Turned away

Guardian reporter flooded with stories of single mothers refused help by social assistance

Something needs to change. This is how I feel in the wake of the flood of responses I have received to a column I wrote last week detailing my experience years ago of being turned away by social assistance as a young, single mother with nothing.

This column was part of a special edition of The Guardian, where we dedicated every page of the paper to the issue of poverty in Prince Edward Island. We told the stories of people living in poverty, those who have made it out and celebrated the wonderful people who try to help our poor and vulnerable.

The edition sparked an important and meaningful conversation in the community about what is being done — and not done — to address the gaps in our systems designed to help the poor.

Social assistance is one of those systems. It is supposed to be there for people who, for whatever reason, are not able to support themselves.

But it’s a broken system. I can say that definitively now, after reading and hearing the stories of so many people who have reached out to me after I shared my own story.

Most of the people I’ve heard from are women. Far too many said the exact situation I experienced happened to them: young, single mothers in distress, turned away by social services.

One woman told me she was living with her parents as a single mother and was told she could only qualify for welfare if she moved out on her own. She had to take money from her children’s savings accounts to pay a damage deposit on an apartment.

Another young mother went to social assistance for help, as her job wasn’t paying enough to cover her bills. They told her they would only help her if she left her job. She didn’t see the sense in this and instead took on three jobs to make ends meet. Oh, and this same mother also couldn’t get a daycare subsidy because she made $20 over the income threshold.

A concerned parent asked me why social services recently turned away her daughter, also a young, single mother, because she is a student, taking night courses to try to better her life. It’s an excellent question. Others, men and women, simply related their painful stories of applying for assistance, describing their experiences as “demeaning” and “humbling.”

One single mother with PTSD, who is currently fighting to be reinstated into the province’s subsidized housing program, says she just wants to be “treated with respect and dignity” and wants government to take a good, hard look at how social programs are administered in P.E.I.

“No social program currently in place promotes independence,” she told me.

These are the stories and experiences of our friends, our neighbours, our fellow Islanders. They are already vulnerable and in need of help, and they are being turned away.

It’s heartbreaking. But it’s a wake up call.

I am thankful these people had the courage to share their stories with me because it has shown me there is a chorus of voices in P.E.I. calling for better treatment and better programs.

Let’s hope those with the power to make the right kind of changes are listening.