and national averages.  The poverty that these children live in within our community makes more difficult for them to learn and to develop the kinds of skills they need to be contributing members of society.  Their parents are struggling provide food, shelter and clothing for their families.  In Peel over 13,500 people are waiting for subsidized housing. In 2007, Peel’s homeless shelters housed 1,122 families including 2570 children.  There are 2400 children awaiting access to subsidized

child care in Peel.  These statistics are a reflection of significant unmet need in our community and of many vulnerable residents unable to receive the support they need.  The character and quality of life of a city is affected by how it responds to its’ vulnerable. It is in the best interests of our community from a economic and quality of life perspective to find ways of addressing these issues.

Investment in Human Capital is good for business
Mississauga has been an attractive place for business in the past.  The lack of services for residents poses a threat to this trend. If the employees of local businesses do not have access to child care, support for their elderly parents, or care for their developmentally delayed child or mentally ill child, then they are not going to be able to devote full attention to their employment. Good attendance at work is threatened by the lack of these services.  A growing poverty rate limits the ability of people of spend on local goods and products. 

By looking to initiatives such as poverty reduction, newcomer supports, and youth programs, we are investing in health of our community and promoting the economic prosperity of a city. Infrastructure development in child care, senior supports and health care are essential to a productive work force and a healthy community.

We have a vision in which all children, youth, families and residents in Peel are thriving and enjoying the benefits of our great city.  The human services in this community are dedicated to providing excellent service and a collaborative and coordinated fashion which makes the best use of the dollars invested in them on behalf of the residents.  With adequate funding and capacity the services will be able to respond to the needs of the vulnerable and those in need in a timely and caring fashion.

Download PDF version of this page

[]

Building human capital

Post Secondary education

Waterfront development and environment

Centre of excellence for diversity and immigration

The Mississauga Works Task Force