Lelaine Muir attended the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia and spent her career working as a front line income assistance worker in the welfare ministry for 34 years. In that time she has seen dramatic changes in the philosophy, public policy, practice and administration of income assistance. Lelaine, now retired, kindly offered to write a piece for Advocacy BC on some of her experiences working with B.C.’s most vulnerable people.
Welfare: 1968 to 2011
Lelaine
Muir, September 18, 2012. Edited by Tracey Young, Advocacy BC.
I would
like to dedicate my musings on working the front lines of income assistance in
Vancouver’s urban core to all people on income assistance, past, present, and
future. Some of the finest people I have ever met have been on welfare. Income
assistance recipients are, in my opinion, the most open and honest about who and
what they are. For this I truly respect and admire them.
When I
started working, income assistance workers were considered helping professionals.
While I worked on the front lines of the welfare ministry I attended the School
of Social Work at the University of British Columbia (UBC). To me social work is an honourable profession. We make a
difference in people’s lives by working on increasing quality of life through
building self-esteem, and always moving the client forward towards financial
independence and healthier life styles. In welfare, we were the first line of
defence in recognizing and intervening in child neglect and abuse, addictions,
mental health, social disabilities, criminal activity, and immigration issues.
I have a
number of stories that have stayed with me over the years of my work and they
demonstrate some of the changes the welfare ministry has gone through in how we
treat clients. In the 1970’s while working at a
welfare office on Homer Street in Vancouver, a man entered our building in
distress. He appeared quite ill due alcohol abuse. He had defecated in his
clothing and he had been living in these clothes for days. Our conundrum was
who would transport him to a community social service agency that was able to offer
him assistance. We drew straws and I pulled the short one. My colleagues were
kind enough to cover the passenger seat of my two-seat sports car with
newspaper and helped get the client into my car. They also provided me with a
jar of Noxzema cream to hold under my nose to keep from retching. Holding the
jar in itself was a feat because I drove a standard forcing me to shift and
steer with one hand.
As soon
as we arrived at the community agency the gentleman was taken to a bathroom and
stripped of his clothing so the garments could be incinerated. The gentleman
was then placed in a large bathtub in a large room. The social worker with this
agency was bathing the gentleman when I was brought into the same room. I sat
on a stool in the furthest corner and completed the income assistance
application while the gentleman was bathed. The gentleman was found eligible
for income assistance and medical coverage all within the same day. The client
now had two support groups within hours of contact.
After thirty-four
years with welfare, I came to believe that, in many cases, people were failed
by their families and the adults in their lives when they were young. They were
failed by the school system, by their communities and social service agencies
and society, as a whole. As adults, they are punished because they grew up to
be dysfunctional people in need of support.
Over the
years, many clients have disclosed childhoods plagued by neglect, abuse,
torture, and trauma. Clients have told me about growing up in deep poverty,
alcoholism, drug addiction, family violence, suicide, and even having to eat
food off a dirty floor thrown there by the adults who were suppose to love and
care for them. I have had clients describe being chased out of their beds in
the middle of the night by a drunk, violent father carrying an axe and hiding
outside in winter in northern British Columbia in their pajamas, fearful of being
found.
In
welfare work our goals of service used to be about striving to provide people
with dignity and quality of life. This began to change and soon, it appeared as
though the welfare ministry, now called the Ministry of Social Development
(MSD), refused to acknowledge that a core segment of our society are unable to
function, and most likely never will and they require social assistance to
survive.
Around 2009
a senior manager came to my office to tell our team that we were no longer a
helping profession, we were now a business. When I inquired how we were to make
money off of the poor and disadvantaged the senior manager stated, “By
diverting costs.” In subsequent team meetings my colleagues and I began
brainstorming how diverting costs would take shape and how it would affect
delivery of service. Several times I tried to remind my teammates we worked
with human beings.
In the
spirit of this changing mandate I offered a few helpful suggestions. I
suggested we remove our name, address, and phone number from the blue pages of
the phone book so people wouldn’t be able to find us at all. I also recommended
we build a moat complete with drawbridge and pull up said drawbridge so people
couldn’t manage to make it into the offices. Following fortification we could
let it be known in the community that, if people could find us we may, and only may, help them.
