Home support services improve quality of life for frail seniors and people with chronic conditions or disabilities, and help prevent their health from deteriorating further. Cuts to home support in BC have seriously compromised the effectiveness of these services. This report lays out three policy recommendations that would strengthen and expand home support in a practical and cost-effective way. The paper calls for an increase of the provincial home support budget by $100 million per year in order to implement the proposed reforms. Injecting new funding in the home support system is an opportunity to make a sound investment in community care and increase the quality of life of frail seniors, while achieving long-term cost savings for the health system.
About the author
Iglika Ivanova
Iglika Ivanova is a Senior Economist and the Public Interest Researcher at the CCPA’s BC Office. She researches and writes on key social and economic challenges facing BC and Canada, including poverty, economic insecurity and labour market shifts towards more precarious work. Iglika is Co-Director of the Understanding Precarity in BC Project (UP-BC). Iglika also investigates issues of government finance, tax policy and privatization and how they relate to the accessibility and quality of public services. She is particularly interested in the potential for public policy to build a more just, inclusive and sustainable economy. Follow Iglika on Twitter
