By Kendall Worth!
Trevor Boudreau, Mininster of Community Services.
Dear Minister Trevor Boudreau;
I am writing this open letter to you today because it is my understanding that in the recent cabinet shuffle you took over the role of Minster of Community Services in Nova Scotia, from former Community Services minister Karla MacFarland.
So, because you are new to Cabinet, allow me to start off by saying a little something to introducing myself to you, then I will get into the reason as to why I am writing this open letter to you today.
I had been, for the past number of years, primarily through my writing, been advocating for people living in poverty. My advocacy includes advocating for a different and better system than the current Employment Support and Income Assistance Program to be available through the Department of Community Services. Even though my advocating for this better system started throughout my past Journalism in the Nova Scotia Advocate before the passing of former Nova Scotia Advocate editor and publisher Robert Devet, and the closure of the publication, I continue to write. Following his passing I then started my own BLOG, which can be found at: https://worthmatters.blogspot.com/
The community I advocate for believes that your Tim Houston, PC government, got elected with unfinished business left from the former Liberal government. This was the business of the ESIA transformation, that was introduced in 2013 by the former Liberal government. We are now in the fall of 2023 and the Department of Community Services is making people on Income Assistance believe that an income assistance transformation is still happening. However, the concern is no new updates has been announced by your government since you were elected in 2021. Many people on income assistance – a big part of the community I advocate for, are frustrated because Income Assistance is their main source of Income. Also looking at what did happen since 2021 means that there is no update on the so-called ESIA transformation.
No updates have been provided or publicly announced, meaning that all of this time nothing new happening was happening. No changes to the Employment Support and Income Assistance program, comes at a time when the Community of IA recipients patiently waits for you to do something about:
Inflation, that is not going away
A homeless population continuing to massively increase
More and more who are at risk of becoming homeless because of day-to-day struggles, and circumstances beyond their control.
The current $950.00 Standard Household rate just does not cover what it costs to live day-to-day life anymore. Also, I need to point out that some Income Assistance recipients are receiving less then that $950.00 monthly.
Overall, because at least in the eyes of the community I advocate for, nothing got better thanks to your government ignoring the ESIA Transformation that the Liberals started before your government got elected in 2021.
So anyway, we continue to live a system that does not provide enough money for people to live on, and where bureaucratic nonsense and systemic problems continue to happen regularly. It is the hopes of the Community of People I advocate for that you will pay better attention to what needs to be done to improve the Employment Support and Income Assistance program than the previous Minister Karla MacFarland did during her time holding the Community Services portfolio.
The bottom line in all of this, is the Income Assistance rates need to increase, and the bureaucratic nonsense and systemic problems, especially those to qualify for Special Needs allowances, needs to stop.
Yours Truly;
Kendall Worth
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