House Arrest
With no source of income, Rogers struggled to survive. Her landlord temporarily agreed to reduce her rent to $300 a month, community groups such as the Elizabeth Fry Society and the Social Planning Council of Greater Sudbury rallied to find food and financial assistance for her, and her doctor lobbied the government to have drug benefits which had previously been covered by welfare reinstated because Rogers was unable to pay for her prescribed medications, including antidepressants and drugs to alleviate pregnancy-related nausea.
Sean Dewart, a Toronto lawyer, launched a constitutional appeal on Rogers' behalf, successfully having Rogers' welfare suspension reversed by Justice Gloria Epstein. On 31 May, Epstein ruled that "for a member of our community carrying an unborn child to be homeless and deprived of basic sustenance is a situation that would adversely affect the public — its dignity, its human rights commitments and its health care resources."
Read more about this topic: Kimberly Rogers
Famous quotes containing the words house and/or arrest:
“[My father] was a lazy man. It was the days of independent incomes, and if you had an independent income you didn’t work. You weren’t expected to. I strongly suspect that my father would not have been particularly good at working anyway. He left our house in Torquay every morning and went to his club. He returned, in a cab, for lunch, and in the afternoon went back to the club, played whist all afternoon, and returned to the house in time to dress for dinner.”
—Agatha Christie (1891–1976)
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)