The best way, to resolve and stop, the unwanted and uncalled for harassment of Income Assistance Recipients.

By Kendall Worth!

 

 When you see the tittle of this BLOG post, you may have e a wide range of thoughts relating to the stigma that income assistance recipients face day to day. However, in today’s post I am actually touching on a topic I have not reported on in some time.

I have in the past reported on Income Assistance Recipients getting approached by Police Officers and private security guards, when the recipient is just minding their own business and not causing trouble. I have also reported on this issue at various times, in the now folded Nova Scotia Advocate More specifically, in this post, I report on the issue of fidgeting and behaviors being misinterpreted.

It is the Community of people who are on Income Assistance themselves, especially those who have invisible disabilities, (which is why they need to be on the system), who are the experts about their conditions/issues. Of course others help - their professional care providers - physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, Social Workers, and Counsellors, who IA recipients go to for their medical and counselling appointments.

And now I want to address two incidents that I wrote about previously. In this story, I talk about how someone who chose the name Sak-rye was in touch with me recently and told me that he was approached by Police while he was walking through the Halifax Commons just minding his own business and not causing trouble. He was on his way to Souls’ Harbour, when the police advised him that his behaviour was making others feel uncomfortable. He told me he felt like he was falsely accused of staring at the person who complained that he was fidgeting, this was uncalled for.

In the second incident, in late October of 2024, Bob (not his real name) was spoken to by private security because they got complaints that Bob was fidgeting. When Bob explained that he was sitting in the public lobby, because he is waiting for an appointment, he was told that 40 minutes was too long to be sitting there waiting. Either buy something from the Cafe located in this lobby or leave and come back 10 minutes closer to your appointment time. The solution to this is simple. Building management should not have a “no loitering” policy in a place where people do wait for appointments etc.

These IA Recipients themselves are the ones who are the experts in knowing the solutions. The question becomes “How do we get the government and those in authority, to listen?”

So, according to Income Assistance Recipients themselves, the solution is, property managers and building owners, need to stop implementing and posting “no loitering” policies in public areas, where discrimination by security means some people have to “move along”. We need to get rid if those No Loitering policies, and for all of society to have a better understanding of invisible disabilities.  I talked about this in my post Dated February 13^th, 2023

 

Being approached by police and or private security, and spoken to, about our Inappropriate Body Language is something that adds fuel to the fire of poor mental health and anxiety for IA recipients. I covered this in detail in this post. In this open letter I touche on reasons why IA Recipients are not conformable speaking to Police or Security Guards about their mental health issues. However, IA Recipients feel like they have no choice but to speak to them, when approached by Police or Security. There are many blog posts on this issue of police and security and inapproporiate body language which are sorted here.

I will conclude this BLOG post by saying that getting rid of No Loitering polices may not solve the whole problem, but will play a strong part in moving us in the right direction.