When the “head of the family” gets suspended from receiving income assistance for punitive reasons, the entire family suffers. A recent case went all the way to the NS Court of Appeal where lawyers argued this goes against Charter values and international agreements Nova Scotia signed off on.
Homelessness, housing in bad repair and malnutrition can make you sick, both physically and mentally. Yet when we talk about healthcare we rarely talk about addressing root causes and mostly focus on things like wait lists and doctor shortages. Although tremendously important issues, we should not forget about these social determinants of health, says regular contributor Alex Kronstein.
Everything is harder when you’re poor and by yourself, and needing surgery, including eight weeks of rest to recover, often is a major source of stress. Who is going to go to the food bank for you? How about the laundry? And what about the loneliness? Kendall Worth reports on his meeting with a woman who is facing this scary scenario.
In a recent talk at a community meeting on welfare, Fiona Traynor, a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid raised the alarm about the state of income assistance in Nova Scotia. Cuts to allowances and an increase in poor bashing have her worried.
In that speech Traynor also called for a strategic push back against the Community Services welfare transformation initiative, something we are told will change the way income assistance is delivered, but that has otherwise been low on details. We talked with Traynor late last week to further explore these issues.
Last night’s screening of Jackie Torrens’ terrific My Week on Welfare was a great success. Lots of people, and more importantly, lots of new faces. It is wonderful to witness people on welfare realize that yes, things are terrible, but there are others like them who aren’t going to take it anymore. We have lots of pictures, and the talk by regular contributor Tim Blades on being on welfare in general, and the extra struggles faced by single mothers who receive child support.
Kendall Worth, chair of the Benefits Reform Action Group, is happy the former minister of Community Services Joanne Bernard is gone. Here is why.
I am still getting used to the idea that Joanne Bernard is now the former Minister of Community Services, soundly beaten in Dartmouth North by NDP candidate Susan Leblanc. Her awful record on welfare issues played a large part in her defeat. So for poor people, what’s next in the fight for a life in dignity?
Just in time for the provincial election Alex Kronstein continues his investigation of the social determinants of health with a look at education and early childhood development. This is very important stuff.
On Saturday people on income assistance and their friends marched through North Dartmouth, the constituency of Community Services minister Joanne Bernard, and rallied near her campaign headquarters at the Dartmouth Shopping Centre. “I would tell Bernard, please have pity on us, treat us like human beings, that is all we want,” said one of the protesters.
A group of anti-poverty activists is organizing a rally and march in North Dartmouth, the constituency of Joanne Bernard, the current minister of Community Services. They hope to raise awareness of the many difficulties people on income assistance face under the current welfare system.