Many people complain about disability assistance and the associated disability status a lot (for good reason). What gets a lot less attention is the rest of the system surrounding disability like RDSPs.
The Canadian government defines an RDSP as 'a savings plan intended to help an individual who is approved to receive the disability tax credit (DTC) to save for their long-term financial security'. You can contribute to it up until you turn 60 and withdrawals from it are not considered income so don't affect disability status. On the face of it, great!
The catch? You can only contribute $200 000 to it over your lifetime. Not 'there can only be $200 000 at any point'. No. This is cumulative despite withdrawals.
Let's think of two extremely fortunate scenarios here.
You are on disability assistance and, as a result, receive less than 3/4 of what the Canadian government has acknowledged to be the absolute bare minimum an able bodied Canadian can survive on. You have to work as much as you can as a result so that you can afford basic things like food, medical care, and depending on where you live, shelter. Let's say you manage your funds really well and get very very lucky and you're able to contribute $200 000 by the time you turn 60 and you haven't had to withdraw any funds ever. You retire but let's assume you haven't managed to contribute to an RRSP. Say you live to 80 years old. From age 60 to 80, you have less than $400 a month to supplement your disability assistance income. That doesn't even take you to that bare minimum threshold the Canadian government has acknowledged.
You are on disability assistance, as previously stating less than 3/4 of the Canadian government's acknowledged survivable threshold. You are incredibly lucky to have had other people contribute $200 000 to your RDSP but you are unable to work. You need to survive so you have to make up the difference to even the bare minimum through withdrawals from your RDSP. Let's assume you start these withdrawals at age 20, you will be 22 by the time the money runs out.
$200 000 is not even a down payment for many of the places where I live and many disabled people do need homes they own and can modify because many of the compromises many renters make (eg. no drilling holes in walls) are complete inaccessibilities for disabled people and having to go to court over so many changes is not feasible.
