Nova Scotia’s Community Health Centres want to be part of the solution
Community Health Centres in Nova Scotia are doing terrific work, way beyond the 15 minute face to face with a physician, yet stable government funding remains an issue.
Poverty
Kendall Worth: When on Income Assistance you just can’t win
Kendall Worth gives us an update on a young woman he wrote about earlier. Thankfully the harassment by a fellow tenant has stopped, but she lost some of her income assistance benefits. If we had a guaranteed basic income none of this would have happened, writes Kendall.
Sometimes you just need to listen: a letter about going to school hungry and exhausted
A letter from a substitute teacher somewhere in rural Nova Scotia. “A hungry stomach accentuates resentment and a sense of frustration; why worry about equations when your stomach is grumbling or you can feel the wind tug on your sweater, climb down your spine with every breeze?”
PSA: My Week on Welfare screening comes to Dartmouth. Share your voice!
BRAG (Benefits Reform Action Group) invites you to a free screening of the documentary “My Week on Welfare” in Dartmouth, om May 29. Watch the screening, and share your own stories.
PSA: Dalhousie Legal Aid wants your feedback on proposed poverty law course
Dalhousie Legal Aid Service is restarting its Legal Education for Advocates Project (LEAP), which is meant to help train advocacy workers in legal issues related to poverty law.
In an effort to gain a better view of the whole picture, we would like to reach out to the general community to figure out what legal issues people believe need to be addressed most with advocacy staff.
Kendall Worth: What people in power need to understand, an open letter to the Standing Committee on Community Services
Kendall Worth wrote an open letter explaining why people who are actually on social assistance need to be heard by members of the Standing Committee on Community Services.
Dental care for people on income assistance a bit of a horror story
The Income Assistance policy manual is brutally clear about when you qualify for dental care when you’re on welfare. Don’t bother looking for help if it doesn’t bleed, hurt, or stop you from getting a job. Preventative care isn’t even mentioned in the manual.
Kendall Worth: Lives on welfare – hopes and dreams
Kendall Worth, in his final story he wrote with Daryl and Darlene, talks about their dreams and the importance of having peer support with lived experience in the emergency room, to help people who come in with mental health issues.
Kendall Worth: Daryl and Darlene, two lives on welfare
Kendall Worth spends some more time with Daryl and Darlene, the two friends he featured in his Easter Miracle story. Part 3 to follow soon.
The case of the missing social assistance recipients
The number of people receiving income assistance in Nova Scotia has been steadily decreasing over the last 6 to 7 years, and the Department of Community Services doesn’t seem to know why that is.