The United Way Perth Huron (UWPH) is inviting people to sign up for its United Insights blog.
CEO Ryan Erb said it can be hard to get data that's hyper local regarding things like homelessness rates or food insecurity, for example, and the totally free blog run by United Way's Social Research and Planning Council (SRPC) works to provide people with numbers relevant to the area.
"What we do is we have some local volunteers that help write these posts, as well as our staff team at the United Way, and between that we end up sharing fantastic information about what's happening in the community," Erb explained.
Erb added it's free to subscribe, and it's important to know what's happening in our own backyard.
"When we learn about the issues in our community, we can make better decisions about how we use the money that we have, so United Way certainly does that with the money that we get and based on the research we haver locally. But it really helps people understand locally 'Okay, that really is a social issue,'" he said.
The blog has shown data that predicted issues like housing would become a problem locally, and it's important to know and understand the challenges unique to the area.
"A few years ago none of us would have believed that housing and homelessness was going to become a problem. But I can show you reports that we wrote a few years ago that was pointing to that, right? So we've been working hard around that issue and now of course, everybody sees it every day, right? So it's important to know what's happening with respect to that and many other social challenges in our area," Erb added.
You can sign up for the free United Insights blog by visiting perthhuron.unitedway.ca, where you can also submit pitches for research topics.
The blog is available on the UWPH website and as a subscription newsletter. It features new work by the SRPC team as well as contributions from volunteers. That includes the Painting by Numbers series by Robert Stanton, which explores the possibilities of publicly available data, and a series on youth homelessness by social policy consultant Cassandra Vink. Some of the posts in development focus on the local workforce, incorporating Indigenous practices into service delivery and the unique aspects of rural life.
"The blog lets us connect with interested readers on an ongoing basis," said Kristin Crane, VP, Community Impact and Research. "In between our major research projects, we’re always investigating issues. The blog lets us share that with the community more broadly."
