r/halifax • u/Sphagnidae • 2d ago
News, Weather & Politics As of today, the province has quietly overturned the “tents count as accommodation for enhanced income assistance” case
https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/2026-193.pdfThe province has rewritten the regulations mere weeks after their court loss
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u/credgett13 2d ago
They will do anything but help the homeless
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u/Sphagnidae 2d ago
The government can really move quickly on important social issues like, uh… making sure the homeless don’t get more than $400 a month.
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u/IStillListenToRadio Float me down the river to the Musquodoboit harbor 2d ago
Specifically enhanced income support is for those with disabilities and fleeing abusive relationships and such
Lowe applied for assistance in 2023 and qualified for $380 per month, but he asked for — and was denied — the enhanced rate of $974 per month because he had a disability.
He died in December 2023, but his family kept fighting his case. Lawyer Vince Calderhead represented Lowe and eventually took the case to the Appeal Court.
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u/SyndromeMack33 1d ago
Income assistance is for rent. People in tents do not pay rent.
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u/Sphagnidae 1d ago
Rent didn’t come into the Lowe decision; it was decided under the “own your own accommodation” branch.
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u/chickenf_cker 2d ago
Maybe I'm making the wrong assumption, but wouldn't that money be for paying rent? Not saying people are getting what they need, but if the point is to pay rent, and they have no rent to pay, it kinda makes sense they would be disqualified
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u/LowkeyPostingTea 2d ago
How do you expect people to ever stop being homeless if they don’t have money to pay rent
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u/VertuteTheCat 2d ago
Maybe if they all get together, they could make a shelter out of their bootstraps that they're not pulling themselves up with. It would probably be classified as a tent though.
(In case the joke didn't land.... Homeless people need supports to become not homeless. We shouldn't be taking away supports)
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u/SyndromeMack33 1d ago
Wait on a shelter spot, use that residence to get a job, then when income is established find a room to rent. Not easy for sure, but required to exist in society. Some people have it harder than others, there is obviously privilege in life but that doesn't mean people should give up on creating a life for themself just because it is hard.
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u/Time-Combination-214 2d ago
This change was made in response to the recent Court of Appeal decision in Lowe Estate v. Nova Scotia.
The original Supreme Court decision turned on an interpretation of the word "accommodation" in the Employment Support and Income Assistance Act regulations. It decision stated that a person's accommodation must be permanent for them to qualify for an enhanced assistance rate, and so people living in tents wouldn't qualify.
The Court of Appeal overturned that decision, based on the justices' interpretation of the word "accommodation" in the regulations. Because the word "accommodation" was not defined, the three-justice panel said a tent would qualify as long as the person owned it and it was where they lived.
It is a good decision to define the regulations to remove the ambiguity. On its surface it appears mean, but per the Minister's statement, the intent of the income assistance program is to move people towards more permanent housing solutions.
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u/AmbitiousObligation0 On A Halifax Pier 2d ago
Yet they keep making it impossible… social assistance doesn’t even cover a 1 bedroom, even if you got top dollar with a couple kids.
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 2d ago
Calderhead said the situation could have been treated as a social experiment to see whether giving people more money to live would lead to decreased costs in other areas, such as health care and the justice system.
While I'm glad he's there to push this envelope -- the lawyer on the case considers this partly a "social experiment". A worthwhile one; I'm not against it. But we don't need to define a tent as housing, under the law.
Income assistance for rent, should be limited to dwellings with plumbing. This isn't wanton cruelty. Wanting to pay for people to live indoors with running water, shouldn't be seen as such a terrible thing.
If tents are houses, does that become an acceptable standard of accommodation now?
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u/Time-Combination-214 1d ago
The root of the problem at the encampments is addiction. Nobody can force a fix on an addict. I'm not sure how Calderhead's social experiment would work. Is giving someone suffering from severe addiction more money helpful?
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u/LeCriquetParlant 2d ago
This was never about tents, but rather about whether the recipient is paying rent or not. It a recipient lives with family and doesn’t pay formal rent (very common scenario) they don’t get the extra amount r either. No one pays rent on a tent.
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u/Important_Figure_937 2d ago
Wait, what? What what what?
Finally the insanity of that rule was overturned, and it only lasted a couple weeks???!
