Expand social aid eligibility, lawmaker urges govt

As the post-pandemic landscape continues to reshape the needs of communities, Opposition Senator Andre Worrell. Andre Worrell has called for a broader definition of vulnerability to ensure more individuals can access public assistance.

The suggestion came as the Senate debated the Social Empowerment Agency Bill, aiming to enhance social services across the country.

Addressing the Upper House during the debate on the bill on Friday, Senator Worrell said the government should consider how to classify people needing assistance in the country, particularly in the post-pandemic era.

He said: “We have to recognise that gone are the days where persons requiring assistance only live in chattel houses. We have had a pandemic, and let’s use this as an example. Imagine a family that lost a mother and a father, and it is just 18-year-olds and 20-year-olds who are left to continue. That family would need assistance, and even though the mother and father were able to build a nice bungalow in the developed areas, they’re no longer there, and the children are not yet at the stage where they can properly manage to finance that house, to pay the utilities, to continue to pay the mortgage, if there is one, or even to continue with the renovations to the house which their mother and father may have been doing.

“So you may very well find yourself as a social worker in the Child Care Board, or coming up later, the Rural Development and Urban Development Commission receiving a request for assistance to repair a roof on a lovely wall house, but because of circumstances, the family just does not have the means at this time in order to go to the bank to get a loan to repair that roof.”

Senator Worrell insisted that it was better for the government to fix the roof rather than the entire house in the case of a weather event, describing this as “the shift that we need to make in our access to social development”.

Noting that the government was committed to protecting this island’s vulnerable groups, including the elderly and persons living with disabilities, Minister of Energy and Business Senator Lisa Cummins said that the Social Empowerment Agency (SEA), an amalgamation of the Welfare Department, the National Disabilities Unit, the Child Care Board and the National Assistance Board, would be decentralised to widen access.

“It is proposed that under the new SEA, there will be, across the country, in support of people where they live, without everyone having to move all over the place and access services in a centralised place only, a network of client services in every single parish across the country,” she said, adding that the resources will also be accessible via an online portal.

Senator Cummins added that the agency would have a transformation and empowerment directorate, where it would build relationships with the third sector to be able to provide additional support to augment its work.
“This government is committed not just to continuing to support social services but to expanding them,” the senator declared.
(JB)