Doreen Marion Gee: Low-income B.C. seniors can't afford the necessities they should age in place

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“We’re taking motion on the problems that matter most,” proclaims the B.C. NDP in its Funds 2023: Stronger B.C. for everybody.

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Contemplating the deafening silence about seniors within the plan, it’s apparent that the necessary problems with our growing older inhabitants will not be very excessive on the “points that matter most” record. This ongoing devaluation and neglect of seniors by successive B.C. governments, mirrored in excessive charges of senior poverty and hardship, is reprehensible on this wealthy province.

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In the midst of a price range surplus, with funding infusions to different weak teams, seniors are starved for important companies, packages and helps. This constitutes age discrimination. Many elders are subsisting on the bottom incomes in B.C. and affected by imaginative and prescient and listening to loss as a result of they can’t afford prescription glasses or listening to aids.

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The numbers are staggering. In response to the B.C. seniors advocate, six per cent of the labour drive works for minimal wage, however nearly half of B.C. seniors survive on even much less and 25 per cent of seniors dwell on lower than $21,000 a 12 months. The seniors advocate’s 2022 report, B.C. Seniors: Falling Additional Behind, discovered that an alarming 84 per cent of low-income seniors report that they generally run out of cash for meals. Nearly all of B.C. seniors wouldn’t have non-public well being profit plans, forcing many to do with out dental care, listening to aids, eyeglasses, walkers, and wheelchairs. In 2018, a report card from the Social Planning and Analysis Council of B.C. and Decrease Mainland United Manner discovered B.C. held the shameful document for the very best fee of senior poverty in Canada.

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The provincial authorities is neglecting seniors when they’re probably the most weak to dropping their independence and ending up in long-term care. Low-income B.C. seniors subsisting on federal pensions can not meet their most simple wants for meals and shelter. This power state of hardship results in poor well being, accelerating the deterioration of psychological and bodily talents, main these seniors to finally require 24-hour care. As an illustration, listening to loss poses an elevated threat to seniors for general cognitive impairment, leaving them two to 5 instances extra more likely to develop dementia. Subsequently, the dearth of presidency help to acquire listening to aids instantly jeopardizes the flexibility of elders to dwell independently.

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The B.C. authorities has an moral duty to take care of seniors to allow them to age in place with dignity.

As a low-income senior, my ideas for seniors’ funding and packages that ought to have been in B.C. Funds 2023 embrace:

• Initially, the federal government ought to fund the place of a minister and ministry for seniors. Navigating challenges with revenue, well being, and housing is inconceivable when companies are unfold out throughout a number of ministries. A central ministry for seniors would offer elders with seamless help, packages and companies.

• There must be speedy funding for a “B.C. senior profit” for elders on this province who obtain the Assured Earnings Complement, the low-income commonplace. Changing the antiquated and insufficient B.C. Seniors Complement, the brand new “B.C. senior profit” ought to high up federal advantages every month to not less than the revenue stage of minimum-wage earners, and be listed to inflation.

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• B.C. Housing’s woefully insufficient Shelter Help for Aged Renters subsidy program wants an overhaul and elevated funding. The SAFER program has failed in its mandate to assist make my lease reasonably priced. Even with the subsidy, I’m paying nearly half of my revenue for lease. B.C. Housing bases my subsidy on a most lease of $767 for a one-bedroom suite in Victoria whereas, in the actual world, the typical lease on this metropolis is $1,977. Our subsidies ought to align with market charges.

• Low-income seniors want government-funded packages to assist with the prices of listening to aids, prescription glasses, dental care, dentures, walkers, wheelchairs, physiotherapy, and psychological well being remedy. They need to by no means have to fret about whether or not they can afford important well being merchandise or drugs.

As residing repositories of information and expertise, senior residents are a significant and necessary a part of the material of this province. The time is method overdue for our authorities to provide our treasured elders one of the best shot at an extended and wholesome impartial existence.

Doreen Marion Gee is a author, activist, and an advocate for seniors.

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