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Eighty-six-year-old Lorraine Barton has called a quiet street in Calgary’s Bowness neighbourhood home for nearly 30 years.
Although she lives alone now, she still graciously hosts more than 20 family members once a month for a treasured barbecue.
“(It’s special), especially with all your grandchildren, great-grandchildren… I have a 25-year-old great-grandchild, even,” Barton laughs.
She’s still active, getting out once a day for an hour-long walk in the neighbourhood. But due to a limp, maintaining her residential yard isn’t possible for her alone.
For more than a decade, Barton and hundreds of other Calgary seniors have benefitted from Calgary’s Home Services for Seniors Program, which provides grass-cutting, snow shovelling and housekeeping for those who are eligible.
Earlier this summer, the city announced it would stop administering the program, instead rolling seniors over to the province’s Special Needs Assistance for Seniors (SNA) system — which the city had previously helped administer.
“Calgary is currently the only municipality in Alberta that plays a role in administering this provincially funded program. As the program has grown over the years, it has become more complex for the City to manage and required City tax dollars to help run it,” a City of Calgary spokesperson told Global News.
“We had no choice in the matter but to discontinue the service because of the July 1st changes by the provincial government to the eligibility for seniors,” Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas explained.
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“This is going to be a big gap that Calgarians are facing.”
Each July 1st, the Province of Alberta adjusts the maximum income threshold for recipients of the SNA program. The most recent change has resulted in Barton becoming ineligible for “secondary items” administered by the provincial program, which includes yard maintenance.
Barton says getting the grass trimmed around her place is one thing — family members should be able to stop by every couple of weeks. The real challenge, she says, will come when the snow flies.
“I’d be stuck in here, I’d feel like a prisoner… they’re not treating us very well.”
Minister of Assisted Living and Social Services Nathan Neudorf says the province is trying to balance financing the program amid a growing seniors population.
“They can still get lots of supports. We can help them through it through our team. But we have to make sure that the sustainability of this program is consistent and it does match people’s income to the best of our abilities,” Neudorf said.
Data provided by the province shows in 2024, 153,113 seniors were eligible for the SNA program — when the maximum income threshold was $30,080. Roughly 800,000 seniors lived in the province at the time.
Two years later, the income threshold has dropped to $28,290, but 164,834 seniors are eligible from the program out of a total 65+ population of roughly 885,000.
Neudorf says additional funding for the program will be considered during budget deliberations when the legislature resumes sitting.
In Barton’s case, she received a one-time exemption allowing her to maintain the service until June of next year, but the letter she received says she would have to pay up front and wait for reimbursement.
“Sometimes it snows for three, four days… and you got to have the money,” Barton explained. “They told me that if I pay these people, I can send in the bills and they will reimburse me.
“Well, if they can do that, why didn’t it just stay the way it was?”
Without a solution in the months ahead, Barton may have to give up her home and move into an apartment.
“I’d like to go out on my own terms, not on someone else’s.”
Neudorf says seniors aren’t being forgotten.
“They’ve spent their whole live working, they’ve lived and paid taxes… done so much to build our province and country.”
Barton says she’ll believe that if the shovels come out after the snow flies.
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