In July, the provincial government moved several groups of people from the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program to the new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP).
According to U of C's latest mandatory fee report from 2024-25, there were 3,808 students registered with Student Accessibility Services, a 13% increase from 2023-24.
While Alberta records don’t specifically say how many students receive AISH or ADAP, Advanced Education's latest report states that post-secondary institutions received grants to accommodate 21,750 students with disabilities in 2023-24.
More than 80,000 Albertans are currently on AISH, which provides a monthly benefit of $1,940 for clients, with a reduced benefit of $200 per month for those who also receive the federal government’s Canada Disability Benefit (CDB).
“Those with severe or profound developmental disabilities or palliative or terminal conditions, among others, remain on AISH. Everyone else was streamed into ADAP unless they successfully reapplied for AISH through a new medical assessment,” as reported by The Conversation.
According to The Conversation, ADAP is intended for individuals whose disabilities restrict, but do not completely prevent employment. Individuals with disabilities are less likely to be employed, and those who do work can face discrimination and unmet accommodation needs.
Disability can also impact whether, how much and under what circumstances one can work.
This means ADAP will provide $1,740 per month to clients and $1,540 if they also receive the CDB.
The Gauntlet interviewed Senior Research Associate Gillian Petit.
Petit works in the Department of Economics at U of C. Her research focuses on the design and implementation of income and social supports, including poverty policy. She is currently working on a study evaluating income assistance in Alberta.
“What we're seeing here is we know that under previous AISH, clients had income below the poverty threshold. For an AISH client in Calgary, they were already receiving $525 a month less than the poverty threshold, so they were unable to meet a basic standard of living in Calgary,” explained Petit.
“ADAP clients are going to be $725 a month below the poverty threshold in Calgary, so this means that they couldn't afford a basket of goods and services before,” said Petit, “And now they're even more likely not to, and this really affects standards of living,”
“This suggests that not only do AISH clients have income below that poverty threshold, but they're not consuming a lot of the things we would consider to be everyday essentials,” Petit concluded.
Savings are another resource governments may assume these households can draw on when income fails.
But savings cannot provide much of a cushion for households with little wealth, and families cannot be assumed to have unlimited savings or caregiving capacity.
“If you've got someone living in a household where they're being financially abused by their spouse or their partner, or unfortunately, even their parents, they might not actually be getting the help to bring up their income or to buy the basic necessities from whoever is supposed to be supporting them,” Petit explained.
“Even if you live in a perfectly wonderful household, the cost of living is increasing,” Petit added, “We know that it's increasing faster than most wages and asking other family members to help who might already be cash strapped, that's a big ask.”
Petit discussed how these program changes could directly affect students.
“AISH and ADAP clients can go to post secondary without losing their AISH and ADAP benefits,” Petit explained.
“Students also often take out some type of student aid or student loans to help pay for post-secondary, so this switch from AISH to ADAP is going to impact students,” said Petit, ”In that now what's going to happen is they're going to have their ADAP benefits reduced by that $200 a month and they can get that covered by student aid if they're not hitting the cap on student aid.”
“That's assuming that they're not already hitting their student aid cap, which is $8,500 a term. If they're hitting the cap, then nothing's going to make up for that lost income,” Petit said.
“Instead of having an income benefit that's helping you live as a student and buy the necessities of life, it's being replaced by a debt instrument.” Petit added, “They could still have that income, but they're going to have to repay it at some point in the future.”
In August, several recipients of these benefits reported they were being shortcharged, with many of them reporting getting incorrect payment amounts and some reporting never getting any financial support at all.
The Ministry of Assisted Living and Social Services said this was due to a technical issue related to the rollout of the new payment processing software, with 1,605 people having issues with their payments.
“The Alberta Medical Association and several municipalities in Alberta have called on the province to stop the transition to ADAP. They cited concerns around the cut in benefits, and workplace accessibility,” as reported by CBC.
Several disability advocacy groups had their provincial funding cut last year.
Those who meet the criteria for automatic AISH approval do not need to take any further action but clients transitioning to ADAP will receive a $200 monthly transition benefit, the same as their existing AISH benefit until Dec. 31, 2027.
As Alberta continues this transition from AISH to ADAP, impacts on vulnerable residents are yet to be seen.
The effects of this policy change will continue to be closely watched in the months ahead.
