We revisit the story of Mike Foley, the single father pursued by Community Services and the RCMP for fraud charges that advocates consider dubious. After months of inaction Foley received another phone call from the RCMP informing him that the investigation of ‘fraud’ is on again. Meanwhile, a terrified Foley and daughter Ashley continue to get by with very little money and no medications.
Kendall Worth lately has been hearing a lot of stories about special diet allowances being cut and unpleasant annual reviews. Lives on welfare are getting harder, and he doubts that the welfare transformation will make things better..
Frequent contributor Kendall Worth relates the story of a young man who desperately needs support from Community Services, but can’t get it for a bunch of seemingly bureaucratic reasons.
After the defeat of Joanne Bernard we now have a new minister of Community Services in Kelly Regan. Kendall Worth, frequent contributor and chair of the Benefits Reform Action Group, wrote this open letter to tell her what’s wrong with the department in terms of income assistance, and how to fix it.
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.
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.
Some residents of Emerald Hall,a locked psychiatric ward in the Nova Scotia Hospital, have no reason to be there, except for it being a convenient solution for the province. Their human rights case is crawling along because Community Services is using stalling tactics, a community living advocate charges.
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?