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Members of Halifax’s legal community are reacting after the provincial government prevented people living in tents from accessing higher income assistance benefits.
Human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead has been fighting for years to secure better income supports for people living in tents. On Aug. 5, he saw his position validated by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, which ruled tents count as a legal accommodation.
However, two weeks later, the province changed the criteria for income assistance, which effectively cancelled out the court ruling.
“By choosing the option of rewriting the law to overturn that decision, they’ve effectively forced people back onto that $400 a month rate,” said Calderhead.
The courts overturned a decision that Bradley Lowe, who died in 2023, didn’t qualify for additional “accommodation” support because he lived in a tent.
Calderhead says that legal recognition of a tent as an “accommodation” would have seen those sleeping rough earn at least $300 more per month.
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Nova Scotia revised its income assistance legislation to exclude tents on Aug. 25. The changes repealed the definition of a “home” and limited it to residential units with a kitchen and bathroom or spaces like municipally-approved rooming homes.
“For the province to have a broad income assistance program and then say, ‘By the way, we’re excluding a certain category of people.’ That doesn’t smell right,” said Calderhead.
He says his legal team is reviewing whether the province is discriminating against people based on their housing situations.
After the court ruling, Dalhousie Legal Aid began helping people in tent encampments apply for the enhanced rate, only for them to be disqualified two weeks later.
“The effect of the changes to the regulations are to lower the benefits to which unhoused people are entitled,” said Mark Culligan, a Dalhousie Legal Aid worker.
He says he disagrees with the argument that people living in a rental unit have higher expenses than those in a tent.
“They need to buy food. If they can’t store the food, that means they have to buy more fresh food or more packaged food. It means higher food costs. It means you can’t buy in bulk,” he said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the province said that the “Court interpreted the regulations as they were written at the time and identified that some language could be clearer, including how accommodation was described.”
“While previous decisions had supported the department’s interpretation of the regulations, the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion, highlighting the need for greater clarity,” the statement read.
“These amendments provide clearer direction on how different living situations are considered when determining eligibility for income assistance rates, so the program can be administered consistently and transparently across the province.”
The province says the amendments do not change who is eligible for income assistance and that people experiencing homelessness “will continue to be able to access income assistance and other supports for which they qualify.”
As for Calderhead, he’s calling the decision “cruel.”
“The province decided to go low on this rather than take the high road and ensuring that that group of people in need were treated with respect and dignity,” he said.
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