Disability Supports and Services

New Brunswick has the second highest rate of people with a disability in the country at 35.3%, and many people within this population require disability supports and services to participate in the community in meaningful ways. There is still a substantial number of younger adults with a disability living in institutional settings, including nursing homes, which are meant to serve the needs of seniors in their last years of life. Often, people with a disability lack real choice over where they live and the support that they receive.

What we are advocating for:

• Eliminate the practice of placing younger adults in institutional settings. Develop, adopt, and fund a Home First policy to support adults under 65 with a disability to live where and with whom they choose.
• Support people currently living in institutional settings to move to a home of their choosing in the community.
• Modernize disability services programming and legislation to focus on individualized supports, and choice, control, and autonomy for people with a disability.

Many New Brunswickers with an intellectual or developmental disability rely on Social Assistance for their income, yet they live in deep poverty.

New Brunswick’s Social Assistance rates are the lowest in the country. A single person with a disability receives a maximum $886 per month to meet their basic needs. In addition, New Brunswick has some of the strictest criteria in the country to access provincial disability income benefits, leaving many people to live on basic social assistance of $637 per month.

New Brunswick’s current wage exemption, which is a full exemption on the first $500 of net income earned per month plus a 50% exemption on the balance, is too low.

What we are advocating for:

• Increase Social Assistance rates for people with a disability to a minimum of $1500 per month.
• Develop and implement less restrictive eligibility criteria that is open, fair, and transparent and introduces a right of appeal – available in other provinces.
• Enhance the current policy on employment incentives to increase the wage exemption to a full exemption on the first $800 of net income earned per month, plus a 50% exemption on the balance.