The BC Income Assistance Program (welfare)
I’m living on this presently not because I want to but I’m out of viable options. No wonder there are so many homeless people. I can’t see how one person is supposed to live on $610 per month. And this divided in the following manner – $375 shelter; $235 for everything else. Now I suppose if you partake of the various free food programs you might get one square meal per day. The workers I’ve met are kind the living however is imo a mind numbing existence. I’ve suffered from clinical depression for 20 + years, without my daily meds, this program would kill me I think. I’d loose hope, slip into a really deep depression and that would be that.
I can get by and be happy with little and thank God that I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Without Him I don’t know how people in this situation at a bare minimum retain hope. And the system is nuts. With my medical records, with the backing of my doctor, I’m advised to apply for designation as a “person with disabilities” (PWD) both provincially and federally (CPP Disability Benefit). If approved there are some other support options and benefits. I’m told by the intake people they can see not see I can possibly be denied. Yet 90-days later I am denied. And in the next breath told to appeal the decision.
I know two other people in this process. Person A is older then I and fought through this beurocratic system for 6 years before he was approved! Person B is younger then I and has two daughters, children, she is responsible for. And she was denied 2-days after me. If the medical system says you are disabled what qualifies some beurocrat to deny you? This system, such as it is, is NUTS imo.