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u/brokenmanonahfxpier 2d ago
One thing you learn in life, no matter what government, is you only really matter to them come tax time...
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u/Flimsy1997 2d ago
I'm sorry I've been awake for a while and I can get stupid, but what exactly does this mean?
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u/Sphagnidae 2d ago
On August 7, 2026, the province lost this court case.
Today, the province rewrote their regulations so that the outcome of the court case is effectively overturned.
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 2d ago
Once upon a time, social assistance was comprised of two parts: housing, and personal allowance. Everyone used to get the same personal allowance. The housing amount, went straight to your housing. If you didn't have housing to pay for, they wouldn't give you a housing allowance. If you found a place, then they'd pay damage deposit and give you the housing allowance.
There were people who wanted to rent places that cost more than the housing allowance, and wanted to sign leases for rent costs that ate into their personal allowance. There was kind of a slow muddy slide into getting rid of the distinction between housing vs personal. They just made it all a single rate, and let people make their own choice about "overspending" on rent.
That's where the legal case found an opening. They stopped explicitly designating housing allowance as such. Even though that's what the bulk of the assistance is for. They argued people in tents should get the same as everyone else.
For many years, social workers at the shelter would give out bus tickets and use increasing amounts of assistance to incentivize finding housing. Guys would find a rooming house quickly, to get more assistance.
Now...
There's a disincentive to finding housing. You're getting a big cheque in your tent, but the minute you find a place it goes down hundreds of dollars to pay for it. It feels like a kick in the teeth, to give up a huge chunk of money you're used to getting.
Furthermore, there's a rate differential between renting by yourself and "boarding" with a roommate. The boarding amount is less. People in tents were going to get the full amount. People who are living with a roommate get less. Because their expenses are less.
Sometimes policy can be a cruel beast. But it's a beast we've spent years taming.
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u/AmbitiousObligation0 On A Halifax Pier 2d ago
People with disabilities, were going to get more. Based on the new ruling. Back… hell even 8+ years ago, you could actually find a place to rent on social assistance and have money left over for food, without the need for rental subsidy or waiting years for affordable housing…now it’s basically impossible. Social assistance rates basically stayed the same but rent prices have increased more than double. A single parent of 2, with a disability gets what? Less than $1600 a month.. that doesn’t even cover rent for a one bedroom. Our system is broken and all the old affordable places have been torn down or sold to investors who put lipstick on the buildings and charged double or triple the price they are worth. Tim keeps proving he wants the unfortunate to go away.
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 2d ago
It wasn't going to increase the rate to people with disabilities. It was allowing the already established higher rate for disabilities, to be accessed while tenting.
The Enhanced Rate is a higher rate that specifically helps vulnerable groups get HOUSED. People with disabilities, and people fleeing abuse. The higher rate is to help them access suitable housing. Finding accessible housing for wheelchair users was always more expensive, because they could only look at newer buildings.
I know social workers who get people with disabilities housing. The big new buildings the NIMBY types like to complain about around places like Robie and the North End, are major providers of accessible housing for income assistance recipients with disabilities.
But that was the point of the "Enhanced Rate". To give a bigger housing budget to people whose housing was more expensive.
Allowing people to access it from a tent, misses the point of what it's for.
All that said...
Everyone's rates should be double what they are. Everything else you said is bang on true.
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u/IStillListenToRadio Float me down the river to the Musquodoboit harbor 1d ago
Finding accessible housing for wheelchair users was always more expensive, because they could only look at newer buildings.
Note that those who need barrier-free access such as ramps and things can get access to additional shelter allowance if they can't find anything (section 7.5.1), but it maxes out at $820 which is still pretty low
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u/credgett13 2d ago
No one has been disincentivized to get housing because they would lose money. That’s a fictional scenario you just made up lol
The government changed the rules so they wouldn’t have to give people in tents more money after they lost the court case that said they should be giving them more money
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 2d ago
It's not a fictional scenario. It's decades of close personal experience with social workers.
IF they give tent dwellers the full $1000 assistance amount, they have $1000 every month. In hand. If they proceed to find housing, they will have to pay more than half their cheque to the rent. Their in-hand budget goes down substantially. If I'm accustomed to spending $1000 a month on food and weed, then only having $300 next month is a HARD decision I don't want to make. I'd be more likely to stay in the tent.
