International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

According to Statistics Canada, more than 3.4 million Canadians were living below the poverty line in 2016. To mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Jayne Malenfant had an important message for the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation community at the May 2019 retreat.

Having herself experienced homelessness as a teenager, 2018 Scholar Jayne Malenfant is currently pursuing a PhD in Education at McGill University on the topic of youth homelessness in Canada. Born in Ontario, she lived in many different places in Canada before starting her doctoral studies.

Poverty is not an individual problem, she says, but rather is a collective problem that is not merely economic. People living in poverty also face dangerous working conditions, unsanitary housing, and food insecurity.