Block Parties with Purpose

By Kendall Worth!

 

Over the last year or so, I have written many times about the need for social prescribing here in Halifax. See here and here.

Out of many ideas suggested to me, one was “BLOCK parties with a purpose.” A block party is when one resident in a community invites their neighbours over to their home for a gathering of the neighbours. However, this particular type of suggested BLOCK Party they are proposing is Different.

Let me explain how:

When Income Assistance recipients go to see professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, Social Workers, counsellors, etc. and complain that they have no friends they can talk to, those professionals cannot be their friend and so have nothing to offer. Previous blog posts dealt with the issue of no friends to meet for coffee, and what it is like when one friend you have in your community cancels plans and another illustrates what is is like when when the only people you have to talk to are the professionals. When Income Assistance recipients complain to the their Doctor and/or other professionals about not having friends they can meet for Coffee or go for walks with, the professionals behave like they do not understand that Income Assistance recipients are not necessarily friends with the people they see when they are standing in line at their Food Bank or at the soup kitchens. Along with other professionals, some in the community have said the following questions have been asked by professionals:

• So what about people you see when you are standing in line at your Food Bank and present at the places like Souls harbour, Hope Cottage?

• For those who have part Time Jobs Supplementing their incomes get asked Do you have any friends at your Part Time Job?

• And more Specially what relates to the Need for BLOCK Parties with a purpose is they get asked by the professionals; Do you have any friends within the apartment Building where you live?

Income Assistance recipients find it very frustrating they get asked those question by the professionals, No, many income assistance are not friends with the people with the people they see when at the places where poor people go. People tell me that having conversations with the people they see when they are these places only raises their anxiety level even more. As this post points out – sometimes talking to the people they see at the food banks and soup kitchens means listening to people who have conspiracy theories, and really do behave like they need to be on medications they are not taking. Second, only a small portion of people on Income Assistance are employed. It is my view that many of them have jobs (home care, crossing guard, cleaners, janitors,  etc.) where there is no opportunity for them to meet and socialize with their Co-workers.

On the third bullet point, I was recently specifically asked if block parties will be part of the social isolation project we are working on -- recently updated here. This question came up after I gave those I am in contact with the news that the social isolation mitigation project is moving ahead.

The idea came from the fact that a lot of neighbours who live in apartment buildings do not know and have no opportunity to get to know their neighbours. Many Income Assistance recipients live in buildings where there is no common room or public spaces, within the apartment building. Those who can afford to rent in more expensive buildings often have fitness Centers and common rooms located right in their building. When people ask if you have friends in your building – people do not know how this would work? You cannot just go around your apartment building and knock on doors, and as I said most lower rent buildings have no usable common spaces. There are also many areas where there are groups of rental buildings – in Clayton Park and Dartmouth north for example. The idea that came up is: why not create opportunity for the people who live in neighbouring apartment buildings to get to know each other.

The BLOCK parties with a purpose is all about bringing the community together and helping people get to know their neighbours within/between their apartment buildings. However, between myself and the two others working on the Mitigating Social Isolation project, we decided against trying to set up these “BLOCK parties with a purpose”. Implementing  this idea would require us to form a relationship with the property managers and superintendents of each apartment building. Also we do not know from where we could fund such an undertaking.

One neighbourhood where neighbours are coming together is in Dartmouth North because of North Grove. They have already done a lot of work to bring the neighbourhood together. Success stories of neighbours getting to know each have come out of the work of this Organization.

One thing I always want to keep in mind is that if you mix welfare recipients with folks who are financially better off, stigma could get created out of this idea.