N.S. mother continues son’s fight for added financial help for people living in tents

HALIFAX — A Nova Scotia woman says she is not giving up a fight launched by her son for enhanced government support for unhoused people.

Jackie Lowe’s son, Bradley Lowe, died in 2023, years before he won a legal case on Aug. 5 that found that people living in tents were eligible for the enhanced provincial government support.

The Nova Scotia government responded to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruling by changing the definition of housing to exclude people who live in tents, as was the case for Bradley Lowe.

But his mother said the government response was cruel and she is urging the province to reverse its decision and respect the ruling in her son’s case.

“He was fighting for change, because he saw others around him experiencing the same things he was,” Jackie Lowe said Wednesday.

The August ruling overturned a Nova Scotia Supreme Court decision last year that found Bradley Lowe did not meet the eligibility requirements for enhanced income assistance because he lived in a tent.

Jackie Lowe said her son would have celebrated the August decision, adding that he was someone who was always fighting for the underdog. The family pursued the case after he died with human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead.

Lowe spoke to reporters at a press conference held by the Opposition NDP on Wednesday.

The party introduced three bills related to housing, including one that they called “Bradley’s law.” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Bradley’s law would overturn the province’s regulation change to allow those living in tents to access the enhanced assistance.

The government introduced the regulatory change to the definition of housing through an order-in-council filed about three weeks after the August court decision. The amended regulations remove the term “accommodation” and substitute it with “lives in a home.”

It also repeals the prior definition for “home” and defines it as a self-contained unit someone rents or owns, a room in a lodging house or a single-occupancy room in a building.

Calderhead, the human rights lawyer, said the province later made further changes to income assistance rules to make people with disabilities living in tents ineligible for a disability supplement.

An order-in-council, signed Sept. 3, changed the eligibility for this supplement to require that the person with a disability receiving the support “must live in a home or board.”

Calderhead said he asked the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to investigate this “discriminatory” action.

“This move sends a clear message that people with disabilities living in these very vulnerable circumstances are not as worthy, indeed, are not equal in consideration; in other words: they are not really people — at least not equal in terms of dignity and respect,” Calderhead said in an email Tuesday.

Susan Corkum-Greek, minister of opportunities and social development, said the department was making changes to regulations to provide more clarity in its language so the program can be administered consistently.

Lowe asked members of Premier Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservative government to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is homeless and living in a tent and consider how they would survive on her son’s income assistance rate — which was $380 a month.

The new base income assistance rate has since risen to $410 per month.

Corkum-Greek said she heard about Lowe’s remarks on Wednesday and has reached out in hopes of speaking with her.

“I won’t know until I meet her, but I think we would have a lot of shared space. Because I do want to get the supports that people need, I want to get them access to those supports,” the minister said in an interview Wednesday.

She added that raising the rates of income assistance is a “constant” conversation in her department.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2026.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press