Not every person within Calgary’s vulnerable population is able to access the City of Calgary’s Fair Entry program to obtain a discount transit pass in a timely manner.
That’s from advocates within the vulnerable population non-profit sector, who are asking for changes to the criteria that the City of Calgary uses to assess eligibility for the Fair Entry program.
“We’ve had people wait up to six months to get fair entry,” said Kelly Ernst, Vice President for Vulnerable Populations at the Centre for Newcomers.
At issue is the ability for under-documented individuals to access Registered Social Workers (RWS), who can provide documentation for the Fair Entry program that bypasses the need for documentation on income status from either the federal or provincial governments.
City of Calgary team lead for Social Support, Lisa Davis, told LiveWire Calgary that individuals phoning 311 receive their documents from a City of Calgary employed RWS, the time to receive documentation—and ultimately a low income bus pass—is nine-days.
Davis said that she has been in contact with the Centre for Newcomers, and that the nine-day turnaround period data came from a result of looking at the city’s processes from those conversations.
The timing through, said Ernst, is more complex than just nine-days between seeing a social worker and receiving paper work. He said he has been frustrated by the city’s response, because in his opinion it has only looked at the time from when the social worker has received the information to when a RSW letter is issued.
“If you phoned 311 to try to make an appointment with a social worker, 311 today told one of my employees that it’s a minimum four-month wait, and the reason being is you don’t get to a social worker directly.”
“What you have to do is first go to one department who will take your information and then schedule you in to the social worker, and then the social worker will then take you.”
Davis disagreed with Ernst’ assessment, stating that she wasn’t sure where the miscommunication was occurring.
