Thank you very much.
For starters, I want to thank Mr. Savage for arranging for me to be here today to have the opportunity to speak.
Street Feat is a local non-profit street newspaper that we have in Halifax and Dartmouth, and the purpose of our paper is to raise awareness about poverty and poverty-related issues. The stories and articles in this paper are written by a combination of people who live in low-income situations, people who are totally homeless, and other supporters and supporting organizations for these people. We also have organizations and agencies that help people in poverty buy ads from us, plus we open up the invitation for other businesses and organizations to buy ads as well, even if their mandate is not helping the poor.
Street Feat is an initiative that started about...well, right now we're in our twelfth year. What we do is give people of the kind I talked about an opportunity to have social and economical responsibilities in their lives. When you see a vendor out selling the paper, half of the $1.50 you pay for the paper goes to pay the vendor's wages. The reason for that is because that vendor is living in a poverty situation and could be a mental health victim, a person with a disability, or someone who has a disadvantage in some way, shape, or form, or simply a person trying to get back on their feet.
In our paper we cover stories about all areas of poverty. We don't stick to only one area of poverty alone. With my experience of knowing about poverty over the years, I find the biggest reason here in Nova Scotia for some people living in poverty is because of the social assistance rates we have in our province. In Halifax today, for a nice place to live it costs upwards of at least $600 to $750, within that range, at the lowest. The most social services will pay for an apartment for those who are on assistance is $535, so I think the rate they allocate for paying rent for an apartment needs to go up.
By the way, the rate I have mentioned is for a single person. I don't know what it is for a couple, or a single mom with kids.
Another point is that when you're on the system and you do earn extra income, 70% of it gets taken away. Some people are allowed to keep the first $150 and then 70% gets deducted after that. I've heard of both happening. Anyway, that's the biggest thing that causes poverty here in Nova Scotia.
As was discussed on the panels earlier about EI, I personally know a guy who has been waiting three months to get his first unemployment cheque, though it was already approved three months ago. So that's an example of how slowly EI is responding these days.
I simply wanted to bring those points up.