Lisa Roberts: We need rent control and truly affordable non-market housing in Nova Scotia
NDP Housing spokesperson Lisa Roberts on the affordable housing crisis. “We hear regularly from people who are facing rent hikes in the hundreds of dollars.”
Poverty
Kendall Worth: My chat with Alec Stratford of the NS College of Social Workers
Kendall Worth meets with Alec Stratford of the NS College of Social Workers.They talk about income assistance, Community Services, and social isolation, among other things.
PSA: PUSH – What is really behind a global housing affordability crisis?
PSA: Around the world housing (and in Halifax!) affordability and communities are in crisis as residential real estate is now a financial commodity for wealth investments and pension funds valued at about 3 times the global GDP.
In Nova Scotia incomes for people on social assistance continue downward slide in 2018
The newest provincial welfare stats are in: In 2018 in Nova Scotia the very poor get poorer once again, and we continue to be the province with the lowest total incomes for people on social assistance.
Podcast: Fighting for the rights of low-wage workers in Halifax
Scott Neigh does such a wonderful job highlighting activist work all across Canada. Whenever his podcast Talking Radical touches upon Nova Scotia he generously allows the Advocate to share. Here is Scott talking about the Halifax Workers Action Centre with Sakura Saunders and NS Advocate writer Lisa Cameron.
Kendall Worth on the December blues
Remembrance Day is still a day of lonesomeness and social isolation for income assistance recipients, writes Kendall Worth. And worse, it’s also a reminder that Christmas is fast approaching, and the time leading up to Christmas is often not an easy time for people living in poverty.
Kendall Worth: Huge rent increases leave three tenants scrambling for shelter
Three separate tenants are all hit with huge rent increases that go in effect in March. They’re on welfare, they’re friends, and there’s no way they can afford to stay. “this is also a story that illustrates how the life of an income assistance recipient can at any time take a turn for the worse,” writes Kendall.
Kendall Worth: When family is nothing but bad news
Kendall Worth on the awfulness of being on welfare and dealing with close family members who attack you for it.
Period poverty, why it matters, and what needs to shift
Wherever there is poverty you will find period poverty, the inability to pay for menstrual products. And given Nova Scotia’s very high poverty rates, period poverty is a very much a concern here. I attended part of yesterday’s Period Poverty Summit to learn more.
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.