Community Housing Benefit recalculation will see less money for AISH recipients

With a deadline approaching for AISH recipients to update the province on their eligibility for a new federal benefit, apprehension is rising.

A recalculation for the community housing benefit for those on an Alberta assistance program for those with disabilities will see recipients get a little less each month once their benefits are renewed.

Monica Van Iderstine of Medicine Hat originally thought that meant she would lose $100 a month with her new Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) recalculation, but in reality that loss will amount to $166.

She claims the issue stems from a discrepancy in utility costs.

“They took my rent and then my utilities, and they rounded my utilities to $73 a month. But I don’t pay $73 a month for utilities, I pay roughly around $120,” Van Iderstine said.

A person on AISH can receive a maximum of $1,900 a month.

That’ll stretch an already tight budget even further.

“That $166 — that’s a lot of money,” Van Iderstine said. “The government’s just making it harder and harder and harder for poor people, people with disabilities.”

Van Iderstine is also raising her grandson, and currently receives the child tax benefit because of it.

But he turns 18 in a year and likely won’t be able to move out by that time.

“That’s going to be really hard to live off, right? I don’t even know how I’m going to juggle everything,” said Van Iderstine.

The community housing benefit asks for 30 per cent of a beneficiary’s gross income to cover housing.

Before the change to the AISH program, recipients have had large portions of the income exempted.

Some who were paying as little as $300 a month for rent could now be paying over $500.

This change better reflects federal guidelines according to the province.

“There were a couple of programs inside the province that did not meet that standard, and were down to about 17 per cent,” said Jason Nixon, Alberta’s minister of assisted living and social services.

That could mean someone like “a single mother who was working full time, who needed support to be inside affordable housing, was paying almost double rent of certain individuals that were on all the government subsidized programs,” Nixon said.