“Cape Breton was a mess this weekend,” writes Lisa Bond, referring to the many emergency room closures last weekend. “I called and left messages for you leading up to it in hopes that something would be done, but alas, I heard nothing back from you.”
More people who live with disabilities are unemployed, and that opens the door to all kinds of exploitation. Throw some preconceptions about these workers in the mix (so loyal, so productive, menial jobs only) and what we end up with is a complicated mess, writes Alex Kronstein.
Solidarity Halifax asks us not to forget about the Black janitors who worked at Founders Square and were fired when the cleaning contract was flipped by Armour Group. Here is something we can do, friends.
Poverty activist Kendall Worth reminds people attending the Halifax May Day celebration that the desire for dignity and a half decent life is as real and as urgent for people on social assistance as it is for all working people.
How can it be that just last week, two officers from the best trained force in the country, the RCMP, resorted to kicking, tasering, name-calling, and punching an unarmed girl in her bedroom?
All you ever wanted to know about offshore drilling but were afraid to ask, courtesy of the folks at the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia. Our longest read ever, but also one of our most important ones.
Roving reporter and anti-poverty advocate Jodi Brown meets up with Crystal, a public housing tenant in Halifax who has a sad and way too common story to tell about public housing waiting lists.
The Nova Scotia Advocate, in yet another bad business decision, commits to featuring (at least) one poem each month, for the next six months for sure, and hopefully for eternity. We pay, and we’re looking for submissions. Please help us spread the word.
An outside consultant found that City Hall offers a terrible workplace environment for people who are Black, queer or female. This is not a personnel issue, this is about the occurrence of structural racism, homophobia and misogyny at our very own City Hall. We own that problem, and we need to be able to see for ourselves what our councillors are doing to fix it.
Another episode in our series Lives on Welfare where people living in poverty tell their stories: Things went relatively well for Emma, a mother who lives with her daughter in a town an hour or so away from Halifax. Then she got sick, lost her job, and ended up on social assistance. Then her daughter also got sick.