Advocating for a Better Living Allowance needs to heat up

By Kendall Worth!

As I point out in this post, for many years the government of Nova Scotia has expected people to live on so little, that after rent and bills are paid there is nothing left. This has been deemed a human rights violation. Yet this is not recognized through the Human Rights Commission as a human rights violation!

$950.00/mo. or less (Income Assistance was less before January of 2020,and if you are boarding, unhoused or deemed employable – even less!) was never enough to live on. For those deemed to have a disability the rate increases to $1250.00 a month. This is still an amount where paying month to month living expenses is just going to stretch over the bare minimum. People I talk to are predicting that there is still only going to be $20 to $100 left in people’s pockets after rent and bills are paid. $1250.00 a month is expected to not cause a dent in the homeless population of Nova Scotia. People expect that we are not going to see the line-ups at food-banks any shorter as a result of this increase.

Income Assistance recipients got sudden news, as this post points out, that a $300.00 increase is on its way. Some are saying with the price of groceries increasing, rents remaining at an all time high and Nova Scotia Power bills increasing, this $300.00 increase sounds like it is little more than a drop in the bucket, -- OK, when you look at this it is only One Step up from a drop in the bucket.

An Income Assistance recipient who gave me permission to call him Mike, recently talked to me about his grocery bill. He told me that it is a good thing that April is GST Month. However, as you will see below his gst check is $187.00 and his grocery bill came to $195.00. If the GST's were not out this month then he would never be able to afford this.

Anyway Mike and many other Income Assistance recipients in Nova Scotia are waiting to see if they are going to qualify for the $300.00. Mike told me that one reason why GST month does him a favour is because he likes to keep his visits to places like Souls Harbour, Hope Cottage, and Food Banks as limited as possible. However, in non GST months, his $950.00 Allowance, (which is the standard household rate) rent, and power bill take up all but a few dollars of that $950.00. Mike is trying to use that grocery list in the picture above, to prove a point. The point is, that provided that he is one of the 60% who will qualify, what he spends on groceries and increasing power costs, means he and many others are still only going to be left with pocket change. Mike told me that luckily he can access shaving cream at the food bank, which helps.

However, what we really need is to heat up the demand for immediate implementation of the federal disability benefit which means a lot more advocacy.

 

 

Over these past few weeks, I also spoke with contacts in Ontario and BC the western provinces who follow my blog. The tweet brings up anther good point they made. Of course not all Income Assistance are Christian and attend Church on Sunday. However, the tweet does make a good point, for those who are Christian and interested in attending church. Of course, church is not the only reason why a person may need access to nice clothes. What about those living in poverty who are employable? They need access to nice clothes for job interviews. The minority of lucky Income Assistance recipients who may occasionally get invited to weddings, funerals or other gatherings that require them to look decent. Nice Clothing is not cheap.

There is also concern that Minster Kamal Khera is not doing her job.

 

 

 

 And the following tweet has got her name on it but she is not Housing Minster.

 

 

My contact in Ontario has been asking what the disability community in Nova

Scotia has been doing to advocate for this benefit. I can answer them by saying they are not really doing much because unlike Persons with Disabilities who live in Ontario and Western Canada, the disability community here, does not really have resources to advocate. Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunity has been doing some behind the scenes work in advocating for this benefit to come to light. However, the disability community here, has not been doing things like taking public positions, holding protest rallies, etc. My Ontario contacts are concerned about lack of advocacy, from Nova Scotia, for the benefit to become available. 

 

 

Advocacy Does need to heat up!