Colby Cosh: Disabled man solved homelessness with trailer home. The government would have none of it

No doubt everyday journalism has lost much of its power to shock the conscience in a world in which everyone’s a victim one way or another. But I unexpectedly found my hackles still functioning when I read in Nova Scotia’s ancient Chronicle Herald about the predicament of Robert Antle, a resident of Upper Stewiacke.

Antle, 60, is too sick to work and qualifies for welfare with a disability top-up. He lost his apartment last year and moved into a large trailer with a sympathetic friend. The friend was building a house on the property, and when he got it habitable in November, he agreed to rent the entire trailer, which has a wood stove and an electrical hookup, to his disabled pal.

I know that paragraph is an unusual thing to find in a Canadian newspaper — a little good-news story, that is, about someone in peril of homelessness who found a creative, affordable, appropriate solution. Needless to say, the authorities wouldn’t stand for it.

When Antle exhibited his rental agreement to the Community Services department, according to reporter Andrew Rankin, he was told that while Nova Scotia had been happy to cover his rent for a permanent apartment, and would have been delighted to pay for him to live in a “mobile home,” his new digs are technically a “travel trailer” and thus ineligible for rental assistance. Antle’s welfare cheque was cut instantly in half — reduced to the meagre “essentials” rate that Nova Scotia pays the homeless, who don’t, after all, have rent or mortgage obligations.