17 groups and individuals have signed off on a letter demanding that the Department of Community Services raise income assistance rates quickly and substantially. The loose coalition also wants real input in the secretive Community Services transformation.
Not news by any means, but noteworthy nonetheless. Newly released Statistics Canada data show that Nova Scotia’s wealthiest 20% control six times the wealth of the bottom 60%.
A new CCPA report takes a very close look at the sad picture of child poverty in Halifax. It contains information you likely didn’t know about your community or neighborhood. For instance, Spryfield has a child poverty rate of 40%, and in rural Nova Scotia North Preston (40%), East Preston (38.9), and Sheet Harbour (26.1%) lead the pack. Meanwhile, Fall RIver has a child poverty rate of a mere 3.9%.
Anti-poverty activist Kendall Worth on the many hurdles faced by people on income assistance if they choose to live together, either to save money and have a bit of companionship, or for romantic reasons. When you’re poor you just can’t win.
The headline says it all. Another 2016 census story, this time about unemployment and poverty among African Nova Scotians. The numbers are bad, much worse in fact than almost anywhere else in Canada.
The Canada Mortage and Housing Corp. published its annual rent survey, and the news for Nova Scotia and Halifax renters isn’t very good. Rents went up, vacancy rates went down. In Halifax vacancy rates haven’t been as low since 2003.
Frequent contributor and anti-poverty activist Kendall Worth reports on the case of a woman who gets harassed by a neighbour in her apartment building and neither her landlord nor the police are willing to put a stop to it. Because she is on welfare she can’t just pack up her stuff and move. She may well end up homeless as a result, she says.
Recent changes to the Child and Family Service Act have made the fight against child poverty even more difficult, writes Alec Stratford, executive director of the NS College of Social Workers. Shortened judicial timelines, the expansion of the definition of neglect and the overall lack of resources have amounted to greater penalization of families struggling to afford the cost of housing, food, childcare, clothing and transportation.
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In Nova Scotia over one in five children under the age of 18 live in poverty. For children under the age of six it’s more like one in three. Dr. Lesley Frank and Dr. Christine Saulnier, authors of this year’s Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia reflect on some of the reports disturbing findings, and offer their thoughts on what should be done.
Lots of rented homes and apartments in Nova Scotia need major repairs. That’s what occupants of these homes told Statistics Canada. We have the numbers and we have the maps.