"Almost None of 45 People Tracked Were Better Off": Study Contradicts Government Welfare Claims
Contributed by blackandred on Thu, 2008-04-24 23:30.
In sections:
Study Contradicts Government Welfare Claims
Almost none of 45 people tracked between 2004-2006 were better off
by Frances Bula; April 23, 2008 - Vancouver Sun
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story....
The province's welfare system makes people homeless, sometimes forces women to turn to prostitution and relies on food banks and charities to help provide the basics to its clients, according to an unprecedented in-depth study of welfare recipients.
The two-year study, partly funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, tracked a small group of people who are part of what the provincial government decided in 2002 was a serious problem that had to be tackled -- people who stay on welfare a long time but are classified as "expected to work."
Researchers found that, contrary to government claims that its new welfare policies helped people get out of poverty, almost none of the 45 welfare recipients they tracked between 2004 to 2006 ended up better off.
Instead, they were mired in trying to survive, frequently experiencing periods of homelessness because they couldn't find a place to rent they could afford on welfare rates or because they were cut off. Eight women in the study turned to prostitution at points to make ends meet, while other recipients panhandled or turned to crime. Three-quarters used food banks.
By the end, almost two-thirds were still on welfare, with the biggest difference being that 40 per cent of them were reclassified as "disabled" instead of "expected to work." While that gave those people a little more money, they still ended up using food banks and other services to survive.
Twelve people in the study found work, although only four of them earned enough money to be considered no longer poor. And four had been cut off welfare and were homeless.
"Society pays for this in many ways," said Seth Klein, B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who co-wrote the report with Simon Fraser University professor Jane Pulkington.
Employment Minister Claude Richmond dismissed the report, saying the study was out of date and reliant on a "pretty thin" sample of welfare recipients. There were about 23,500 cases in the "expected to work" category in 2004, when the study participants were recruited.
"We've made a lot of changes since then," Richmond said. He did acknowledge, however, that the people now in the "expected to work" category is a challenging group.
"The easier ones have all been placed. We're now down to the ones who are more difficult to place."
He expects many of those will be reclassified as disabled and he said that, contrary to the report's findings that it takes up to two years for someone to be reclassified, the ministry has speeded that process.
But social-service advocates said their experience is that nothing has changed over the past two years.
Glyn Townson, chair of B.C. Persons with AIDS, said a significant part of their advocates' work is taken up just helping people get or stay on welfare.
And Judy Graves, the City of Vancouver's homeless-outreach worker, said she and others doing work to try to get people off the streets are constantly discouraged by the employment ministry's practice of cutting people off welfare.
"The frustration that we feel as advocates is when we pour work into getting someone the most basic stability . . . and then to have them cut off welfare and see the months of work disappear."
Graves said being cut off welfare has a much more severe impact than most people realize, because those who are cut off lose their right to free medication, so they often end up living on the street and getting no treatment for everything from pneumonia to HIV.
"This is not what you expect in a civilized city."
B.C.'s struggles over welfare have been going on a long time. The former NDP government changed policies in 1992 with the aim of reducing the caseload, which it did.
Then the Liberal government, elected in 2001, brought in new changes to address what it said were areas of concern, like the fact that six per cent of people in the province were on welfare and that 70 per cent of people in the "expected to work" category had been on welfare for a number of years. The ministry says that since 2001, it has reduced the number of cases in the "expected to work" category from 87,329 to 21,372 now. It has also increased the number of disability cases from 43,000 to 63,000 in the same period.
B.C. has the lowest percentage of its population on welfare, 3.5 per cent, next to Alberta. While the employment ministry links that to the province's booming economy and low unemployment rate, other provinces with an unemployment rate as low or lower than B.C.'s have a greater proportion of people on welfare.
Its budget for this year is $1.54 billion, about $400 million less than in 2001-02 when its new welfare policies went into effect.
The full report can be read on the CCPA website.
BC's Homeless Death Toll: 56 or More in Two Years
Syndicated from The Tyee
Promoted by blackandred on Fri, 2008-04-25 19:40.
Darrell Mickasko burned to death in a Vancouver alley.
At least 56 homeless British Columbians died during 2006 and 2007, according to provincial statistics obtained by The Tyee. B.C.'s homeless died at a rate that's at least 19 per cent higher than the general population, according to the office of the chief coroner.
» Read more | 240 reads «
Homeless Crisis Grows While Canada Prospers
Contributed by blackandred on Thu, 2008-04-24 04:27.
by Daphne Bramham - April 19, 2008
Not since the Great Depression have so many Canadians been homeless or at risk of losing the roofs over their heads. But what makes the homeless crisis different from the 1930s is that this is not the result of a natural disaster. It's the result of a perfect storm of failed government policies...Canada has become the only developed country in the world that has neither a national housing plan or a national mental health strategy.
» Read more | 344 reads «
Complaint to UN: Vancouver Not Providing Adequate Accommodation to Poor
Contributed by ron collins on Wed, 2008-04-16 16:09.
Several groups in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside have filed a formal complaint with the United Nations in the lead up to the 2010 Olypics.
"The complaint sets out eight grounds of particular concern about the residents of the Downtown Eastside rooming houses and SROs, alleging that Canada has breached their requirements under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to ensure that everyone has adequate housing."
» Read more | 231 reads «
"Welfare to Work" Didn't Work
Contributed by blackandred on Wed, 2008-03-12 07:44.
By Bruce Wallace - November 12, 2007
The [British Columbia] government's tired narrative about more people leaving welfare for work is not supported by its own evidence. Welfare reform in B.C. cannot be declared a success. The government clearly needs to address the much more complex goal of reducing poverty, not just reducing the [welfare] caseload.
» Read more | 275 reads «
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expectations
My experience is among my peers who for various reasons don't work for money and don't collect welfare. A few of my friends, that somehow managed to collect welfare, claimed that the system itself is what facilitated their disability, often maiming them in the process. I listened to housed people who told me to go apply for welfare instead of living in the park. They seemed to assume that welfare was something that was easy for anyone to receive.
Eventually, I did apply for welfare and met with many obstacles that others may have simply given up on early on. There are basic things that make the application very difficult like access to a phone for the long periods of time required to get through to the welfare offices. I can only imagine the hardship of say supporting a child while going through this process. One case worker told me I was expected to work, but for the most part I encountered some very supportive and helpful people. I remember overhearing a social worker in a coffee shop saying how my friends and I didn't want anything to do with the system and so we wouldn't apply for assistance even though it was supposedly available. In the end of my application, I did not receive welfare, and the minimum wage work that I strived to acquire as part of the process only lasted about a month or so. The illusion that there are lots of jobs in BC is true if you count the amount of work for money that simply isn't worth it. I think that this is often the expectation that I am to work for next to nothing or even pay to work.
My community of homefull but houseless colleagues and I see a great amount of waste around us. Instead of working for money, we take opportunities to collect by other means using our creativity. For example, someone who thinks that they are in authority may spend their worthless money to lock the park today, but tomorrow someone else may already be pawning off the metal bars and the lock.