Blog post by Tina Winterlik © 2011
http://tinawinterlik.blogspot.com
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Nobody wants to think about poverty. We don't like to see homeless people begging outside the stores. Even worse when you think that could happen to you or has happened to you.
Finally someone is showing how really serious the situation is. People have been talking about this from when it first started almost 10 years ago when the changes implemented http://mlaonwelfare.com/background/
Now Jarup Brar is trying to shine some light on the situation by being homeless for a month.
Quoted from his blog
http://mlaonwelfare.com/2012/01/04/news-release-mla-jagrup-brar-applies-for-welfare-today-as-part-of-the-welfare-challenge/
“I spent the morning standing in line at the welfare office, doing a 68 page on-line welfare application, and getting interviewed by a welfare worker,” Brar said at a news conference at the Surrey Urban Mission today. “I learned that, unless you are homeless and in an immediate need for shelter, food or medical attention, in most cases it takes three weeks to get welfare. You also have to look for work and ask friends and relatives for money in those three weeks.”
“This is how some people become homeless,” said Bill Hopwood of Raise the Rates.
“The welfare office can tell them they have to look for work
for three weeks before they can get a cheque, so without money you have
nowhere to live.”
“Getting welfare is not easy,” added Brar. “You need to have good ID, a resume, proof of a job search, records of employment, pay stubs, EI stubs, ICBC stubs, WCB stubs, income tax documents, bank statements, all financial records, information on RESPs, RRSPs, vehicle registrations and sometimes more.”
and look what's happened
http://mlaonwelfare.com/background/ Quoted from here
In June 2011, 183,814 people in BC lived on welfare. This is 1 in 25 people in BC. There were 90,227 people on Temporary Assistance Welfare and a further 93,587 people on Disability Assistance in June 2011. This is an increase of 48,000 since 2007. (from Ministry of Social Development, BC Employment and Assistance http://www.hsd.gov.bc.ca/research/)
Be sure to read about Clawbacks & Barriers.
Clawbacks are awful. You must report every single cent you earn or are given by anyone -including ex partners/child's parent and they take it off your next cheque. So you can never ever get ahead.The above is very interesting, note how it says $108 for groceries, well just try buying a container of laundry detergent $8 and then do your laundry $3 wash & dry per load, there goes a big chunk right there and you haven't even bought toilet paper another $8. So that's $20 and you haven't even eaten. What about soap, toothpaste, anything to help you to clean up and find a job, and then there's transportation that's $2.50 to go someplace for 90 minutes...IT'S VERY VERY HARD TO LIVE IN POVERTY.
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