Changing 6.1.8 of the ESIA Policy Manual. Solving problems!
By Kendall Worth!
This is BLOG post Part 2 , you can see Part I here.
There would be a great advantage if Income Assistance Recipients could live their lives free from institutional discouragement – for wanting to pursue a meaningful and supportive romantic relationship with another person. $950 a month is what Income Assistance in N.S. provides and that is reduced substantially if you live in any sort of financial relationship with another person, as was explained in detail in Part I. That is because of the impact of 6.1.8 of the policy manual.
I believe, it is safe to say, 90% of this better off population are married, or live common – law. At the very least, even if single, they live without “welfare stigma”, that keeps people from developing close friends and relationships. That lack of a social life, results in severe problems – one of them is around healthcare. And I have written about the problem, many times before. Here is just one example.
When day surgery (or returning home from any surgery) is scheduled, the hospital often requires someone be there to pick up the patient, and accompany them home. When financially secure people have to go to the hospital for day surgery, (or ,really, any surgery) they usually have a partner or a close friend who cares enough about the working person to help them, and ensure that their surgery does not cancelled.
People on social assistance who often live lives of social isolation and have few friends and no partner, sadly have their surgeries cancelled too often because they have no one to accompany them. Two major factors lead to this:
#1 – Even though I do not have exact statistics, it is safe to say that at least 70% to 80% of Income Assistance recipients are single but also do not have good relationships with people, whether family members or past friends- because of the stigma of being friends with someone on social assistance.
#2 – I want to point out that say that the 10% of the population of financially better off, working population who are single and live alone, often have no problem finding someone to volunteer to accompany them home from the hospital. Whether it is a family member, a good friend taking a vacation day if need be, or any available good friend.
So, if Section 6.1.8 of the ESIA policy was changed, it would allow an income assistance recipient to be in a supportive relationship, which is currently discouraged by charging a financial penalty. There are many benefits to that – but in this case would mean that they have someone in their lives to accompany them home from day surgery, and have someone in their lives that cares enough to stop their surgery from being cancelled!
So eliminating 6.1.8 would assist in reducing social isolation, which would allow you to have a partner, and that alone would reduce social isolation.
But changing that section also has other benefits. The financially better off do not have to worry as much, about spending money on social activities. This means that they have opportunities to make friends. When they return home from work at the end of the shift, and on weekends and holidays, they return home to their partners, and many to families with kids. Most IA recipients are NOT returning home to partners or kids. In the eyes of the community of people I advocate for, the financially better off, also have better social supports, and do not suffer as much from social isolation. When welfare recipients return home from their day t (whether it is returning home from standing in line at the food-bank, attending a soup kitchen, or, in some cases returning home from working at a part-time job, they are lucky enough to have to supplement their income) they return home to the life of being single, and alone, meaning their life of loneliness and social isolation.
For previous stories about this see: https://nsadvocate.org/tag/day-surgery
I want to end this article by saying that overall, changing 6.1.8 of the ESIA policy would do a lot to address things that happen in the Income Assistance recipient's life that encourages social isolation. I have talked a lot in the past about how social isolation needs to be addressed, but so far there is little being done to improve the situation.
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