By – Kendall Worth
The welfare recipient I am naming Faye (not her real name as mentioned in the tittle above) is an example of many young welfare recipients. In her case, she is in her late 30’s and has no close friends with whom to do social things. She has been cut off from her family. Through my writing I have been in touch with Faye a few times, but, until now, she has never allowed me to interview her for my blog.
After Faye agreed to an interview she then E-mailed me this article.
She told me there is a lot in the article that she feels she can relate to, after she did some of her own research on why people live life with very few friends or no friends. Faye decided, after knowing for some time she wanted to come to me about her story, after she saw this BLOG post, because if you compare the content of the two articles you can see that there is a relationship between the two. A quote from the above BLOG post is:
“Whether rich or poor, and without regard to our mental health or our situation, we all have to respect boundaries, in a relationship. When I talk about the difficulties people living in poverty have, respecting those boundaries, I have had people question me asking: How is it different for people who live in poverty to respect those boundaries? I want to be clear that the general principal of respecting boundaries is not different within the community of people I advocate for. What is different, is how we recover/deal with it mentally.”
That first article linked above includes some points to deal with this emotion, mentally.
The first article, linked above also gives tips about how to deal with living day to day life with the following factors:
Not having those friends who you can socialize with
Not having those friends who you can go for walks with or meet for Coffee
Not having the option to contact family when you even need just someone to talk to.
Then. the second article linked above points out the importance of respecting boundaries regardless of mental health status/mental illness or financial situation.
So, on Friday evening, while interviewing Faye, we took a long walk in the nice, hot weather from the Commons to her place, to show me where she lives. While on route, walking to her place, we walked right by the former location of People’s Park and for those who may be new to reading my BLOG, for more on what People’s Park once was see https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/search/label/People%27s%20Park
FAye and I had a conversation, while on our walk, about how sad it is that the park is still fenced a year after the homeless who had to move out of there, got evicted and had to move out. Then, we eventually ended up on Chebucto Road. Turns out she is renting a small bungalow in the middle of a Middle/Upper Class Neighbourhood close by the Halifax Shopping Center. When I saw where she lives I was actually surprised that an income Assistance recipient would actually be living in that neighbourhood. However, I found out she can afford that bungalow because she has a deal with the owners of that bungalow, who say that they will keep the rent at $600 per month, everything included. The rent will stay $600.00 as long as she agrees that she only there house-sitting for the owners. The owners live somewhere in rural Nova Scotia but may someday want to move back to Halifax. Part of the agreement is the owners will give her 3 months notice if they ever decide they want to move back into the house. She has been living there for the past 7 years and does worry about where she will go when the time comes she has to move. She worries about this especially with the housing shortage/housing crisis. But, the good news is the owners have no plans to move back to Halifax anytime soon.
Like many welfare recipients, she is not friends with the people she sees when she is at places like standing in line at her Food-Bank or visiting the places where poor people go. In her case, just like in the case of many welfare recipients, calling family members is not an option when she needs someone to talk to. Also, she has other things in her personal life that affect many people on welfare, for reasons I will not explain as I cannot talk about it publicly.
She tells me that day to day life, for her, is pretty much get up in the morning and see what the day brings. Someday she does go to Souls Harbour and other days she stays home. She has lost many of her friends that she had in the past.
She also told me during the interview that she has had her share of times when she has been seen in the QE#2 emerge for telling someone she is planning to commit Suicide because 911 was called on her. As no surprise to myself as the writer of this BLOG post, as a result of being seen for that reason, there was nothing offered that would help her in the direction she wanted to go, following being released from hospital.
So we have got to ask ourselves... what is the solution for cases like this one?
Well, what is known, is that Faye is not alone in the way she feels.
i will finish this blog post by bringing up that Faye pointed out this article, then reminded me of the following quote from that article:
“For the most part, people living on welfare cannot afford even to go for coffee or to a movie. There is Church on Sunday morning, if one is Christian and available to attend. It is an affordable way of “getting out” and socializing with people, however, Church isn’t for everybody (The question I raise here is “Why attend Church when Religion is not something you are interested in?) In the past I have also written about the fact that some welfare recipients attend AA meetings, not because they are alcoholics, but because they need that avenue to get out of their apartments and to socialize with people. (The question I raise here is “Why attend AA meetings when you are not an Alcoholic?”) People will also go to emergency rooms just for the human contact, without a real medical complaint. The answer for both of these questions (in brackets) is that it is because welfare recipients need to take advantage of anything affordable to get out of their apartments and socialize with others. “
Faye asked me, "Kendall do I have to start going to church on Sunday even though I am not Christian? Do I have to start attending AA meetings even though I am not a recovering Alcoholic?
As
for going to the QE#2 Emerg
only because I need human contact at the time of showing up, I have
already been there
and done that. They offer nothing that will help with my situation
as a result of me getting seen for that reason."
She feels she is at a dead end!
I gave her comfort telling her that maybe down the road something will be offered through through the Mitigating Social Isolation Project that may end up being the solution, but no I do not encourage you to do any of what you just said.
Comments
Post a Comment