“Diverting
costs” has taken a tremendous toll on the poorest in our province. One day an
administrative staff person approached me expressing concern about how one
particular client was being treated. I looked into the case and discovered a
twenty-year-old woman who was suffering from severe mental health issues. Her
father was in the background trying to support her bid for independence.
During
this process the young woman was approved for Persons with Disability (PWD) classification
by the Health Assistance Branch in Victoria. However the intake worker who had
completed the income assistance application at the local office had not found
her eligible for basic income assistance, almost four months after she made her
application. I approached my colleague with information of the mental health
issues and the approval for PWD. The worker said, “Well now I am going to ask
her to write out how she has survived for the last three months without our
help.”
I felt
it was inhumane to create further delays in helping this young woman, who was suffering
mental health issues, so I called the client. We tried to find a time the young
lady could come in to see me, but there were no available times. I asked the
young lady to come in on my lunch hour. When we met in my office, I explained
her eligibility for income assistance, and that I would make arrangements for
her to receive the funds she was eligible for. The young lady said, “I would
like to give you a hug, but I guess it’s not very professional?” I
replied, “I have had many a hug in my career.” She dropped her backpack, threw her
arms around me, and sobbed into my shoulder saying, “You have saved my life.”
I would
enjoy a good debate about BC’s welfare system, which, in my opinion, used to be
one of the finest. Clients were recognized for their individuality and were
treated with respect and humanity. Plans and goals were devised to meet the
individual’s needs and built on their strengths and capacities. Education,
training, and apprenticeship programs were preferred so clients could find
better paying jobs and more sustainable employment.
Another
client I remember was a single mother who was struggling with mental health
issues. She had a teenage daughter and they needed additional supports because
of her illness. Once the mother was found eligible for PWD, she brought me a picture
she had painted, with a card that read, “I am not much of an artist, but I
wanted to show my appreciation for all you did for us. You kept me hanging on.
And most importantly you treated me like a human being. Something no one else
has done.”
After working
under the new business model I started to apologize
to clients for the system and my inability to assist them. By now my employer had
made clear to me and my colleagues that care, dignity and compassion were no
longer relevant in the welfare ministry. I also found myself apologizing to
social workers with the Ministry of Children and Families, social workers with
the hospitals, staff at facilities, and service providers because services were
being withdrawn from the most vulnerable. Social workers were putting in hours
of work to arrange plans for people, only to find no one at the welfare offices
were available, or no-one knew the clients and could participate in case
conferences and assist in implementing plans that would support clients.
Another
situation that stayed with me was that of a single mother with two small
pre-school children who had approached the welfare office for additional
support. She explained she and her two children were hungry. They had no food
or funds due to bills being higher than usual and unexpected additional
expenses. The worker dealing with this woman told her to go and find free food. I could see that where once we were a helping
profession, now we were creating more stress in the lives of parents who were
already struggling. It is these kinds of conditions that trigger feelings of
anger, despair and hopelessness that can lead to acts of child abuse and/or neglect
when parents have hit walls in receiving help for them and their children.
In
the MSD business model of income assistance delivery, I found no understanding
of social or human issues. This business model does not understand, or care
about the social and health impacts of poverty on individuals’ and families. Nor does this model recognize mental health or
addictions, lack of education and literacy, lack of social skills, lack of day
care or the many ills that befall vulnerable human beings, because it is not
profitable to do so.
Welfare
came into existence because people needed help and there will always be people who
need help due to their own personal circumstances. From what I have experienced,
working in the welfare Ministry over the years, I now believe there is a segment
of society who wish the poor and vulnerable would just go away and die and
clean up after themselves so no one will ever know they were there in the first
place.
People on income assistance can be our
family, friends, or neighbours. Someday it could be you, or someone you
know. The
health of our communities is measured by how our most vulnerable are treated
and far too many in our communities have been deprived of what they need. I
remember a time when everyone was treated with respect and
dignity. With the political will of the B.C. government it can ensure that the
human rights of our most fragile citizens are values that are the foundation of
our welfare system.
