Max
12-13-2002, 05:19 PM
Disabled plan panhandle protest
Judith Lavoie
Times Colonist
Friday, December 13, 2002
Christmas shoppers will get more than the usual flock of downtown panhandlers vying for their attention Saturday.
Demonstrators plan to take to the streets panhandling and handing out leaflets to protest the government's reassessment of people collecting disability benefits.
"We want to bring attention to the fact that the government is setting people up to become homeless," said Lisa MacPherson, a Victoria woman with bipolar disease.
"People are going to be kicked off their benefits and then they are going to be panhandling," she said.
The Disabilities Action Group and the Communities Solidarity Coalition are organizing the demonstration. They hope hundreds of people will hit the streets panhandling after a noon rally at Centennial Square.
When rules for disability benefits changed Sept. 30 about 70 per cent of clients, or 43,000 people, automatically became eligible for the payments, but the Human Resources Ministry wanted more information about the remaining 19,000 clients.
Twenty-three-page questionnaires were sent out to clients. But social service agencies said the stress created by the complicated forms drove some people to suicide attempts and others were plunged into depression because they believed their only form of subsistence was about to disappear.
Last month, the ministry said 5,000 clients with mental illness as their primary diagnosis would not have to fill out the forms and would automatically be deemed eligible for the benefits. The ministry also extended the deadline to March 15.
However, the remaining 14,000 people still have to fill in the forms. MacPherson said the stress level is growing. Some people with mental illness and another disability have not been told whether they are exempt, she said.
"I have a mental illness in control of me and I am incapable of working for eight months of the year. No one is going to hire me when I think I am God or during the months when I am suicidal," she said.
MacPherson receives less than $800 a month on disability benefit, of which $325 is the rent portion.
Even that is almost impossible to live on because bachelor apartments in Victoria rent for $500 a month, she said.
The prospect of being reduced to regular welfare of $510 a month and then, under the new rules, being cut off after two years, is alarming, she said.
The protesters will spread out over the entire downtown shopping district.
Any money raised will be shared with the street community, MacPherson said. "We don't want to remove people's source of income (panhandling)."
Victoria police Insp. Bill Naughton said the same rules will apply to the Saturday protest as to any political demonstration. Protesters will have to obey the bylaws and not block access or harass passers-by, he said.
"If there's no risk of violence and no significant property damage there will be no police intervention," he said.
"I don't think congestion among Christmas shoppers would amount to an emergency for us."
Ministry spokesman Mike Long said forms now are being returned much faster than previously.
"It looks as if people are now taking the necessary steps and making appointments so they can get the forms filled in," he said.
By Dec. 10 a total of 5,837 forms out of 14,000 had been returned, and another 2,074 new applications received, Long said.
"In the last two days we received 298 one day and 264 the next day, so they are coming in by the truckload," he said.
lavoie@island.net
© Copyright 2002 Times Colonist (Victoria)
Judith Lavoie
Times Colonist
Friday, December 13, 2002
Christmas shoppers will get more than the usual flock of downtown panhandlers vying for their attention Saturday.
Demonstrators plan to take to the streets panhandling and handing out leaflets to protest the government's reassessment of people collecting disability benefits.
"We want to bring attention to the fact that the government is setting people up to become homeless," said Lisa MacPherson, a Victoria woman with bipolar disease.
"People are going to be kicked off their benefits and then they are going to be panhandling," she said.
The Disabilities Action Group and the Communities Solidarity Coalition are organizing the demonstration. They hope hundreds of people will hit the streets panhandling after a noon rally at Centennial Square.
When rules for disability benefits changed Sept. 30 about 70 per cent of clients, or 43,000 people, automatically became eligible for the payments, but the Human Resources Ministry wanted more information about the remaining 19,000 clients.
Twenty-three-page questionnaires were sent out to clients. But social service agencies said the stress created by the complicated forms drove some people to suicide attempts and others were plunged into depression because they believed their only form of subsistence was about to disappear.
Last month, the ministry said 5,000 clients with mental illness as their primary diagnosis would not have to fill out the forms and would automatically be deemed eligible for the benefits. The ministry also extended the deadline to March 15.
However, the remaining 14,000 people still have to fill in the forms. MacPherson said the stress level is growing. Some people with mental illness and another disability have not been told whether they are exempt, she said.
"I have a mental illness in control of me and I am incapable of working for eight months of the year. No one is going to hire me when I think I am God or during the months when I am suicidal," she said.
MacPherson receives less than $800 a month on disability benefit, of which $325 is the rent portion.
Even that is almost impossible to live on because bachelor apartments in Victoria rent for $500 a month, she said.
The prospect of being reduced to regular welfare of $510 a month and then, under the new rules, being cut off after two years, is alarming, she said.
The protesters will spread out over the entire downtown shopping district.
Any money raised will be shared with the street community, MacPherson said. "We don't want to remove people's source of income (panhandling)."
Victoria police Insp. Bill Naughton said the same rules will apply to the Saturday protest as to any political demonstration. Protesters will have to obey the bylaws and not block access or harass passers-by, he said.
"If there's no risk of violence and no significant property damage there will be no police intervention," he said.
"I don't think congestion among Christmas shoppers would amount to an emergency for us."
Ministry spokesman Mike Long said forms now are being returned much faster than previously.
"It looks as if people are now taking the necessary steps and making appointments so they can get the forms filled in," he said.
By Dec. 10 a total of 5,837 forms out of 14,000 had been returned, and another 2,074 new applications received, Long said.
"In the last two days we received 298 one day and 264 the next day, so they are coming in by the truckload," he said.
lavoie@island.net
© Copyright 2002 Times Colonist (Victoria)