“Everyone is feeling the effects of the economic downturn in some way. Families are becoming more stressed and as a child welfare agency we see firsthand the effects of joblessness, underemployment, poverty and hopelessness on the community and families,” said Anne Rappé, Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto spokesperson. “Frustration and lack of hope can lead to depression, substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse and neglect.”

“Our first and foremost priority is going to be to continue to look after the young people we serve, who turn to us and rely on us for help,” said Covenant House spokesperson Rose Cino. Ninety to 120 homeless young people sleep at the Covenant House shelter in downtown Toronto every night.

Church-based charities are praying that the Ontario government includes the poor in its plan to combat the recession. Religious leaders and volunteers will be on the front lawn of Queen’s Park beginning Feb. 25 praying for the Members of Provincial Parliament and for a provincial budget that helps the poor. The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition — which includes major Catholic agencies, the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Ontario section of the Canadian Religious Conference — is organizing two shifts a day to maintain the vigil until mid-March, when the provincial budget is widely expected.

ISARC and most of the church agencies are members of the 25-in-5 Poverty Reduction Network. 25-in-5 would put dollars in those prayers, including a $100 Healthy Food Supplement to help adults on social assistance, a housing benefit aimed at low-income renters, increasing the Ontario Child Benefit to $92-a-month in 2009 and $125-a-month in 2010, 7,500 new affordable child care spaces and quick action to match federal infrastructure money for more affordable housing announced in the federal budget in January.

The 25-in-5 blueprint for fighting the recession with programs and infrastructure to help the poor would cost $2.4 billion in 2009 and $2.6 billion in 2010.

Combined with a raise in the minimum wage to $11 an hour by 2011, the 25-in-5 plan would get the provincial government three-quarters of the way to its goal to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent in the next five years, according to 25-in-5.

Besides reducing child poverty, the 25-in-5 plan would provide quick stimulus to the economy by directing money into the pockets of the people most likely to spend it and by hiring people to build housing and child care centres, according to the network.

From Good Shepherd Ministries to the School Sisters of Notre Dame , many church agencies are among the 240 signatories to the “Recession Relief Fund Declaration.” Aimed at the federal government, the campaign for a recession relief fund is trying to head off government belt-tightening that ends up hurting the poor. Among other things, the coalition sponsoring the declaration wants the federal government to double existing funding to the Homelessness Partnerships Initiative.

At the Good Shepherd Centre in downtown Toronto, they’ve been serving meals and helping homeless and addicted people find housing and dignity through good times and bad for two generations. They’re going to continue whether there’s a recession or not, said executive director Br. David Lynch of the Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd .

“When you live your life reliant on divine providence, fear is one of those things replaced by faith,” said Lynch. “I have every confidence that our ministry will continue. If we are about our Father’s business, it’s really His responsibility.”

That doesn’t mean the provincial government can’t play a role.

“I don’t know how the provincial government is going to follow on from the feds, but one of the big shortages in a big place like Toronto is housing. I know there was some federal money announced in the budget for the first time in a long time for social housing. I’m hoping the province will follow through,” said Lynch.

The last recession in the early 1990s taught the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto just how seriously an economic downturn affects struggling families. Fifteen years ago the CCAS saw a 25-per-cent jump in demand for child protection services.

While poverty doesn’t necessarily translate into child abuse, “there is a strong link between poverty and abuse,” said Rappé.

There’s also added pressure in Canada’s biggest city.

“We knew even before the recent downturn that the GTA is the poverty capital of Ontario,” Rappé said.

At Covenant House 80 per cent of its funding comes from private sources. That means the youth shelter is less involved in lobbying governments than some other agencies, but it doesn’t mean Covenant House isn’t looking to government to maintain programs to stem the tide of young people turning up on Toronto’s streets.

“Keeping those safety nets when people are under pressure is going to be important,” said Cino.

“Given the economy, financial pressures putting more stresses on families, it (a recession) can mean there are more youth at risk.”

Baric German of Toronto’s Street Health looks at the prospect of more homeless as the economy goes south and sees parallels with the 1930s.

“Higher unemployment means for us, just this sector, a new flow of homeless people with already inadequate service for them,” he said.