Lets call her Julianne – Not her real name

 By Kendall Worth!

Julianne, currently lives the life I have talked about in much of my writing – living on and being affected by the Employment Support and Income Assistance program at the Dept of Community Services, in Nova Scotia. I had the privilege of Interviewing her on May 27^th – Saturday morning. To protect welfare recipients I never use the real names of people I am reporting about. That protects their privacy and prevents them from being stigmatized by others. Like most income assistance recipients depends on places like drop-ins and Soup kitchens in order tor free food but also to get our and socialize.

However, in Julianne's case something exciting is is going to happen starting in September of 2023 which is going to change this! She recently got approved for the Career Seek program, through ESIA, after a year long struggle to get accepted. Career Seek is a program that allows eligible recipients the opportunity to attend post secondary education, and apply for student loans without losing access to income assistance. Very few people qualify. 

 

 Before I get into the process to get accepted by Career Seek lets have a look at her current situation on welfare. In 2018, when she began, she was still living with her mother so she only then only qualified for what was then the $345.00 boarding allowance, which, in 2020 got increased to $609.00 a month. Today she has her own space, but in the basement of a family friend’s home. Therefore she still only gets $609.00. She wants to get her own place but as she asked me during the interview, “how can I get my own place if Community Services is not going to give me money to look for my own place?” Out of that $609.00 she pays $304.50 to the family friends she is renting the basement from. Thankfully she does have her own fridge, stove, and bathroom. However, the kitchenette, living room and bedroom is all an all one space. She is 23 now and got “kicked out” by her Mom when she was 19 which was just a few months before COVID came. So - $304.50 for rent, plus pays another $47.99 a month for her cellphone = $256.51 left each month. Community Services will not approve her for the telephone special needs allowance, or special diets allowances. The reason they give her for non approval of special allowances is because living in a room in someone’s home is considered boarding, not renting. Community Services tells her she does not qualify for special needs allowances when she is boarding. In this case, it is possible that there is a phone she can use, and she has cooking, for herself, so the income assistance worker maybe misinterpreting the policy manual re: special diets.

As I mentioned above she did get some good news, though! In July she is moving, because she got approved for an apartment of her own, recently. She will start receiving the $950.00 standard household rate, then. At her new place she will be paying $800.00 a month plus power, but she will qualify for a rent subsidy, once she is moved.

Julianne is looking forward to her new life come September. Here's the last and final question I asked Julianne.

Q – Julianne can you tell me about the process to get accepted into Career Seek -- it is known to be a difficult program to get accepted into?

A –It took a year to get approved but it started off by my income assistance caseworker doing the standard referral to an Employment Support Worker. When I told my employment support worker that I wanted to enter the Career Seek program, she booked me a time to come in and write a test to see if I qualified for the program. After writing the test and passing, The next steps were:

#1 – My employment support worker looked at my school records from Grades 10,11 and 12. Those records demonstrated I was a student in good academic standing – without that I would not qualify.

#2 – I had to research and prove up front that there was a good chance of me gaining employment following my university studies. When I told my Employment Support Worker – it was nursing in which I was interested, that made approval  a-whole lot easier to get.

I myself wish her all the best moving forward!