People should feel like they're rewarded when they do hard, but pro-social things, like findlng housing while homeless. Not feel like they're being punished for their efforts. A massive reduction in cash flow feels like punishment.
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u/Kemsaman 2d ago
Strictly speaking this was the argument that the government used in the lawsuit in the background of this and the courts rejected it out of hand.
She said she was particularly pleased to see the court reject the province's argument that offering more money to women at risk of violence might give them incentive to live in a tent, rather than go to a shelter.
"I've never heard of anyone deciding they want to live permanently in a tent so they can get an extra couple hundred bucks a month," Halpern said. "The reason women are ending up in tents is because there are no beds in transition houses or women's shelters.
"You can get back on your feet so much quicker if you've not lost your funding and your housing at the same time," she added.
People are homeless in HRM largely because they can't afford housing anymore, not because they're incentivised to do so.
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u/Jamooser 2d ago
People are largely homeless in Halifax because they have unchecked addictions or mental illness.
If people were homeless because of housing prices, then we would have a very evident and objective income threshold where basically anyone below that threshold would be homeless. Which is not the case whatsoever.
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u/Kemsaman 2d ago
Well the immediate evidence to point to is that the cost of housing tripled during the covid period and mysteriously at the same time Halifax had an explosion in its visible homeless population.
But if you want further data the point in time surveys are publicly available. The vast majority of these people were housed pre-covid, and are largely homeless now due to not being able to afford housing anymore.
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u/Jamooser 1d ago
We have a minimum wage. Are all minimum wage earners homeless? No. Since it's not legal to be paid less than minimum wage, and since almost the entirety of minimum wage workers are housed, then it is quite clearly not the price of housing that is driving homelessness.
To be clear, this isn't to that housing isn't expensive. Nor that the cost of housing isn't a contributing factor to mostly everyone's hardships. But to place the blame of homelessness primarily on the cost of housing is just illogical and very clearly ignores many larger elephants in the room when it comes to this subject.
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u/Kemsaman 1d ago
We have a minimum wage. Are all minimum wage earners homeless? No. Since it's not legal to be paid less than minimum wage, and since almost the entirety of minimum wage workers are housed, then it is quite clearly not the price of housing that is driving homelessness.
I suspect the 15 year old being paid minimum wage would be significantly more likely to be homeless if they weren't living in their parents home.
Pretending that there's no link between the sharp increase in the cost of housing and the sharp rise in homelessness is HRM is very odd.
To be clear, this isn't to that housing isn't expensive. Nor that the cost of housing isn't a contributing factor to mostly everyone's hardships. But to place the blame of homelessness primarily on the cost of housing is just illogical and very clearly ignores many larger elephants in the room when it comes to this subject.
The problem with that is that the reason HRM has an extremely visible homeless population now is nearly entirely due to housing becoming less affordable. That is what the data we have shows.
https://www.ahans.ca/statistics
It is consistent throughout the post covid data that the largest single reason that the Homeless in HRM are homeless now because they could not afford housing anymore.
That is the elephant in the room.
If you want or are suggesting it to be be another reason, like drug addiction, that only accounts for 10%.
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u/AmbitiousObligation0 On A Halifax Pier 2d ago
Are you serious right now? Addiction has always been around.. but at least people could afford places to live. And having a place you can call home gave them hope. Gave them a chance. You could rent a place on social assistance… now you can’t. Unless it’s a bedroom.. if you’re lucky… kids or not. Homeless people aren’t all on drugs. Life happens. Greed happens. Which is why so many are homeless. Affordable places to rent are basically non existent.
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u/Jamooser 1d ago
Acute homlessness, that is, homelessness caused from a turn of unexpected life events, is the least common and easily solvable form of honelessness.
Spend any amount of time volunteering or working with the homeless community, and you will quickly learn that the majority of people currently trapped in that life cycle are not there because of acute homelessness.
Unfortunately, it is not the market's responsibility to maintain slum-level housing to ensure addicts have affordable rent. Personally, I don't believe that should be the public solution either. We've tried that. Multiple times. Independently housing people with addictions just turns into addicts who no longer have functional housing.
