By Kendall Worth!
A lot has happened over these past couple of weeks which has done no favours for our ever increasing homeless population, here in Halifax.
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| COVID |
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| Hurricane Fiona |
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| Available rental priceshttps://www.zumper.com/rent-research/halifax-ns |
First – Within the past couple of weeks this Video was tweeted twitter.com/i/status/1680206283100626945 with words from our Provincial Minister Karla McFarland. According to her, more and more people, in HRM, are living in tents, because it is summer. Seems like she herself along with the rest of the PC Government in Nova Scotia are behaving like they have no interest in raising the Income Assistance Rates, or provide any type of help to offset the out of control inflation.
Second – As this BLOG post https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/2023/07/carbon-tax-in-nova-scotia-effects-and.html talks about: The carbon rebate that was distributed on July 21st was welcome news for Income Assistance recipients, Yet $124.00 of “extra” money just does not meet what is needed to live on. Similar to that grocery rebate we got on July 5th... anything helps but $234.00 again is just a drop in the bucket against what is needed these days. The rebates I just mentioned were spent as fast as people who live on income assistance, or other forms of poverty, received them.
Third – Setting aside any thoughts of carbon, considering things as illustrated in my BLOG post of May 31st https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/2023/05/open-letter-to-minister-karla-mcfarland.html where I then addressed the wildfire. Now, as I write this, on July 24th 2023, we got through a weekend of some heavy rain and flooding that has followed weeks of rain. Those homeless people who are already tenting in parks around HRM, got affected by the heavy rain we had Friday night going into Saturday. For some, their tents got ruined and next to no help became available to them. Lets keep our fingers crossed that some help will yet be made available to them.
So, anyway, as these days we go through one thing after another, everything is a mess for people living in poverty and especially for the homeless.
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| Wildfires |
As you can tell, there is a lot of mixed motions going through my mind when I write this current post. If we take a minute to go back to this post https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/2023/05/heartbreaking-news-i-learned-during.html, I keep worrying that one thing coming next next is that we are going to be hearing about the Education Assistants/EPA’s and other school support staff, becoming homeless and living in tents, if government continues to show no immediate interest in want to resolve things.
The Climate Change we are experiencing is certainly not helping. Someone who saw this BLOG https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-support-group-people-living-in.html said to me: “Kendall, we are right now in a crisis more then ever”. In addition to raising the Income Assistance Rates, this is also an example of why the support group, talked about in the article just linked, is needed. To help illustrate better why this support group could have been some benefit during the recent floods, I am going to go back to these two articles from the N.S. Advocate. https://nsadvocate.org/2017/03/27/downright-difficult-kendall-worth-on-friendships-ending/ and https://nsadvocate.org/2019/01/28/kendall-worth-on-friendship-poverty-and-feeling-discouraged/ illustrate the need for this support group. You see it is my personal observation, that members of the Financially Better off Community during times of crisis- like weather events -- I am talking about the wildfires, floods, or even further back -- COVID lock-downs and restrictions, have better supportive friends and family members looking and checking in on them. Welfare recipients, and others living in poverty, appear to lack that support. The benefit of a support group like the May 19th 2023 BLOG post linked above could include everyone who is part of the support group, checking in on each other. That would be helpful. There is a lot of need, especially with who I talked to referring to this BLOG post here https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/2023/03/nova-scotia-provincial-budget-2023not.html.
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| Flooding |
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| Inflation |
Anyway, we are at a time, more then ever, when we need to see the Income Assistance rates raised to a larger amount - above and beyond the $950.00 or in some cases $609.00. Also, we are in a time, more then ever, when we are going to have to find a way to make that brand new social group of friends, meaning ones who will care enough to want to check in on us during times of crisis, for example wildfires and floods.
The federal government says it will take another 16 months for those of us who qualify for the new Canadian Disability Benefit to start receiving it. The community of people I advocate for are saying these days that if things keeps going the way they are as described in this current post and with professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, Social Workers, and Counsellors not able to help at all. People tell me: if things keep going the way they are then we are going to have some very tough decisions to move forward. What decisions?
Because there are no options when you have little income… you get faced with tough decisions which can include:
Do we try to make an effort to repair past friendships and relationships, with those still willing to talk to us? (respecting boundaries)
For those of us who now live in Halifax, but at one time in our lives lived somewhere in rural Nova Scotia, where accommodation at least, might be less expensive. do we move back in order to protect ourselves from otherwise becoming homeless and living in a tent? And do we leave our support systems – mental health or job?
Do we start considering suicide because of things like not having friends who look out for and check in on us to see if we are OK?
Lets hope things work out and the government whether provincial or federal smarten up ASAP!
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