Just Like Holidays, and The Summer Months , Regular Weekends can also be Socially Isolating for People living in Poverty, and On IA!
By Kendall Worth!
In the past I have written about what holidays are like for people on Income Assistance. For example see:
https://nsadvocate.org/tag/easter/ ,
https://nsadvocate.org/tag/christmas/ and https://nsadvocate.org/tag/thanksgiving/.
I have wanted to write about what a regular weekend is like for those on social assistance, especially those without family and community supports. Holidays come only once a year, though, so how would I decide what day to write and post about an “ordinary” weekend? Then, I heard a specific story about a weekend and thought NOW is the time to write about this topic.
When you look at how people, who are financially better off, spend their weekends, there is so much they can take an advantage of, that people living in poverty cannot. This article, has a lots of examples. When welfare recipients complain about their situation, which leads to lives of social isolation, they get advice, even from professionals like social workers and mental health professionals (who should know better), telling them that “Our lives outside of work is not always about things like going out to restaurants, bars, the movies, getting together with friends, etc either.” Of course there is always laundry and house work to do. However, considering that a weekend runs from Friday night through to Sunday night/Monday morning, and that this is anywhere from 48 hours to 72 hours, it is difficult to stay occupied by doing housework, and laundry, which only takes 2 to 4 hours. A minority do get an invite over to a friend or family member’s on a weekend or holiday, but they are not likely to get invited EVERY weekend. One major reason for that is because members of the financially-better-off-community sometimes have to use their weekends to weigh their own Work/Life Balance.
As readers of my articles in the NS advocate, or now on my blog will know, I never identify people who tell me their stories of being on social assistance, nor do I mention where they work for the same reason – there is still a lot of stigma attached to being on welfare and sometimes there is personal information that sources might not want revealed to the world. So I am not going to identify the person that I interviewed for this story. I have written many stories about stigma around those on welfare. You can see some of those here and here and here.
http://www.sarkarinaukrisearch.in/feeling-alone-images-free-download-for-girls/
The welfare recipient I recently interviewed, lets call him, CF, tells me about how he gets stigmatized by one of his co-workers on Monday morning’s for telling them that his weekend was spent alone (socially isolated) at home. The amount of his welfare cheque is determined by – what is now the $950.00 “Standard Household Rate”, plus special diets $81.00, and $40.00 for a telephone. Allowance? = $1071.00 and that is before earnings from employment are clawed back.
CF earns $320.00 every two weeks from his part-time employment, and that is his net pay from work. $320 x 2 = $640.00. At that rate a few dollars gets clawed back from his Income Assistance Cheque. CF gets to Keep the First $350.00 before anything in employment earnings get clawed back from his Income Assistance.
He pays $900.00 for rent, $135.00 a month for his power bill on budget billing, and $40.00 for his phone. So after paying $1075.00, that leaves him next to nothing for food and to come and go.
During the interview he said to me “Kendall, how can I tell her I did do something-else on the weekend, when:
Money was not in my budget for me to be going outside my apartment building attending any social activity that costs money.
For more on why a welfare recipient would use that excuse for having a socially isolated weekend at home see https://nsadvocate.org/2016/11/28/all-alone-kendall-worth-on-the-roots-of-isolation/ , https://nsadvocate.org/2017/01/04/kendall-worth-social-isolation-needs-our-attention-24 . These articles also suggest solutions to some social isolation problems.
Soup kitchen and drop-ins where people living in poverty go during the week are closed on weekends. (Margaret’s Place in Dartmouth is open)
On that same weekend, having no money in his budget for social activity, going to visit family members is not an option. His family wants nothing to do with him because they believe that his reliance on welfare is his own fault and other myths contributing to stigma against welfare recipients.
He wishes that he could make new friends. In this post, I touched on Social Prescriptions. I talk to some welfare recipients who tell me that they wish they had a way that they could socialize, on the weekends, when their usual affordable places, like soup kitchens, and drop ins, are closed. These people tell me they sit in their apartments thinking about how people are out there going shopping, visiting friends and family, inviting friends over to their homes, going to a bar for a drink, and more – the list goes on and on in the minds of income assistance recipients.
For the most part, people living on welfare cannot afford even to go for coffee or to a movie. There is Church on Sunday morning, if one is Christian and available to attend. It is an affordable way of “getting out” and socializing with people, however, Church isn’t for everybody (The question I raise here is “Why attend Church when Religion is not something you are interested in?) In the past I have also written about the fact that some welfare recipients attend AA meetings, not because they are alcoholics, but because they need that avenue to get out of their apartments and to socialize with people. (The question I raise here is “Why attend AA meetings when you are not an Alcoholic?”) People will also go to emergency rooms just for the human contact, without a real medical complaint. The answer for both of these questions (in brackets) is that it is because welfare recipients need to take advantage of anything affordable to get out of their apartments and socialize with others.
Recall I started with the individual who was stigmatized at work for not having a weekend social life. He tells me that his co-worker behaves like she does not hear the rationale that money is not in his budget on most weekends to attend social activities that cost money.
It is stories like this one that makes us have to create solutions for social isolation!!
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