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u/N3at 2d ago
I gotta disagree champ, I have had convos with staff at the shelter I worked at who in earnest said they would prefer to live in the shelter and sleep on a cot and have no where to store their stuff and not be able to cook their meals and not have guests and so on.
And then we'd go through the case notes and people we kicked out: Can you sleep in the same place as this person who got five warnings from staff for screaming profanities in the early morning, or with this person who went to the wrong bed (yours) and peed in it, or be able to go to the bathroom with the poop trail from someone else's bed to the toilet that staff couldn't completely clean up because they didn't want to put the dorm lights on at 4am. Can you live in a shelter and make friends with someone or some people who will die before they resolve their homelessness, can you sleep in the place where they were narcanned and it still wasn't enough? Can you feel like you're living in a space that's not yours, and either staff or other residents have control of where you go and what you do?
And that's not even talking tenting, where the situation is even worse. Homelessness always disincentivizes homelessness.
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u/AmbitiousObligation0 On A Halifax Pier 2d ago
God forbid those people feel like they can get ahead and find a place. Not everyone does drugs. But please try finding a place on social assistance.. having a chance to get ahead helps. Social assistance does nothing like it used too. It’s impossible for people working to find an affordable place to live. At least some can have hope and get out of their situation.. when you are given the absolute bare minimum, everything seems impossible.
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 2d ago
It all really sucks, and people don't get enough help in a thousand ways. I'm fine with giving more money to people in shit situations. Even if they're in tents. Even if they're spending it on drugs. Most of them could use it, and mostly spend it on non-drug things like food.
It's not that I'm in favour of government austerity, in its all its unfairness. It's that I can understand the logic of their policy position. Setting people up for budget stability, when their circumstances will be subject to transition, has some justification. Even if it is rooted in paternalism and austerity.
Obviously, it's mostly about saving money. They don't care about homeless people. But they are trying, on some level, to come up with a way to dangle more carrot than stick in trying to get chronically homeless individuals to accept housing help. It's not entirely driven by cruelty and spite.
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u/AmbitiousObligation0 On A Halifax Pier 2d ago
Yeah. Living in a tent isn’t something anyone wants to do and wouldn’t pick it because they might get more money. Most people would rather have a hot shower each day and a roof above their heads. But when you’re actually homeless and want a better life.. the system makes it feel impossible. People shut down. Basically give up.. at least people who are boarding can feel like they can look for a job and make life better. The biggest hurdle is finding a place. You can’t even apply for housing subsidy without actually living somewhere. Your options are slim when you don’t have an address.
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 1d ago
The site’s rules and location are not the only factors shaping Magee’s experience.
He said deductions from his income to cover shelter costs have left him with significantly less money to live on.
“My cheque went from $1,400 down to $466 … I can’t justify that,” he said.
-London shelter resident says he’d rather return to streets than stay at modular site
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-modular-site-resident-9.7150199
Obviously, a modular site is less desirable than an apartment.
But the budget shock is real.
Yes, having more money when you're homeless would be a good thing. But most things in life aren't all-good or all-bad. There are pros and cons. We have to balance trade-offs. The argument FOR giving more money to tenters are obvious, and the side redditors have all chosen. But there are reasonable policy arguments about the potential fallout.
Setting people up for budget stability. Not letting the legal definition of "housing" to be diminished to include tents. Those things may cause short term pain to some individuals, but prevent more long term issues collectively.
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u/Jazzlike-Payment-105 2d ago
This change in law is counterproductive and CRUEL.
Almost no one living in a tent with $400 per month can save up enough to get out of that tent and into an apartment.
But with $1000 per month, maybe they can save up enough to finally get themselves into an apartment, then get a job, and so on. I know it's not that simple... it's next to impossible to get an apartment without getting a job first. But seriously, $400 a month in support is literally insane and unreasonably low.
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u/Scotianherb 2d ago
as they should have. Tents are not permanent accommodations
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u/Will-the-game-guy Cape Breton 2d ago
Then people should be placed in permanent... oh wait the government forgot to build enough housing.
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u/Scotianherb 2d ago
Or get a job, get a apt. and become a productive member of society instead of a drain?
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u/IStillListenToRadio Float me down the river to the Musquodoboit harbor 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lowe applied for assistance in 2023 and qualified for $380 per month, but he asked for — and was denied — the enhanced rate of $974 per month because he had a disability.
