News release: CSEP is disappointed that the government has decided to stick with their proposed 5% welfare rate increase for people with disabilities or those fleeing abuse (S.45 clients) and 2% for everyone else. “We are also very disappointed that the SHR and the increases will not come into effect until January 2020” said Stella Lord.
News release: On Budget Day, Tuesday March 26th at noon, outside of the legislature, members and supporters of the Benefits Reform Action Group will be gathering for an Empty Plate Luncheon. There are 155,000 people in Nova Scotia living below the poverty line (Market Basket Measure). The 250 plates that will be on display will each represent 650 Nova Scotians who cannot afford the basic goods needed to live in this province.
The Disability Rights Coalition is collecting signatures to an open letter to Premier Stephen McNeil, asking his government to stop warehousing people with disabilities and focus on investing in community living options instead. Alternatively, the group is asking people who are institutionalized and/or waiting for a community living space to file an individual human rights complaint.
We talk with an older woman on income assistance who, as a result of a cut to her special needs allowance, has lost her ability to go to medical appointments and grocery trips. But we saved the tax payer some $50 a month. This is what austerity looks like in Nova Scotia.
Kendall Worth raises the alarm about an unusually high number of income assistance clients who have seen their shelter allowances cut.
NS Human Rights Board chair Walter Thompson ruled that the Nova Scotia government has indeed discriminated against Beth MacLean, Sheila Livingstone and Joey Delaney, three people who were institutionalized against their will. When I first heard the news I thought it was a wonderful victory. Now that I have read the decision I think it mostly sucks, but it isn’t all bad.
Here is why.
Kendall Worth on annual reviews, the stress, the humiliation, and the importance of staying calm, cool and collected. Bring a friend or an advocate, he says.
“If we care for our children and friends who live with disabilities, we need to broaden our horizons beyond the school. We need to come to terms with the fact that families with members with disabilities are trapped in an ableist society, one which is also deeply heterosexist, racist and classed,” writes Nancy Spina..
The Department of Community Services continues to penalize family members, including children, for actions that are entirely out of their control. And it does so despite a Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruling that called the practice unfair.
Kendall Worth finds it difficult not to get frustrated with Community Services’ lack of progress in making things better for people on Income Assistance.