Keep $300 benefit supplement, B.C. urged
Those receiving extra disability assistance during pandemic say it has made a huge difference
Disabled and neurodivergent people have launched a campaign calling on the B.C. government to keep distributing a monthly $300 benefit supplement after the novel coronavirus pandemic ends.
In April, as part of its $5-billion COVID-19 financial aid plan, the province began providing the temporary supplement to people receiving income or disability assistance, but not federal employment insurance or the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.
Organizers with the new “300 to Live” campaign say the supplement has significantly improved the lives of thousands of people living in poverty and struggling.
“Many disabled and impoverished people were finally able to afford the basic necessities such as food, medicine and shelter,” says a statement on 300tolive.org.
“We’re sick of not being able to survive,” said Vivian Ly, a co-founder of Autistics United Canada, which launched the campaign with Vancouver Queer Spoon Share and a coalition of disabled and neurodivergent people.
“A lot of what I’m hearing from members in AUC and the Vancouver Queer Spoon Share is requests at the end of the month — ‘I’m struggling to make ends meet,’ and ‘Someone just lend me $10 so I can eat today.’ It’s heartbreaking.”
But after the introduction of the supplement, people started sending Ly photos of food, clothing and other necessities they could finally afford.
Billie Rose, an organizing member with the campaign, described in an email how the supplement recently meant not feeling dread after running out of freezer bags.
“That $5 for a box of freezer bags is something that usually breaks me. I have to put things back at the grocery store by the time we’re two weeks into the month,” Rose said.
“This time, the feeling was different. I didn’t have to panic over small things, several times a day. I’m raising a oneyear-old and doing that in poverty is incredibly stressful. We need this extra $300 a month.”
The campaign also calls on the province to permanently raise assistance rates to at least the poverty line. They want future rate increases to include an increase to the shelter allowance, which currently maxes out at $375 for a single person with no dependents.
Monthly disability assistance rates were frozen from 2007 to 2015, and only saw increases of between $25 and $77 in 2016 and another $150 in 2017.
Advocacy groups and economists have long been calling for further increases to lift people out of poverty.
When Shane Simpson, minister of social development and poverty reduction, announced the supplement in April, he said it increased the monthly assistance amount for a single disabled person to $1,483.42, or about $17,801 annually. The poverty line for a single person in B.C. is about $20,000.
Asked by email Saturday whether the province was considering keeping the supplement, Simpson’s ministry wrote: “The province is looking at all options and will work to ensure that as much as possible is being done to support people in need.”
Brent Frain and Sonjia Grandahl, roommates in Langley who both receive the disability benefit, have been independently advocating for the “300 to Live” campaign.
Grandahl said the $300 is changing people’s lives.
“We’re living in a real state of poverty right now and with this COVID, everything has gone up in price,” Grandahl said. “(The supplement has) just helped out tremendously and we would like to keep it that way.”
Frain and Grandahl both said they’ve been able to buy healthier groceries, afford medications and worry less about their rent, which alone accounts for 59 per cent of their incomes.
The $300 supplement has meant people can live with dignity and finally afford accessibility equipment, too, Frain said.