Peaceful protest at Burnside jail: Conditions must change!
Prisoners in the U.S. have called a strike from August 21st-September 9th. The prisoners from Burnside have joined the protest. Here is their statement.
Poverty
Kendall Worth: Poverty and staying healthy and fit
Kendall Worth: Wouldn’t it be great if Community Services were to support people on income assistance who want to exercise and get fit?
Bad reporting: Criminalizing clients may well endanger Cape Breton sex workers
Cape Breton Regional Police (CBRP) have charged eighteen men with communicating for the purpose of obtaining sexual services in Sydney, Cape Breton, the Chronicle Herald and the Cape Breton Post report. As usual, police is quoted extensively, and sex workers are never asked how they feel about it.
Kendall Worth: More special diet blues
Anti-poverty activist Kendall Worth on five income assistance recipients who all lost their special diets in the last little while, even though their medical doctors told Community Services that the diet was medically necessary. What to do?
Alec Stratford: Nova Scotia’s income assistance changes lack empathy
Alec Startford: “The recent changes to the Income Assistance Program are embedded in a traditional worldview that poverty is largely the result of an individual deficit, that people need to work harder to join the workforce, and for those who can’t work, we feel sympathy for their suffering and we want to relieve the pain. The grounding principle in this worldview is that the free market is the best and most efficient way to alleviate poverty. Where it can’t the social welfare system will provide remedial services to relieve suffering.”
PSA: YWCA Halifax position on proposed Halifax smoking by-law
The YWCA Halifax has issued a statement about the Halifax smoking ban, an they don’t mince words. “The proposed smoking by-law will disproportionately affect Halifax’s Black, Indigenous, homeless, and poor citizens. It is, in effect, a social policy whose outcome is to criminalize the poor and increase scrutiny and risk into their lives.”
Kendall Worth: A phone, just like a bus pass, is a basic necessity
Kendall Worth on the difficulties of searching for a job without a phone, and why a phone is a basic necessity for a person on income assistance.
Community Services trounced once again in Nova Scotia Court of Appeal
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal has ruled that Community Services cannot refuse to pay a welfare recipient for suitable housing just because the rent exceeds the shelter allowance. We talk to Dalhousie Legal Aid lawyer lawyer Claire McNeil, who argued the case, and community legal aid worker Fiona Traynor, about the scope of this milestone decision.
Community Services saves millions on social assistance payments
Community Services spent $3.5 million less on social assistance payments than budgeted. Social assistance recipients continue to live well below the poverty line.
Kendall Worth: Celebrating life is a right, not a privilege
On the occasion of his birthday, Kendall ponders how celebrating life’s milestones is a right, not a privilege, and also suggests a way people might watch world cup soccer games without paying hefty cable fees.