If Tim Houston is Serious About Reforming Income Assistance, - there is MUCH that remains to be done!

 

By Kendall Worth

In recent months, there have been some encouraging signs that the current Nova Scotia government is somewhat interested in improving the provincial Employment Support and Income Assistance (ESIA) Program.

Most notably, in April it was announced that eligible recipients of Income Assistance would start to receive a monthly $300 Disability Supplement. There would also be adjustments for inflation, starting in July, 2024. I discussed these two developments in recent blogs here and here.

While the adjustments for inflation only amounted to an additional $23 to $34 a month, the community I advocate for saw this as positive news. Positive, but clearly not adequate.

So people are asking themselves “What next?”

Might the Tim Houston Government commit to addressing ALL the “unfinished business” of reforming ESIA that was left unfinished when the Liberal government was defeated in 2021?

Many ESIA recipients - and especially the ones I am personally in touch with – believe that now is NOT the time to ease up on our advocacy efforts or to let down our guard. Today’s economic reality is increasingly challenging, as we can all see by the ever-increasing numbers of homeless people. And as I have discussed in earlier blogs the social isolation that accompanies poverty can be as debilitating as the poverty itself.

What would REAL change look like?

Central to my advocacy work is the desire to improve the quality of life of people on ESIA, while also getting rid of the stigma widely associated with receiving Income Assistance benefits. Both of these goals are important to those who have no choice in life but to depend on the system for their basic day-to-day needs.

So what should the next steps of ESIA reform look like? I think we need to be advocating for the following policy changes:

·       Demand #1: The core amount of the new Disability Supplement needs to be increased, not just be indexed to inflation.

·       Demand #2: Similarly, the amount of the Special Diet Allowance also needs to be indexed to inflation, given the increases we have all seen in the process of food over the past couple of years.

·       Demand #3:  The criteria and procedure for qualifying people for the Special Diet Allowance also needs to change. The same bureaucratic and ineffective process of qualifying has not changed since I first reported on this issue in the Nova Scotia Advocate five years back. This continues to be an issue I address regularly in this blog.

·       Demand #4: We need to stop the penalisation of ESIA recipients who want to live in supportive relationships, but who are punished under Section 6.1.8 of the ESIA policy which applies a financial penalty to any recipient who co-habits.

·       Demand #5: We need to stop the claw back of Employment Insurance from those receiving Income Assistance. It is simply a penalty and disincentive for seeking employment. 

All of these policy changes were promoted by the Benefits Reform Action Group (BRAG) which for several years mobilized and amplified the voices of those living on Social Assistance. Unfortunately BRAG ceased operations during the COVID pandemic in 2021.

One other Community Services program that would greatly benefit from review and reform is the Services for Persons with Disabilities (SPD) Program. If we have learned anything from the Carrie Ann Bugden story, it is the need to rethink and redesign this program. Two of the lessons learned to date about the need to reform the SPD program are:

·       Firstly, we need an approach and a system that RESPECTS the choices that persons with disabilities make as they try to move ahead in their lives, building relationships, seeking employment and extracting themselves from poverty.

·       Secondly, we have learned that across Nova Scotia, persons with disabilities continue to face serious barriers to accessing the services they need. This needs to change.

I will explore a third, much-needed change in the Services for Persons with Disabilities (SPD) Program, in my next blog.  Stay tuned!

Kendall Worth is an award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and tries to make ends meet on income assistance.