Zenda's Story

Lets Call her Zenda!

By Kendall Worth!

I am not using Zenda’s real name to protect her from getting stigmatized for publicly advertising herself as a welfare recipient. Zenda, like many welfare recipients I have interviewed in the past, does not want her real name used. When people work part time, or attend school, or do volunteer work I do not disclose any of the details. In this story, you are going to learn about some of the multitude of factors that affect the way she lives, and are, of course, related to the ways that all people struggle on Income Assistance. Stories like hers strengthens the need for a Social Prescription Organization to get started in Nova Scotia. Zenda is currently unemployed and has been unemployed for the past 6 years or so. I met her about 4 weeks ago or so and interviewed her twice since originally meeting her.

Zenda gets the standard house hold rate of $950.00 plus the $40.00 telephone allowance = $990.00 a month. Considering that the $40.00 has to go directly onto her phone bill, means she only has $950.00 to live on. She can live life currently and is grateful for the fact that income assistance rates have climbed since she was first receiving it. When she first went on income assistance in 2019, the Income Assistance rate, for her first few months, was $810.00, but then in January 2020, it went up to $850.00, then $950.00 after Iran Rankin got in, in 2021. She was getting the $40.00 Telephone allowance the whole time.

 

From: https://www.change.org/p/the-honourable-premier-kathleen-wynne-join-the-raise-the-rates-campaign-to-raise-ow-odsp-and-minimum-wage-to-a-sustainable-income

Her rent is $550.00 and her landlord was planning to increase her rent to $900.00 just before the Liberal government (of the time) brought in rent control. She was thankful that rent control stopped that increase. However, she is currently getting warnings from her landlord that her rent will be increasing in 2023 when rent control is lifted. Her landlord plans to notify her next month (November 2022 as to what the new rent increase will be. ) He is warning that she should expect it to be higher than the $900.00 he originally suggested. . .If we pretend that her rent is $900.00 a month now, this means that she would only have $50.00 left over to pay power bill, for personal hygiene products, and food.

She currently pays $550.00 a month for rent plus $65.00 a month for power and $47 for the phone. She gets a $40 phone allowance. That gives her $367.00 tor everything else: Food, Personal Hygiene Products, Etc.

She tells she has been on the list for an affordable apartment, through the Metro Regional Housing Authority, for the last two years. However, she is told that it could take her 5 to 7 years to get a place through them, due to the current, long waiting list.

There have been times during her life on welfare she has with medical documentation, applied for the Special Diet Allowances because of a special diet her Doctor prescribed. However, Community Services would not accept the Doctors notes as written, and called to further question the Doctor. She ended not not getting approved for Special Diet allowances because her Doctor would not co-operate in answering further questions by, a non medically qualified, Income Assistance caseworker.

Zenda, as you can see, already does not have enough money to live on, and these days inflation is making life even harder for her to live, as the prices of essential goods increase. We had a conversation about inflation, during the interview. While interviewing her, I learned that over the past 6 years of being unemployed and on welfare she was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. 

 

Q – I Asked Zenda if she could tell me about herself and describe how she lives day to day on the limited amount of money from social assistance in Nova Scotia.

A - Kendall, I have never imagined, since I was a kid, that someday I would be on a system like the Employment Support and Income Assistance program in Nova Scotia. I have read through your articles both in the Nova Scotia Advocate and now on your current blog, and that is why I contacted you again. There are a multitude of things you talk about that are related to my own situation.

First – Even though I am currently unemployed, I have worked in the past. When I worked in the past, I was a health care worker and did home care. I left my employment with an agency at that time because I was getting sick, and got fed-up with the way the agency was treating me, and things they were expecting of me. I went on EI Sick Benefits for a while, and that ran out just before COVID.

Second -- Because my EI ran out, and I was already on welfare when COVID started, I did not qualify for CERB. Second – In some of your article you talk about Social Prescriptions, and, I think in cases like mine you are fighting for a great cause! Considering that I am only 36 years old at present and I am by my lonesome 95% of my time. This is the way that my life has been for the past 6 years, and COVID Lock-Downs/the life of public health restrictions , in the middle of this, added fuel to the fire.

Q – Is there anything you are able to do that gets you outside your apartment and socializing with people? (I told Zenda while asking this question that not every avenue in life of getting out of your apartment and being around people have expensive Registration fees and/or cost money. There ARE things you can do for free)

A - There are a couple of things I do to get out and at least try to have a life outside of my apartment. Just like the way you describe many welfare recipients in your articles, I am not friends with the people I meet through standing in line at the Food-Bank, and who I see when I go the Soup-Kitchens. I can only go to my Food-Bank once every 30 days, and I only go the Soup-Kitchens on days I really have to go. I do take advantage of the walking/hiking trails we have here in this city, but do the walking trails by-myself and my dream is I want to someday start having a group of friends who I can do those walking trails with. Doing the walking trails is free. I also have a church I attend on Sundays even though I am not Christian, nor interested in someday becoming Christian. I go because I need that free-of-charge avenue to get out and socialize with people/have some human contact in my life.

But there is a bit more to her story not covered above:

It turns out, as I learned, that just like many welfare recipients she does not keep in touch with most of her family and does not keep in touch with her past friends. Her dream in life is to start having a community of friends who she keeps in touch and socializes with. Each week is different, of course, but some week she is up to a full 5 day week of sitting at home and watching TV. Her Crohn’s Disease causes barriers to employment and if she was to go back to work she cannot do heavy lifting. She does dream about the day she will go back to work, but she has to look at what type of work she can handle going back to. Going back to doing Homecare is out of the question, she says. She also experiences minor anxiety issues from time to time. There is a story in-itself behind how she ended up in Nova Scotia, after leaving her homeland somewhere in the Caribbean, and while she is living in Nova Scotia, her mom ended up somewhere in the Unite States. She told me her mom used to keep in touch with her, but she has not heard from her mom in a few months. I learned that even in non-Covid times, being alone is how she celebrated holidays, including Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Etc. since she was in her later 20’s. She use to have a few friends when she was working but when she became unemployed, and then her life on welfare started, those folks ended the friendship with her because they believed in the stigma and myths about welfare recipients.

During the interview she mentioned that there have been times over the past 6 years, she has asked other people she knows through her church, if they would be interested in forming a group to go for walks on hiking trails, a couple of Saturdays a month. She told me that, like I said in this artcile, Sometimes people need their weekends for work/life balance. But for the past couple of years they behaved like they are at least interested in the idea.

She was thankful that during her first year on welfare, when she had to go into the hospital for surgery her Church Pastor made arrangements for his wife to drive her home from the hospital. It was good that she was able to access that arrangement made because otherwise her surgery would have been cancelled.

I just want to end this article by saying it is learning stories like Zenda’s that sometimes brings tears to your eyes about people lives on welfare.