The UN Declaration of Human Rights recognizes food and shelter as rights.

Yet many people in our community are unable to support themselves. Almost 5,000 people use emergency shelter services in Waterloo Region annually.

Why does this occur? This region's average yearly household income is about the provincial average of $66,000 and above the national average of $58,360, but according to Regional Municipality of Waterloo Public Health department research, 11 per cent of individuals, seven per cent of two-parent families and 38 per cent of single-parent families in the region lived in poverty in 2000.

Since December 2007, a single person on Ontario Works receives $547 per month as a living allowance.

"Cheap" housing in K-W is increasingly expensive -- now averaging $450. More than two-thirds of a person's benefits will be devoted to housing, meaning that there is practically nothing left for all other basic needs.

Reduction in income assistance benefits across Ontario by 21.5 per cent in 1995, as part of what was known as the Common Sense Revolution, pushed many people over the edge.

But subsequent to that time, while rents rose significantly from 1998 to 2002 (by 17 per cent in Waterloo Region and up to 30 per cent in some cities), there was no indexation of the shelter maximums. These shelter components are seldom adjusted and have grown increasingly out of line with actual rent costs.

When shelter, household items and other essential costs are taken into account, a family on social assistance would also find it difficult to purchase sufficient food.

In 2000, 14 per cent of people in Waterloo Region reported experiencing some food insecurity in the previous 12 months. For the working poor with medication needs, the cost of living becomes even more unbearable. When the existing system is unable to provide a living wage, people are pushed further into poverty.

In response to growing unemployment and poverty the Working Centre was established by Joe and Stephanie Mancini in the spring of 1982.

They were inspired by the Catholic Worker Movement, founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. It was grounded in a belief in the God-given dignity of every human person. Catholic workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism and violence of all forms.

The Working Centre's Housing Help Desk provides basic housing supports and connects people experiencing or at risk for homelessness, women at risk and refugees with safe housing in the 30 supported housing units operated by the group.

The model of shared housing provides immediate shelter and an opportunity to search for work and long-term housing.

At the Job Cafe, public access computers, community access voicemail, transport to job placements, assistance with resumes and general help for people to become self-sufficient.

The centre also has a Community Tools Projects, combining work experience, skill building, recycled materials and opportunities to positively contribute to the community.

The benefits of the holistic approach to health at the Working Centre are multiple.

And providing for basic needs of all Canadians is not only an obligation, as a signatory to UN conventions, but is a moral imperative.

Until we reach that state, the committed staff and volunteers of the Working Centre will help empower their clientele to improve their own situations and to serve each other.