By Kendall Worth!
Today, January 1st, I am writing this as 2023 officially begins. The Community of people living in poverty, as a whole (persons with disabilities included), are calling 2023 a year with a lot of work to be done. My community started 2023 off with hopes and dreams that solutions will be found to solve the many problems of their lives day to day to day. These hopes and dreams (which are also demands!) include:
Hoping the day comes that the Standard Household Rate of welfare at $950 a month, in Nova Scotia, will be substantially increased.
Hoping that the increasing homeless population will slowly start to decrease and that more affordable housing will become available.
Hoping for inflation to get controlled and to start seeing a decrease in the cost of groceries.
Hoping that in Nova Scotia, there are changes to the Employment Support and Income Assistance Program, eliminating bureaucratic nonsense and Systemic problems.
Hoping for a something like a Social Prescription Program becoming available in Nova Scotia.
Hoping to start/join a union of people living in poverty.
The way we see it now -- in the eyes of People Living in Poverty, Persons with Disabilbites, and Advocates:
The issues we have been experiencing in 2022, inflation out of Control and the continued increase in the homeless population are not going to resolve themselves in 2023.
Also in 2023 we cannot forget how slowly the federal government moved, in 2022, to pass Bill C22. The reality is this bill did not pass before parliament broke for winter.
A whole year or more has passed and there were no new public announcements about the Employment Support and Income Assistance Transformation.
Even though we did see a one-time $150.00 in relief following Hurricane Fiona and the more recent one-time $250.00 relief for Income Assistance recipients, the Tim Houston PC Government continues to express no intention to increase the Income Assistance rates.
2023 is the year we cannot mess around, and work needs to begin ASAP.
The following tweet proves this point!
This post illustrates the achievements that are needed in 2023. The principal goal is Quality of Life Improvement. However, with Inflation on the rise and with extra money not coming in to help with inflation, we see no great potential for people to improve their quality of life. In that same post, I pointed out how when Government does nothing, it puts more pressure on the community. It is community organizations like the Food Banks, the Soup-Kitchens, churches and other Drop-ins for people living in poverty, that report feeling this pressure the most. Those are just some factors we have to think about when it comes to the need of organizing a campaign.
This tweet shows there is support for a Union of people living in poverty to get up and running!
This post illustrates how a union of people living in poverty can work.
In this post I ask the question Is the ESIA transformation still happening? Then, in this post, I talk about one problem that people are still having with Income Assistance.
Here is a tweet from Community Services from summer 2022.
Some people ask me if the Department of Community Services has even been in touch with me about updating on the ESIA Transformation?
On a few occasions I have spoken to Joy Knight, who is the Director of Employment Support and Income Assistance at DCS. She tells me that the Transformation is still happening, however there is nothing I can publicly report at this time. During conversations with people I advocate for, I cannot share with them what I am being told about ESIA transformation. If anyone is interested, in the New Year, I will continue to keep in touch with Joy Knight to see if there is anything I can make public about ESIA transformation.
I made another attempt in the fall 2023 sitting of Province House, to ask about transformation, as this post explains. I wanted NSNDP Community Services Critic Kendra Coombs to ask a question, during question period, to Community Services Minister Karla MacFarland about an update on the Employment Support and Income Assistance Transformation. This question was in the ned, not asked. By the way, we do not even know who the Critic is, in the Liberal party.
Then, on top of all these provincial issues I have already touched on, the Federal Government is also talking about Medically Assisted Dying for people with mental illness. This also has the Community I advocate for, worried. People ask me: why is the Federal Government even considering such a thing? People I advocate for say Medically Assisted death is not the answer for mental illness!
People living in poverty all agree that 2023 is the year something needs to happen. So we need to get our heads together and start thinking. The big question is: How can we organize protests and rallies with no-one to organize them?
With everything happening as described in this Post, something needs to happen!
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