By Kendall Worth
To begin, please have a look at this news release - Human Rights Remedy Milestone Will Help Nova Scotians Manage Individualized Funding - from August 12th, 2026. And here,is where another Media Outlet reported on this.
I
want to remind readers that my reporting, comes directly from the
First Voice Perspective, whether
I am providing
updates coming from government
announcements
which
may affect Persons
with Disabilities, or
other impacts
on
Income Assistance recipients. For anyone who is new to my BLOG, I
invite you to read
the various
posts
I have published,
to educate
yourself on what I mean by a
First
Voice Perspective.
Since the release of this announcement, I have been having many conversations with First Voice and the one thing they all agree on, is that the information, especially on what exactly is meant by “individualized funding”, is vague. As the news release outlines, Individualized Funding is part of the Human Rights Remedy. I first reported on this Human Rights Remedy in this post, where I also raised questions for the then Minster of Opportunities And Social Development - Barbra Adams, from whom, no one in the community, including myself, has had a response.
IN this post, I report on what an inclusive community should look like. Building an inclusive community in Nova Scotia, is suppose to be one part of the Human Rights Remedy. When persons with disabilities first hear the words Individualized Funding and hear the word Inclusive, it brings us back to the reasons that we need a Basic (livable) Guaranteed Income, which I have written about here. We can all agree that whatever the meaning of Individualized Funding is, this Funding is not going to be a Basic Guaranteed Income. Every First Voice I spoke to, 100% agreed on this one.
However, there are new question being raised by the disability community in addition to the questions raised in my blog post dated April 30th, 2026, on the Basic Income. These new questions include:
What is qualifying for this funding going to look like, and are there going to be systemic problems and bureaucratic nonsense involved for those who will qualify? For anyone who is new to reading my BLOG, I invite you to check on articles here and here, to educate yourself on what I am talking about. If the answer to this question is yes, then the system of individualized funding could make things difficult for those who do qualify receive it. In other words, what is the process to apply and qualify?
Are people who do qualify for this funding going to allowed to spend on their personal preferences? For examples are they going to be allowed to spend it on things like Fitness Centres, Fees for Social Groups which can keep them out of Social Isolation, or tuition for a night class? Or are there going to be restrictions on what, those who will qualify, are allowed to spend it on?
Could someone, who has to have surgery, use their funds to pay the cost of an attendant, to accompany them home following surgery and stay with them for the first 24 hours, plus other needs that occur during recovery?
And as pointed out in the news release, it is going to be persons with disabilities who will qualify for this this funding; is the government going to hire specialized caseworkers to deal with those who will qualify? The reason for this Question goes back to my Interview With Alec Stratford, from seven years ago, writing for the Nova Scotia Advocate. Something that came up in this interview was that current Income Assistance Caseworkers do not have specialized training.
The First Voice persons I have spoken to, agree that there is a wide range of circumstances the government should take into consideration when deciding who will qualify for individualized funding and who will not. Disability does not affect everyone in exactly the same way. Neither should eligibility be based only on what someone's disability looks like from the outside.
This is especially important when we talk about invisible disabilities.
In many situations it takes considerable effort for people with invisible disabilities to achieve and maintain an acceptable quality of life, as I pointed out in all of these media-coop stories, here here and here.
Someone may appear independent because they can perform everyday tasks, but that does not necessarily tell us how much effort, planning, support, stress, anxiety, or problem-solving is involved behind the scenes. The fact that someone is “managing” should not automatically be interpreted to mean that they do not need support.
This is one reason why Individualized Funding, were it applied to those not currently institutionalized, has the potential to be important. If implemented properly, it would give qualifying persons with disabilities, visible or invisible, greater choice and control over the supports they need to live their lives. Instead of expecting every person to fit into exactly the same service model, individualized approaches can recognize that different people have different needs, circumstances, goals and barriers.
But this is also where the need for a Basic Guaranteed Income remains part of the conversation.
Individualized Funding for disability-related supports does not necessarily solve the problem of having an inadequate income to live on. A person can have more control over disability supports and still struggle to afford rent, groceries, transportation, clothing, recreation, social participation and other everyday costs of living. Therefore, Individualized Funding should not become a replacement for the larger conversation about income security.
A Basic Guaranteed Income could provide people with greater financial security, while Individualized funding could provide greater choice and control over disability-related supports. These approaches could complement one another rather than compete with one another.
We also need to recognize that government programs alone cannot anticipate every situation a person with a disability will encounter. Sometimes improving someone's quality of life requires us to think creatively about what support actually looks like for that individual.
This is why we need creative solutions, which this post, reports on.
The bigger question should therefore be: What does this individual person need to live the best and most independent life possible?
For one person, the answer may involve disability supports. For another, transportation or assistance participating in the community may be especially important. For someone else, the biggest barrier may be inadequate income. And for many people, improving quality of life may require a combination of Individualized Funding, adequate income, accessible community supports, and creative solutions.
Ultimately, giving persons with disabilities more choice means more than simply giving them a choice between existing programs. It means listening to First Voice, recognizing that disabilities and support needs are different from person to person, and giving people meaningful opportunities to make decisions about how they want to live their own lives.
That should be one of the most important measures of whether Nova Scotia's new Individualized Funding approach is truly successful.
I will end this post by saying that, these days, with everything happening, we need to expect the unexpected. Lets hope that this Individualized Funding will turn into something positive, moving forward.
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Kendall Worth is an award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and tries to make ends meet on income assistance.
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