By Kendall Worth!
Mar-a-ille choose this name because she wants to avoid stigma, as I reported in stories here and here.
She also wants to avoid harassment from people who she has not spoken to in years, because of stigma and harassment just from Identifying herself as a welfare recipient. This article explains what-else she is trying to avoid.
So, before going any further, talking about Mar-a-ille’s story, first, here’s the scoop on her situation.
Mar-a-ille receives the Standard House Hold rate of $950.00 plus $81.00 for 3 special diets and $40.00 for her phone. Then a $300.00 a month rent subsidy. Which comes to: $1371.00 a month. Then she pays $1000.00 a month for rent leaving her $371.00. The $40.00 has to go directly on her cell phone then the $81.00 has to go to her special diets, leaving $250.00 for groceries and essentials. She has issues with depression and anxiety.
Mar-a-ille is one several welfare recipients I talk to who is interested in coming forward to organize about her situation, and to protest to make things better. To help point out what I mean, let me go back to this post about advocating for a better system.
“They expressed their frustration that no one is doing anything to form a union of people living in poverty which I wrote about here. but did not seem to have any interest in doing so themselves, although all agreed it would be the most ideal thing.” ...
“We are facing many crises right now – income, inflation, housing, climate, and an unjust justice system... just to name a few. At the bottom of an income pile where wages are too low, and even jobs that once supported a middle class (think Educational assistants, support workers and library techs) no longer can pay for basic food and housing. Imagine then the condition of people on income assistance that are trying to live on even less. Most commonly $950/mo. income assistance does not even reach the level of the "poverty line" but is well below it.”
At that interview the five asked: Why is no one doing anything for us? That seems to be how everyone in my community is feeling.
While interviewing her, Mar-a-ille told me that there have been times where she has tried to have conversations with others she knows, through standing in line at her food-bank or sitting down with at soup-kitchens. – to organize a union. She tried to do this after my September 17th 2023 post. She, like many others who she talks to, among her peers, gets frustrated by even trying.
Mar-a-ille tells me that people at soup kitchens use anxiety as their excuse for not wanting to protest with her. Others have even told her where to go when she brings up protesting and advocating for a better system. She is getting more and more frustrated as we cannot get a Union Of People Living In Poverty going, as pointed out in this post. This past year 3 sittings of Province House have gone by and not even one Anti-poverty demo took place outside the House.
There are unions and community organizations that have resources that could help us plan a protest over Income Assistance rates. In a future post I will outline our needs, like a place to meet, and materials to make posters, a sound system, and help with promotion…. and/or to identify a organization that has its mandate to increase income assistance rates and streamline the bureaucratic nonsense people are put through, or who would be willing to take it on as a priority.
The Big question is where to turn!
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