Skip to content

    • Category and theme

    • Groups affected

    • Audience

    • Location of recommendation

    • Sector

    • Year

    • Clear search

2 search results for
Poverty

Recommendation 3: The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction must make immediate changes to BC’s Income Assistance and Disability Assistance programs including:

  1. increasing income assistance rates to the Market Basket Measure and indexing them to inflation;
  2. reviewing the processes that are currently in place for reporting “welfare fraud” to provide greater accountability and ensure that people receiving income assistance are not denied survival income without due process;
  3. increasing access to in-person services for income assistance and disability applicants; and d. ensuring that people living with disabilities can access disability support by:
    • simplifying the application process to reduce wait times and lessen reliance on advocates;
    • providing provincial guidelines for doctors/service providers on how and when to fill out disability forms; and
    • ensuring that hospital social workers are resourced and directed to work with patients in need to apply for disability benefits.


Recommendation 5: All government actors and health care providers must recognize the specific and indispensable expertise of people with lived experience. Increase peer-run and peer-delivered services and peer-support positions within government services by:

  1. developing a provincial advisory board of people with lived experience of homelessness for BC Housing;
  2. establishing provincial best practices for engaging people with lived experience of poverty, homelessness, and substance use in service delivery modelled on GIPA (Greater Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDS), MIPA (Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV), and NAUWU (Nothing About Us Without Us) principles;
  3. collaborating with peer-led organizations to audit all provincial services (hospital, health, income assistance, shelter, housing) to identify and fund opportunities for peer engagement in service provision and planning; and
  4. developing a model for peer-involvement in the design and execution of homeless counts.


Back to the top