Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability (SAID) And Why I Almost Died Last Night

Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability (SAID) is the program that is supposed to be helping me as a disabled person to survive. Yesterday (Aug 29, 2024) I was supposed to get paid by them directly into my bank account. It never showed up and I have literally no idea on earth why this is happening to me. I emailed the minster of social services and asked them to get someone to call me and explain so I can fix this. This was at 3 AM give or take and  I got a reply that someone would phone me. Well, no one phoned me yesterday and right not it's 10:45 am and no call at all from them. I have no idea if I'm cut off and facing homelessness or I just need to give them some information they want to continue my benefits.

Meanwhile, I have 21 cents in the bank and a maxed out credit card. I can't buy food to feed myself, and no one in the government gives a darn about this at all. We are faceless numbers to manipulate to them and nothing else. Don't fool yourself, the government has not one care if you live or die!

The fact that I can't understand why the hell this is happening is the worst part, because I've done nothing at all to bring this on to myself. I don't at this time know if it's an error or what. I don't have any information. And I fear deeply that I may face being homeless over this. At the minimum, I'm going to be behind in rent for a month and need my friends to literally feed me while this is going on. I can't do any more than I have already done.

I emailed again last night and did not even get a response from the ministers office this time. I told him that I thought about killing myself last night and that this needs to be resolved. Not a reply at all, and still no phone call from a worker.

I tell you this, I'm not going to be on the street, I'll end it first, this is a guarantee. I'm not going to live like that.

My life has been a hell up to this point in time for many years. I'm becoming more disabled all the time. Right now it's a task and a half to even type this, as my tremors in my hands are extreme today. Some days it's hard for me to even walk without the fear of falling as I'm very off balance and my knees are in vey bad shape. Then there is the constant pain I've been in for years.

Right now I'm having a strong Fibromyalgia flare from the stress and have the worst headache I've had in many years. I have a constant feeling of fear and I keep thinking I need to just end it and make it all stop for good. I'm NOT SAFE right now.

No one in the government seems to care at all that I'm a human being and I need help to literally stay alive in the state I'm in. I need medical care and medication to live. My heart will eventually stop working and I will die if I don't get my medication. If I am no longer on the system, I can't afford my medication as I have $0 to spend on something that's worth almost $400 a month. I am out of medication today. If I don't get more, my heart failure will start to degenerate my heart and I will slowly start to die. The longer this takes to resolve, the more damage to my heart and the more disabled I become.

As I typed the above, I got my delivery of medication. Thank GOD it's still covered. This means I'm most likely not cut off and there is just some kind of hold on my account for reasons I can't understand or even imagine at this point.

To be honest, I've seen people play the system many times over the years and these are people I would not call disabled in any way. Yet they seem to be able to continue on benefits with no worry of ever having this happen to them. Every person I know that has an actual disability has been messed with by the system in one way or the other. Years ago, they found out THEY made a mistake and over paid me, and it took me 5 years of them taking off my pay to pay it back. So for 5 long years I was short on money for their mistake.

At this current time the same as above is happening to a good friend. He will be paying them back for years to come and experiencing hardship the entire time for the mistake of a government worker who is very well paid, and has all kinds of benefits with their job. They get to go home and feel safe. For me, there is no way I will ever feel safe again. This incident will scar me for the rest of my life. There will never be a time that I'm alive that I won't be in fear of this happening again - that is until I go on old age pension and they can't do this to me. Still the pain of this will last my lifetime.

So now I have to wait GOD knows how long for them to call and do GOD knows what to fix this problem and get paid. There is at this time no possibility of my getting my money on time to pay the rent on time. This is a big deal to me - I've never been late with rent in my life and it hurts to have this happen. As well, I'm going to need friends to buy me food. Now here is the deal, will this charity to literally keep me healthy be taken by SAID for a reason to claw back money from me? Probably. This is how they work.

Recently I did a contract for a friend and made a logo for his company. I told SAID and although the regulations say I can earn up to $5000 a year, they took 100% of that money off my pay for months to come. This is the kind of system I have to deal with. The result of that, is I'll literally never try to earn extra money again, why would I, they will just take it away.

As for "gifts" you are allowed the value of $200 a year in "gifts". So if you are honest and tell them someone got you items totaling $350, that you literally NEED, then they take $150 off your pay for over a stretch of time. They also tell you, you can't SAVE more than $1500 in the bank (or under your pillow) before they punish you for having too much money. The system is designed to keep you on the system for the rest of your life, then they MESS WITH YOU every chance they get.

I swear to GOD when/if they ever call me back, and someone says, "how are you", I'm going to tell  them  I almost killed myself over your systems actions, so I'm FAR from OKEY. I'll end this hear, and I hope to GOD you who are reading never have to rely on a system like this to survive.