“The best path out of poverty is a job,” Community Services (DCS) deputy minister Lynn Hartwell told a CBC reporter a couple of weeks ago. Sure, responds community legal worker Fiona Traynor. But it’s a stigmatizing thing to say when 60 to 70% of people on assistance are unable to work because of disabilities.
For years and years Community Services didn’t make an effort to find Joey Delaney a place away from the locked psychiatric ward at the Nova Scotia Hospital, even though there was no medical reason for him to be in that awful place. More testimony from the human rights enquiry.
When I have time I have been attending the Nova Scotia Human Rights enquiry into the lack of supportive community housing options for people with disabilities. These are the bits and pieces that I learned.
Kendall Worth, in his third open letter to Community Services minister Kelly Regan,makes a strong case for a disability allowance.
Finally we learn some details around the free bus pass for people on social assistance who live in HRM.
And another day at the human rights inquiry into the lack of supportive housing for people with disabilities. Two mothers talked about the horrors of institutionalization, in particular the circumstances at Quest in Lower Sackville. Wendy Lill mostly talked about policy issues relating to the disabilities roadmap, a government policy document written at that brief point in time when community advocates had some real hopes that things would get better, only to be disappointed once again.
Another day at the NS Human Rights Enquiry into the lack of supportive housing for people with disabilities. We learned that people conditionally discharged from the East Coast Forensic Hospital can’t leave because Community Services cannot provide them with the supportive housing options that they require. Waits can be longer than six years, averages are around 840 days.
Kendall Worth, on what to do when you don’t have anybody who cares enough to want to be your emergency contact. Nothing is ever easy when you’re poor.
Kendall Worth reports on yet another case where a Community Services case worker questions the opinions of a doctor about special diet requirements. We hear quite a bit about this happening.
We first met Sophia a couple of months ago, and did a Lives on Welfare story about her efforts to provide for her family while struggling with chronic pain. Here are more of Sophia’s memories about growing up on and off welfare. Unable to afford a computer, Sophia wrote this on her phone, because born story tellers like Sophia will always find a way.