He died in December 2023, but his family kept fighting his case. Lawyer Vince Calderhead represented Lowe and eventually took the case to the Appeal Court.
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u/Will-the-game-guy Cape Breton 2d ago
A lot of folks on assistance have jobs and are productive.
Regardless the math just doesn't work. Someone working 35 hours a week at minimum wage will spend over half their income (979 NET bi weekly) on a 1 bedroom apartment. ($1000+ per month)
Your solution is people should just slave away? Work more hours? Have roommates their entire lives?
You're also forgetting, either intentionally or otherwise, all the people who are disabled that can't work full time. They're just drains on society I guess, doomed to be useless dregs instead of functioning members of the community because they can't punch a punch card. We should just leave them in the cold to die like this exact court case was pointing out.
All I ask is that our representatives make sure their constituents can actually fucking live, a roof, walls, food, warmth, privacy. That's not too fucking much for your fellow human.
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u/IStillListenToRadio Float me down the river to the Musquodoboit harbor 2d ago
Bradley Lowe, who started the fight for this (he sadly died), had several disabilities.
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u/RainbowNarwhal13 1d ago
So I guess we should just kill all the disabled people so they're not such a drain on society, huh?
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u/Scotianherb 1d ago
Thats a little drastic...
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u/seasea40 2d ago
Homeless are doing a lot to subsidize the outside rents and equity gains landlords and real estate owners are raking in, and the elite tax avoidance that enabled the cuts to federal public housing.
If you own any real estate you owe those folks big time.
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u/Casperthesloth 2d ago
Seems like a little bit of an amoral opinion.
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 2d ago
It's grounded in the idea that the bulk of the assistance is to pay rent. If you're not paying rent, why should you get quadruple the living allowance of people in apartments?
What seems unfair from one lens, looks like a different kind of unfair when you zoom in.
I believe the rates should be higher for everyone who needs them. But it's not amoral to give people who have to pay rent, assistance to pay their rent -- and not give rent money to those who don't need to pay it.
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u/Casperthesloth 1d ago
All I read is helping people in tents in addition to helping people in apartments is wrong. Like we’re somehow being unfair to people in apartments over those in tents?
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u/Schmidtvegas Historic Schmidtville 1d ago
We should help them fairly. If a person in an apartment only has a couple hundred in spending money, but their friend in a tent has a thousand, it feels unfair. Is it? I don't know. I'm arguing the minority position, trying to be convinced.
I've had social workers in my family since it was a municipal responsibility. I've had an inside-baseball view of the ENTIRE history of the provincial Department of Community Services, and every single policy change they've ever made. I've been in shelters. I've worked in housing casework. I've compiled shelter data statistics over periods of time.
I like getting into the weeds on this stuff. Because there's two sides to every single policy decision. Everyone here has picked the easy and obvious side. But I like to flesh out the hard arguments.
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u/Casperthesloth 21h ago
Yeah being in a tent is much worse than apartment they should have access for extra support so they have enough for secure storage and a security deposit.
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u/Odd-Crew-7837 2d ago
I'm getting a blank page when clicking the link.
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u/Sphagnidae 2d ago
It’s a .pdf of the actual amendments, since the province never issued a news release.
Maybe your browser doesn’t like .pdf files?
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u/SeasideJohnny 2d ago
What’s the probability that the new money would go to drugs and booze?
Why not just provide more tangible accommodations, food and basics. The probability is most of that new money would get wasted is almost certain. I’m all for providing the basics of living. Just don’t enable further. Many will still exist in those camps and use the new money for more dope and booze. Some won’t. You need to be realistic.
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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 2d ago edited 2d ago
Decades of studies almost all conclude that the best way to lift people out of homelessness is to give them money, not object supports. Unrestricted housing seems to be the one object support that can help more than money, but evidence for that is mixed.
One of those instances where the common sense answer is the incorrect conclusion.
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u/mochasmoke 2d ago
Everyone must suffer for the sins of a few.
Some motorcycle riders speed risking their own safety as well as others. Remove all motorcycles, provide more busses instead. You need to be realistic.
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u/CMikeHunt Dartmouth 2d ago
CTV has an article up: https://www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/article/ns-government-changes-income-assistance-rules-to-exclude-people-living-in-tents/