North Perth Council heard a presentation from United Way Perth-Huron on January 8 regarding the Quality of Life Perth-Huron reports.
Kristin Crane, Director Social Research & Planning for United Way Perth-Huron, says for anyone wondering what the reports are, they are a wide-ranging data collection covering many factors locally that impact quality of life. This being the fourth year of the reports, Crane says they decided to produce five different ones instead of one.
Those include reports on demographics, diversity, and more.
"So demographics, which is understanding different pieces of our community, our population, some of the trends that we're seeing. Then we have a report on the diversity we're seeing in our community. It talks about ethno-cultural identities in the community, language, religion, gender diversity, sexual orientation and different abilities within the community," Crane shared. "We have a report on the environmental quality of life. We have quite a bit of information on our different watersheds, as well as some of the land quality indicators and how we're seeing the impacts of climate change in our community. Then we have a large report on health and well-being, that encompasses social factors of quality of life. So we can look at different health trends, mental health, things like that are all included."
There is also a report on economic indicators of quality of life
"This talks about income levels, employment within our communities, and delves into some of those vulnerabilities we're seeing in the community, the impacts of low economic quality of life such as food insecurity or homelessness. We also talk about the rising cost of housing and living in general, and how that's impacted our community," said Crane.
In terms of data for North Perth, Crane says the thing that jumps out is the explosive population growth in the area.
"The provincial population growth is around 5.8 per cent and North Perth was looking at an 18.3 per cent population growth. So that's a huge population growth that took place between 2016 and 2021 and it's well above most communities in Ontario. So, there's a lot of opportunity in North Perth," Crane noted. "We're excited to present these reports because it does really show what some of the population trends are, so that people can really understand what types of programs and services could be created for the community based upon this growth that we've seen. So it presents a lot of opportunity for North Perth."
Crane adds that one of those opportunities in the area includes expanding diversity.
"There's a lot of opportunities for focus to be put on that, as well. We do have some statistics that came from the Huron County Immigration Partnership that talk about discrimination that's been experienced by visible minorities, immigrants, as well as Indigenous community members. So we do have some recommendations there about how to improve the experience for all of our residents."
Over the next few weeks, Crane will travel to the other municipalities across Huron and Perth to share area specific findings from the reports.
All the reports can be found on the United Way Perth-Huron website under research:
