Kendall Worth reports how at times people on Income Assistance who have involuntary body behaviours like fidgeting or talking to themselves but are just minding their own business are being bothered by police or private security guards.”I recently learned of three people who had this happen to them in Halifax. As you will see, one of those three incidents ended up badly,” he writes.
Kendall Worth to Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development: Hopefully your plan will go a lot better and things to eliminate poverty will move faster. People living in poverty are suffering.
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?”
Kendall Worth on poverty, social isolation and anxiety, and New Year’s resolutions. “It is a well known fact that people do not keep resolutions they make at New Year’s. However when you do keep your New Year’s Resolutions you have achieved something great in life.”
Kendall Worth asks Santa to have a chat with Minister Kelly Regan about his wish list on behalf of all of Nova Scotia’s people on income assistance.
Kendall meets up with a young woman, at one time on income assistance, who continues to turn her life around. A touching story with a definite Christmas flavour.
Kendall on the challenges of Christmas parties. “They tell me that they wish they could just sleep the month of December away. It’s not because they don’t like Christmas, it’s because of all the things like this, that become complicated just because you are poor.”
Kendall sits down for coffee with Susan Leblanc, MLA for Dartmouth North. They discuss poverty, isolation, the EI clawbacks, and the benefits of a 24/7 drop-in centre.
Kendall Worth shows once again how what most people would consider simple problems are often almost insurmountable obstacles for people on income assistance. Poverty, stigma and isolation make many things much more complicated.
Our correspondent Kendall Worth attended one of the welfare transformation meetings organized by Community Services, and he came back disappointed.