‘It would pay for itself’: Anti-poverty activists push for tangible solutions amid budget surplus [video]

Amidst a projected budget surplus of $41 million in New Brunswick, an anti-poverty organization is intensifying its calls for concrete solutions to address the intersecting challenges of poverty, mental health support, and housing affordability in the province.

In an interview with the NB Media Co-op, Robert MacKay — community co-chair of the NB Common Front for Social Justice and a long-time anti-poverty activist with lived experience on social assistance — highlighted the challenges faced by people struggling with poverty.

MacKay emphasized that after covering housing costs, individuals are often left with scant resources, sometimes as little as “a couple hundred bucks, two, three hundred bucks to live on.”

MacKay’s advocacy journey began within New Brunswick’s mental health system as a service user, where he connected with individuals advocating for change in the mental health system.

Inspired by peer-support program initiatives in the United States, MacKay envisions a similar model in New Brunswick where individuals with lived experience could become a “whole new workforce” contributing to mental health services while transitioning off of social assistance.

The implementation of peer-support programs would mean “better social inclusion for people with mental health issues” with jobs for people who might have difficulty finding employment otherwise, he said. Such programs serve to empower individuals as service providers, using their lived experience to act as “mentors for recovery.”

“It would pay for itself,” he said. “You’re taking people off social assistance, you’re bringing in people with a whole new type of knowledge, and you’re getting people based on experiential results of what works,” he added, emphasizing the need for evidence-based solutions to social crises in New Brunswick.

Janelle LeBlanc, provincial coordinator of the Common Front for Social Justice, echoed MacKay’s concerns, emphasizing the urgent need for substantive policy changes. LeBlanc highlighted New Brunswick’s lowest-in-Canada social assistance rates and the dire consequences for individuals struggling with poverty.

“New Brunswick is facing many crises right now,” said LeBlanc. “We have an affordability crisis, an affordable housing crisis, rising homelessness rates, and stagnant wages. There’s a massive waiting list for subsidized housing.”

Finance Minister Ernie Steeves’ recent budget speech noted previously-announced measures including small increases to social assistance rates indexed to inflation and a $200 per month household supplement. However, LeBlanc emphasized that “the basic [social assistance] rates have not increased in many, many years,” rendering these measures insufficient in combating poverty.

LeBlanc emphasized the importance of legislative action to protect social assistance recipients from rent hikes that absorb the $200 supplement, calling for its incorporation into basic rates and the establishment of a permanent rent cap.

LeBlanc underscored the urgent need for significant investments in social housing, citing a waitlist of about 11,000 households seeking subsidized housing. She further stressed the need to address existing social housing conditions. “They also need to fix the units that already exist. Through our partners and even from our members, we hear they live in mouldy apartments in NB Housing. That doesn’t make any sense, fix them,” LeBlanc urged.

“We’re talking about humans here. They’re not just robots,” LeBlanc remarked, underscoring the human toll of governmental inaction on poverty and housing issues.

LeBlanc expressed frustration with governmental promises that have yet to materialize into real actions. “It’s really time for the government to be in action right now,” LeBlanc emphasized. “It’s one thing to write things on paper… Okay, well do it. It’s on paper, now it needs to be done.”

Bailey Andrews is a 2024 Mount Allison Sociology graduate from Mount Allison University, who contributed this article based on interviews conducted by David Gordon Koch, a journalist with the NB Media Co-op.