Social Isolation: reflecting on the “All Together Link”, two years later

 

 

By Kendall Worth!

We are approaching the second anniversary of the launching of an initiative to address social isolation in HRM, as captured in my BLOG of June 2023.  A small committee I was involved in had designed a program and secured short-term funding for a project that would bring socially isolated people together in various activities and non-judgemental spaces.

As I have written about many times, social isolation contributes significantly to the mental health struggles of people in my community.  There is a need to put in place programs and services that help marginalised people build social networks and friendships in safe spaces. Drop-in centres attached to soup kitchens and shelters are just not good enough: we need spaces with more diverse groups and less social stigma.   

At first, we called our 2023 initiative the “Social Mitigation Project”, but we soon re-named it the All Together Link, so that its purpose was easier to communicate to the public. Over the following year, I posted quite regularly about this project and our efforts to bring together people on Income Assistance and others who are socially isolated such as seniors and newcomers so that they could establish communities of friends. In June 2024, the funding for the project ended as I discussed in this BLOG.

The All Together Link has been the most tangible example I know of an initiative that actively supported marginalised peoples to build social networks. It included events like “Someone to Go With” gatherings, designed to encourage participants to find friends with whom they could step out together to different community events. As I have frequently noted, many of these events are free so personal finances are not always a barrier. But our experience has been that many recipients of Income Assistance live with high levels of anxiety related to attending social events they must attend alone, particularly if there are large crowds involved.

The project met its short-term objectives – organizing over the course of the year various events and activities to engage socially isolated members of my community. Building up the number of participants was an on-going challenge. This reflected the need for a longer-term strategy that would address the complicated reality of socially isolated individuals. We cannot assume that “if we organize it, they will come”. For that reason, I have been advocating through my BLOG for the creation of a Social Prescription Organization or program that would be a long term (perhaps even permanent?) fixture in our community, addressing the issue of social isolation through different techniques and activities.

In the past week, we have experienced two major community events in HRM. First, there was the Bluenose Marathon which engages many thousands of people in different running and social events. This year, the Marathon fell on the Victoria Day long weekend, which is the “unofficial” start of summer events and programs across the province.   

As I recently wrote, the Bluenose Marathon is yet one more activity that effectively excludes people from low income households, given the costs of basic running equipment, never mind entry costs for the races themselves. It is simply impossible for someone trying to survive on current Income Assistance benefits to be able to afford a serious running and training lifestyle, given the basic costs of running shoes and gym memberships.  As I wrote about back in 2018, it is not easy to stay healthy and fit on Income Assistance.  As a result, the best we can do is stand on the sidelines to cheer our better-off neighbours as they run past, and wonder what it must be like to be part of a social club which we can never join.  

It seems to me that we will never break through this wall of exclusion until we can put in place an organization and program that will view individuals and their lives as a whole, - and address ALL the different elements of social isolation through a long-term lens.  All of our neighbours should have the opportunity to pursue full and active lives, and to build their physical health and social well-being, regardless of financial or physical limitations.

Summer can be a very difficult time for Income Assistance recipients, as I have explained in this BLOG post. Not only do financial constraints often block us from partaking in many social and community activities, sometimes just the numbers of people attending an event can generate anxiety, as I discussed here with regards to Canada Day celebrations. Also, the nature of the event or location (for example, joining the 1%ers and ‘beautiful people’ along the Halifax Waterfront) can intimidate Income Assistance recipients who are worried about dealing with social stigma or perhaps bumping into people in such spaces who they know from other parts of their lives.   

It seems clear to me that there is much work to be done to support people from my community to make the most of summer in HRM. While we wait for government action on a Social Prescribing Organization, perhaps a more modest re-launch of the “Someone to Go With” initiative would be a good place to start.

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