This weekend video actually started as a story published in the Nova Scotia Advocate, written by a mother who wanted to tell how being on welfare affected her and her children, the stigma she faced, and how it can happen to anyone.
Caring for a child is work, but society doesn’t seem to see it that way. “Single parents on welfare are often portrayed as lazy or ‘getting a free ride’; as though their children effortlessly raise themselves,” writes new contributor Lenore Hemming. “It’s interesting that our society only views child care as valuable if it is someone else’s child.”
Today is frequent contributor Kendall Worth’ birthday, which leads him to reflect on birthday celebrations of poor people. He asked, and this is what he heard. “Kendall as much as we would love to celebrate our birthdays the same way ordinary people do, we can’t. Life is just not normal for us because of our income level we live on.”
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.
We talked to newly elected Dartmouth North MLA Susan Leblanc about her experiences going door to door in low-income neighborhoods.
A new minister for Community Services, but we predict that nothing will change. Low key and polite advocacy hasn’t been able to stop the decades-long downward slide of income assistance rates. Time to try something else.
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.