“There's lots of people who need an air conditioner that don’t have a case manager under the health authority, so they might fall through the cracks.” “It's probably much higher than 300,000 low income people with disabilities that would need access to this,” said Helaine Boyd, executive director of the Disability Alliance of BC. The province’s leading advocacy organization for people with disabilities applauded the move, but noted that more than a million British Columbians are considered to have a disability, and a quarter of them are poor. The minister of health was vague about eligibility details and how the process would work, saying there would be an application process through the utility, with input from health authorities as to who should be prioritized for the program. The funds will be administered through BC Hydro, which already has a list of people eligible for financial assistance and will buy and install the 8,000 units. Two years since the mercury started rising ahead of an exceptionally fatal heat wave, the provincial government has announced a $10 million program to provide air conditioning to thousands of British Columbians vulnerable to heat-related illness and death.
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