Carrie-Ann Bugden’s Story

 By Kendall Worth!

 

Carrie-Ann

Carrie-Ann Bugden is currently a psychology, youth and family studies, student at Mount Saint Vincent University. She is a wheel chair user who’s disability is caused by cerebral palsy (CP) She also has some other invisible disabilities including ADHD and PTSD. She receives no support or financial assistance from Income Assistance, or any part of the Department of Community Services.

Carrie-Ann was told that she would have to wait 1 year after she graduates from University before she could even apply for Income Assistance. In the meantime the University wants to move her from her current on-campus residence to to another campus residence. She does not want to move.

She reported being in touch with services for people with disabilities, at DCS, even though she is receiving nothing from community services. Since she is a full-time student, she does not qualify for any support from the Disability Program in Nova Scotia.

She was doing well at school before any of this started happening. Now she lives with a lot of anxiety. Based not just on the university wanting her to move to a different residence, on another part of the University Campus, but also because her previous room mates told her, they do not want to be living with someone who uses a wheelchair. Her original Roommates then transferred out of the residence. She reported while living in her current residence at the Westwood. her first set of 3 Roommates moved out at the end of November, and told her directly they did not feel comfortable living with someone in a wheelchair. The second set of room-mates moved in at some point during the winter months and were gone by the end of April. They said many hurtful things including one of them calling her at 2am to tell her that she should be living in an institution, and does not belong at University at all. This is outright discrimination against her and these students should have been expelled or seriously disciplined. I wonder what the university would say if students said they did not want to live with a room mate who was black or Jewish, I suspect it would not be tolerated! Instead they want to move her out of a shared apartment.

Carrie-Ann describes the new residence room they want to move her to, as “similar to a monk’s cell.” From her current room, she gets a beautiful view looking over the Bedford Basin, with a full kitchen. Her new room has no stove, and no ability to cook, like her current apartment at Westwood does, and there is no kitchen in the residence at all. In addition her new room does not have a view over the Bedford Basin. Carrie-Anne was accepted to other Universities but she chose Mount Saint Vincent University because it is cheapest out of the N.S. universities.

Mainstream Media has been contacted but have expressed no interest in wanting to cover this story.

Her family meaning her mom and her twin brother lives in Newfoundland. Her Dad passed away, and her Mom lives on a small pension.  Her family helping her out financially, is not an option but they are their for emotional support for her. She is interested in wanting to get herself into the workforce and is currently looking for work here in Nova Scotia. Carrie-Ann is a strong believer in herself wanting people to see her ability, not her Disabilities.  

Carrie-Ann’s story speaks to me as my advocacy and writing is all about people trying to make it out of poverty. As part of that, I cover Disability Rights, as this link has many examples of. When thinking about Carrie Ann’s story – let us think about how her issue would be resolved if a disability benefit already existed, which I have also written extensively about.

Let’s pretend that benefit provided a monthly allowance of $2000, like CERB did. If Carrie-Anne had more money to live on, she would be free to live where she wants to live, which in this case, would include the freedom to live off campus if that is what she chose.

If we had a disability benefit or better system of provincial Employment Supports and Income Assistance (ESIA) the following details how Carrie-Ann’s life would be different these days:

• Under our current system of Income Assistance, in N.S., you cannot qualify for income assistance, if you already been approved for a Student Loan, when you show up at DCS office.

• If the Current Income Assistance rates were at the CERB rate of $2000/mo. and could be combined with student loan, that could give her more freedom to live off campus or attend another university that could meet her accommodation needs.

• Under a better system of income assistance, as I talked about here, https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/2021/12/building-case.html the bureaucracy and nonsense put up as barriers to qualify and prove your circumstances every year, may not even be relevant. Remember in Carrie-Ann's this case is an example of someone who could not qualify for Income Assistance because of the bureaucratic nonsense and systemic problems.

• I believe we can all agree that Carrie-Ann’s story demonstrates why the federal

  Disability Benefit is long overdue.

• Finally Carrie–Ann and I both agreed that people with disabilities, have the right to live independently, to the limit of our abilities. Having more money to live on is important for achieving our independence.

• With more money to live on, there are steps that could be taken to reduce the impact of the discrimination against her from her own roommates. Being able to live off campus would have been major example.

She is not homeless as of yet. However, she is at risk of becoming homeless in September if she does not want to live in the room/residence she is being offered, or, if she is expelled for her behaviour, while trying to advocate for what she wants. There are issues about how she has been raising her voice to staff at the University while trying to advocate for herself, and how she felt like she was discriminated against by the front desk staff at her Westwood residence, which I am not going to add any detail about.

In her new residence, she is not going to be living with roommates, and although she will be on a floor with many students, she does fear being lonely. She told me being alone is something she is fine with if being by-herself is the way living at her new place is going to have to be. She has other concerns about the move… Her new room does not have any cooking facilities and the university does not allow even a hotplate in rooms.

There is the Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunity however, it is not clear that they are good fit for what she is seeking, as they are very focused in their advocacy. Carrie-Anne feels she is alone as a person with a disability in Nova Scotia. She told me she has met with others who have disabilities, but they had nothing to direct her to, to help her not to feel so alone, and to assist her in more public advocacy for those living with disabilities – especially wheelchair users. I did not know what-else to tell her about this one.

I will keep an eye on this story and will continue to be their for Carrie-Ann for support.