Hardship Assistance - December 2019 quarter

During the COVID-19 pandemic response, we are releasing a reduced amount of supporting material for the Benefit Fact Sheets and this page has not been updated with information from the latest quarter. Hardship assistance is for people with insufficient income and assets, and who have immediate and specific needs that cannot be met by their own resources. Hardship assistance includes Special Needs Grant (SNG), Advance Payment of Benefit (ADV), and Recoverable Assistance Payment (RAP). The data presented are counts of grants and not a count of clients. A client may receive more than one grant during a quarter (i.e. from October to December).

Five-year trend A total of 573,851 hardship assistance was granted in the December 2019 quarter. Of this total, 66.7 percent were granted for Special Needs Grants (SNGs). A Special Needs Grant is an additional income support that aims to address the immediate needs of families and individuals. A person does not have to receive a main benefit to be eligible for an SNG. The majority of SNGs are non-recoverable (i.e. clients do not need to pay them back). During the December 2019 quarter, the total payments for hardship assistance amounted to $165,380,115. More than half (53.7 percent) of the total payments was for SNGs. top To buy food was the main reason provided for needing hardship assistance. The SNG – Emergency Housing accounted for the highest amount paid ($48,125,062) during the December 2019 quarter. This was followed by grants for food ($30,344,354) and grants for accommodation related costs ($22,107,376).