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The NDP government has failed to put more food on the table forhungry Nova Scotians, an anti-poverty network says. And with the soaring costs of food, electricity and shelter, thesituation is getting bleaker for those on income assistance, saysthe Community Advocates Network, a grassroots group comprised ofpeople living in poverty and their allies. The group held a new conference at Veith House in Halifax Friday tohighlight its concerns in advance of this weekend s Nova ScotiaNDP annual meeting. My annual income, and it is the same for any other singleindividual on income assistance in Nova Scotia, is going toincrease $163 as of the first of July, Wayne MacNaughton, anetwork member, said. Just slightly under $14 a month. That doesn t go far when the price of basic foods, like peanutbutter and beans, has risen by more than 25 per cent in the lastyear, said MacNaughton. Anybody that does their own grocery shopping has seen how much, how fast, grocery prices have risen, he said. The shelter allowance for those on income assistance in Nova Scotiaalso hasn t increased for many years, advocates say. This spring s provincial budget increased funding for alllow-income support programs income assistance, the povertyreduction tax credit, affordable living tax credit and theprovincial child tax credit by $8.3 million, MacNaughton said. This was done at the same the Nova Scotia NDP is giving a$16.3-million tax break to the large corporations in theprovince, he said. If the government took that tax break and applied it to incomeassistance, it would mean an additional $53 a month for everyincome assistance recipient in the province, MacNaughton said. Jeanne Faye, who also spoke at Friday s news conference, saidcurrent government policies lock women into the income assistancesystem or make them vulnerable to return to it by pushing theminto low-wage, temporary employment. Faye is co-ordinator of Women s Centres Connect, an association ofeight community based women s centres in the province. That group recommends indexing government assistance rates for foodand shelter to the consumer price index for this region andincreasing shelter rates to reflect actual rental and utilitycosts. Jocelyne Tranquilla, a network member and project co-ordinator withthe Nova Scotia Association for Community Living, said the housingsituation for people with disabilities also hasn t improved underan NDP government. The association is comprised of family members and supporters ofpersons with intellectual disabilities. Nova Scotia has a housing crisis, she said. People withdisabilities are heavily impacted by this crisis. There is a lackof community-based supportive options for people with disabilitiesin this province. We want to express our concern that government dollars are beinginvested currently in restoring and expanding existinginstitutional models of housing for people with disabilities. Premier Darrell Dexter said his government has taken many steps tohelp low-income Nova Scotians, including tax credits, increasingincome assistance rates and returning provincial incomes tax toseniors collecting the federal guaranteed income supplement. If you look at the record of government over the last threeyears, I think any fair analysis would say that this government has done a great deal of worktrying to lift up those people who are in the most difficulteconomic circumstances, he said. Janet Rathbun, the director of income assistance for the CommunityServices Department, said government is making as many improvementsas it can. I wouldn t say that we re doing enough to meet everybody sneed, but it s a work in progress, she said. We re doing thebest we can and there s every intent to continue to work onthat. With files from David Jackson and Frances Willick, staff reporters ( cmellor@herald.ca ). We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China PTZ IP Cameras , China DVR Kits for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits CCTV Box Cameras.
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