Did you know disabled workers can only earn $16,200 a year before they lose access to their disability benefits? And when they lose access to their disability benefits it sometimes can mean they lose access to other entitlements such as housing.

Living Wage Employers who want to do the right thing face a difficult dilemma – do they pay their disabled staff less by offering them fewer hours than their non-disabled peers or do they let their staff lose access to the support they’re entitled to?

We’ve partnered with Living Wage for Families BC and BC Poverty Reduction Coalition on an open letter to Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction Sheila Malcolmson, to ask her to use the upcoming review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy to remove these restrictions and allow disabled workers to earn a Living Wage. 50 other employers have also signed the letter.

Read the letter and share: https://www.livingwageforfamilies.ca/openletter

Press release: https://tinyurl.com/3kykdkpz

On June 13th, 2024, Members of Parliament, Bonita Zarrillo and Laurel Collins, introduced a new federal bill (Bill C-403), which proposes that people receiving the Persons with Disabilities Benefit (PWD) receive automatic approval for federal benefits, including the Disability Tax Credit (DTC), Canada Pension Plan-Disability (CPP-D), and Canada Disability Benefit (CDB).  

A recording of the news conference can be found here and you can read the proposed bill here.  

DABC is in full support of Bill C-403; if adopted it will bring forward a change that we have advocated for over many years. Last year, in our submission to BC’s poverty reduction strategy, we advocated that “the level of stress and pressure placed on individuals to “prove” their disability can be mitigated against through finding ways to streamline the process” and that “individuals who have already gone through an application process for a different disability benefit should not need to go through the same validation process again.” If passed, Bill C-403 could reduce such stress and increase greater access to these benefits for countless people with disabilities in BC and across Canada. 

DABC has been informed that some landlords are trying to prematurely raise rents of their tenants who are PWD clients in anticipation of the shelter rate increase that will take effect in July 2023 for the August 2023 cheque issue.

DABC would like to remind PWD clients of their rights as a tenant: The maximum rent increase for 2023 is 2%, it is illegal for a landlord to increase a tenant’s rent above this. Landlords are also obligated to provide 3 month’s notice of a rent increase. Rent can only be increased once every 12 months.

If you encounter any issues with this and need more information, please reach out to the Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre for assistance and/or advocacy.