Kendall Worth: Community Services transformation is getting back up
Kendall Worth hears that the welfare transformation project at Community Services is starting up again, and people in his community have lots of questions.
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Kendall Worth: Income Assistance transformation delivered next to nothing of what it promised
Kendall Worth: It is safe to say that the ESIA transformation is a major broken promise by our current Liberal government because even though some change has happened, the change that happened was very little.
Your welfare transformation isn’t helping me! Tim Blades speaks truth to power at meeting with Community Services
I end my presentation with one request, Ms Knight; Hear what I am saying, look at these examples, and tell me that I am better off.”
Last Friday several members of the Benefit Reform Action Group (BRAG) met with managers at Community Services, at the department’s invitation. Tim Blades was sick and couldn’t make it, but fellow BRAG member Jodi Brown read his letter on his behalf. The letter is addressed to Joy Knight, who is the department’s director of Employment Support Services. Tim tells it as it is.
Vince Calderhead: The income assistance transformation means worse outcomes for everybody
At last night’s screening of My Week on Welfare in Dartmouth, g=human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead talked about how the much-hyped transformation did not at all make things better for people on income assistance and his fear that special needs allowances will be next.
He also tackles the subject of tactics, don’t waste your time trying to convince bureaucrats, he says.
Kendall Worth: Still waiting for the social assistance transformation
Kendall Worth finds it difficult not to get frustrated with Community Services’ lack of progress in making things better for people on Income Assistance.
Kendall Worth: Let’s see some real transformation for people on social assistance after hearing about it for five years or so
Kendall Worth on the Community Services transformation project: “We understand things don’t happen overnight. However the length of time this transformation has been taking to date is concerning and frustrating to people in the community. Right now we are five years into the transformation and very few problems for people who depend on this system have gotten resolved. Why is the length of this transformation process taking so long for people to see positive results?”
Community Services transformation: No lack of spin during info sessions
Recently Community Services organized a series of info sessions to provide an update to stakeholders on the ESIA transformation. I couldn’t go of course, since I am merely a grouchy old journalist and not a stakeholder. But I talked to a few anti-poverty advocates, and this is what I found out.
We need to force them to tell us exactly what their plans are — Fiona Traynor on welfare transformation
In a recent talk at a community meeting on welfare, Fiona Traynor, a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid raised the alarm about the state of income assistance in Nova Scotia. Cuts to allowances and an increase in poor bashing have her worried.
In that speech Traynor also called for a strategic push back against the Community Services welfare transformation initiative, something we are told will change the way income assistance is delivered, but that has otherwise been low on details. We talked with Traynor late last week to further explore these issues.
Kendall Worth on welfare transformation: proposed grouping by ability a pretty scary thing
Kendall Worth, who is on social assistance, continues his review of the welfare changes that Community Services is working on. People on welfare will be pigeonholed according to their skills and ability to work, and that’s a scary idea, he writes.
Kendall Worth on welfare transformation consultation: First voices not heard
Kendall Worth, who knows all too well what it is like to be on social assistance, is puzzled about the results of the so-called First Voice consultation conducted by Community Services. “Clients I personally talk to tell me that they got depressed and gave up.”