She says Service Canada made an error on her Old Age benefit application — the delay almost got her evicted
CBC
A Toronto senior is speaking out after she was left without her Old Age Security benefit for months because of a simple error by Service Canada that left her in a dire situation: the wrong year was allegedly entered into its system.
Debbie Westfall says she applied for OAS in January, well before she turned 65 in March, because she knew she would be relying on it to get by.
But many months and phone calls later, she was still without her benefit.
Now, after CBC Toronto reached out to the agency, Westfall's wait is over and she says her money was deposited Friday.
Still, Westfall and her case manager are speaking out because they say for someone like her, a delay in getting the benefit could be the difference between keeping a roof over her head and losing it.
"I was so overwhelmed, I could never have done this on my own. I am so relieved to have money for rent and food," her case manager at the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre told CBC News Westfall said.
Getting a hold of someone at Service Canada to solve the problem wasn't easy, she says.
"We phoned and phoned, and I was crying every day," she said.
Service Canada says there are a number of measures in place to ensure that seniors have support through the process, but one researcher who's studied issues with OAS says the system can often be difficult to navigate.
Max Kelly, an intensive case manager at Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, worked with Westfall through the process. He says he made more than a dozen phone calls to reach Service Canada and spent hours on hold.
As Westfall neared the possibility of eviction, Kelly says he managed to access an emergency bridging program with the province of Ontario. But he's extremely frustrated about how much time and effort it took to solve the problem.
"It seems to highlight a basic problem-solving issue within the federal government," he said.
During one of his calls, Kelly says, one agent told him someone at Service Canada had entered the year 2035 instead of 2025.
And while many of the agents were sympathetic and said the situation was marked as urgent, Kelly says it wasn't rectified urgently enough.
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