Letter: The staff at Out of the Cold (OTC) would like to strongly voice our support for Halifax Mutual Aid (HMA), for the hard work they have volunteered towards constructing and installing crisis shelters for people experiencing homelessness.
When income assistance recipients ask how soon they can expect to receive the COVID vaccine, the answer they get is, “Oh, maybe by July, August, or September. Income assistance recipients are saying that they have been isolated from their social contacts long enough, but if we have to prepare for these extra few months then we got no choice.
A Halifax mutual aid group has been building and distributing small crisis shelters for people with nowhere warm to sleep. The response of the municipality and some of the city councillors has been disappointing, writes Solidarity Kjipuktuk – Halifax, and the group offers some suggestions of things that could have been said instead.
Brenda Thompson: “Last week the lack of concern over the issues of homeless and poverty by our federal, provincial and municipal governments resulted in the tragic and needless death of a young woman in the Annapolis Valley. A woman quietly died of carbon monoxide poisoning while her boyfriend has suffered serious injuries.”
What’s with this rule that says a crisis shelter must be occupied the moment it’s installed? Are empty crisis shelters allowed now, yes or no? Councillors take to Twitter and leave everybody confused.
The secretive sale of the former Bloomfield Centre shows once again that stopping gentrification and creating affordable housing is not a priority in this city, or indeed, this province.
Abbie Lepage: “Representation matters. If you can see it, you can be it. So why is it that despite health professionals widely agreeing about the importance of breast feeding representations of breastfeeding in the local media are so scarce?”
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.
The Home Energy Assistance Top-up (HEAT) Fund supports Nova Scotians in need with home heating cost during the winter months. For over 20 years, this program has helped keep thousands of individuals and families across Nova Scotia warm during the winter.
Free voice mail is like a ‘phone without a phone’. People can have a life line for maintaining contact with potential landlords, employers, service providers, health professionals, friends and family.