Video reporter Jodi Brown visits the mother of a terminally ill six-year old son, who was kicked of social assistance and told to repay over $30,000 in payments Community Services claims she should not have received. The mother is denying the allegations and fighting her case in court. Meanwhile the family can’t make ends meet and is facing eviction.
Kendall Worth sits down for coffee with three Income Assistance clients who are terrified of their annual review, mostly because they feel their caseworker is needlessly adversarial and disrespectful. Why have an annual review when you know your disability isn’t going to go away, Kendall wonders.
A monthly budget of $56 per month for a mother and her kids on social assistance, how can that be? Jodi Brown does the math.
This is Kendall’s second open letter to Community Services minister Kelly Regan. Turns out there were a couple of issues he forgot to raise. “Something I want to bring to your attention in this letter is something I wrote about how caseworkers get away with behaving like they are medical professionals when it comes to approving special diets. It is also this part of the ESIA policy that sets the stage for caseworkers further questioning doctors about the medical documentation that clients provide.”
It is terribly important that we support the few people in Nova Scotia who are on welfare and/or live in public housing who speak out publicly about the conditions they face, not only for what they have to tell us, but also for the simple act of saying it. They are examples and inspirations, what they do is crucial. Jodi Brown is one of these people, and this Weekend’s Video is about her unexpected encounter with both welfare and public housing. One day you have a job, then you get sick, next thing you have $56 grocery money for an entire month.
Why do you have to pay a fee month after month for an unlisted number, Kendall Worth asks. For many people privacy is not a luxury, it is a necessity and a safety issue. Yet unlisted numbers are expensive. Adding to the problems is that Community Services seldom picks up the bill, meaning that for people on welfare it has to come out of their tiny food budget.
Long-time anti poverty activist Brenda Thompson read about the surplus in last year’s Community Services’ income assistance budget, and she doesn’t like it.
A penny saved is a penny earned, says Community Services, as the department closed its 2016-17 financial books with a $2,4 million surplus in its Employment Support and Income Assistance (ESIA) program. That news may be difficult to stomach for people on welfare who struggled to make ends meet and saw their bus passes taken away or special diet allowances cut back over that same year.
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.
New contributor Lucy MacDonald knows all about homelessness and living in shelters. Community Services is actually fostering homelessness rather than solving it with is impractical rules and inadequate shelter allowances, she says.