New contributor Fara Spence profiles Ruby, an older woman living with severe arthritis and unable to work she had to turn to Community Services after her husband left her. ““Looking back, I was naive. I always thought Community Services would be…I don’t know, happy to help.”
Lately several people have told me that welfare in Nova Scotia is beyond repair. Here I want to challenge that notion, because it is both nonsense and a bit dangerous.
The state of public housing in Nova Scotia at times is terrible. There is no other way to describe it. Last week I drove to Sheet Harbour and met Brent and Donna, very nice people who deserve better than having to call and call again for somebody to deal with a backed up septic tank, or to have mould simply spray painted over. We hear these stories a lot, and we go check them out when we can.
Six weeks without benefits is the harsh punishment meted out by Community Services to people on social assistance who don’t engage in employability activities, things like missing an appointment or not showing up for a training course. We meet Kate, who got hit with the six week cut off when she was forced to quit her job when her son got very sick. And through a Freedom of Information request we find out that it happens to hundreds of social assistance recipients each year. Some of them are innocent family members who did nothing wrong.
As the stories of Donna and Leslie show, when you are on social assistance your caseworker makes all the difference. It’s very hard when your caseworker is not there for you, writes long time poverty advocate Brenda Thompson. “Just as caseworkers evaluate their clients on an annual basis, clients also must be permitted to evaluate their caseworkers on a regular basis on criteria such as as their treatment of the clients, their knowledge of resources, and their willingness to be true advocates and go to bat for their client.”
Kendall Worth’ short letter about people on social assistance being harassed by members of their community who don’t know the realities of lives on welfare from a hole in the ground.
In Nova Scotia, when you apply for social assistance you had better have some money set aside, because this is going to cost you. It’s a logistical nightmare as well. Brenda Thompson takes a close look at all that is required, and she does the math. Remember, people who apply for social assistance tend to be broke. That’s why they are applying….
There is no money for people on social assistance in yesterday’s Liberal budget. That kind of a mean spirited attitude doesn’t bode well for the secretive welfare transformation project the department has been working on since 2015.
Kendall Worth on the need to raise the rates, and other demands now that the legislature will be sitting again on September 21.
Members of the Benefits Reform Action Group (BRAG), anti-poverty activists with a focus on Nova Scotia’s heartless welfare regime, spent an entire day talking about strategy and big pictures.