The Central Alberta Poverty Reduction Alliance hosted a roundtable this morning, gathering information on ways to end poverty.
 
The information they gathered will now be sent to the Federal Government, to help develop a national poverty reduction strategy.
 
CAPRA Chair Lori Jack says nearly 6000 thousand families in Red Deer live in poverty, but there are things that can be done to change that.
 
"When someone is trying to get ahead, trying to break the inter-generational poverty, it's insurmountable. It's carrying debt, risk, hope and possibility, but that also comes with a lot of stress. If you can support children and families first and foremost, and that's the only population you worry about, you're more likely to break that inter-generational cycle."
 

Jack says they looked at everything from which groups should be the target of funding, to which government programs need improving.

 
"Sometimes it's delving deeper into the issues. What policies need to be moved around. We talked about guarunteed annual income, maybe that's a policy shift we need to see happen. That way more people may have a  better income level to meet their basic needs."
 
Jack says once they receive the final poverty reduction strategy from the federal government, they hope to develop and implement their own strategy locally.