Clients Receiving Extended Benefits (EBP)

• Clients receiving Extended Benefits can share accommodations without their social assistance benefits being affected.
• The exemption does not apply to married or common law relationships. -These clients will retain this special status if they go off assistance and come back. -These clients will come back to the EBP rate and will be exempted from HIP.

Presenter’s Comment: Extended Benefits are approved by the Medical Advisory Board which hears approximately 1200 cases per year. Exemption and discretion practices may or may not be fully or systematically shared among all case managers – perhaps this is a point for future consideration and discussion within the Department, he proposed.

Adult Children with Income

• Adult children earning less than $15,000 (and more than $400+/mo.) living with parent are treated separately.
• Adult child is expected to contribute $125/month to household and parents’ S.A. reduced accordingly.
• Adult child is 19 or older, and not legally required to be in school.
• If the adult child has no income he/she is a dependent on the parents’ file.
• Youth Policy has priority in case of school children.
• The $15,000 annual income or $1,250/month is gross income before deductions.

Long-term Needs

• Clients meeting the eligibility criteria for Long-term Needs designation will remain at the Transitional Assistance Program (TAP) rate without having to provide a medical report. The designation is permanent.
• The eligibility criteria are:
  • Clients assessed by Family & Community Services under the Long-term Strategy
  • Long-term mental health cases referred by Department of Health & Wellness (DHW)
  • Clients in receipt of disability pension under the Pensions Act
  • Clients meet the Long-term needs definition after assessment by the Medical Advisory Board.

Presenter’s Comment: It is much better if a stakeholder group (presents) a common approach (smaller groups often arrive with so many varied and sometimes conflicting ideas). What’s wrong is important yes, but more critical is to offer workable ideas to fix it and how to work it through the existing public policy environment. Having a strong, united voice is critical.

She posed that in the view of many at the community level, it feels as though to date, the government has been only “tinkering” with income and wage-related policies. Further, the whole system must be refocused so that there are incentives for working. For example, she said the base amount of wage exemption should be increased, and should be based on annual earnings, or there should be a process for gradually increasing it.

People recognize that a “Guaranteed Annual Income” approach is the better way to go, by far. Other views include:

• The generally held understanding that far too much policy is driven by “politics”. This is in part, a structural issue where policy is formed from an “economic vs. a “social” perspective. In contrast, people at the community level know full well that usually you have to do both in tandem.
• Further, poverty policy is still viewed by many as a “cost” rather than as a valuable investment. To begin, internally - even reviewing traditional terminology could lead to a better reflection and understanding of the positives of such policy. An example would be wage “enhancement” policy rather than wage “exemption”.
• It has been known for a long time that a key barrier to maintaining work is transportation. The current policies do not assist; indeed they make it worse.

Presenter’s Comment: In a concluding remark, the key presenter cautioned participants to understand that government works within a set budget. Even when new issues or programs arise, the funds are more likely to be shifted from another program, than to be added and supported by new funds.