Dec. 3 marks the United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a reminder that disability is composed of functional or social limitations on one’s ability to perform an activity—affects millions worldwide. In Canada, more than 22 per cent of individuals, 6.2 million people, identify as having disabilities, and in Montreal alone, over 740 thousand people aged 15 and older live with a form of disability.
While disabilities take many forms, individuals with intellectual disabilities and neurodivergence in particular face systemic gaps as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. From housing and financial assistance to recreational programs, the needs of these individuals are often invisible, and the support systems meant to help them can be inadequate. In educational institutions such as McGill, these challenges are mirrored on campus, where students with learning disabilities are confronted with long waits for accommodations or uneven support.
These challenges, which ripple across families and communities, make clear that a community is only as strong as the support it provides to all its members.
A system that abandons you in adulthood
The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period for change and development, but for many young adults with intellectual disabilities in Quebec, it is fraught with obstacles. Without structured support during the move from high school into independent or semi-independent living, these individuals are often left on their own. This lack of continuity in support systems renders people with intellectual disabilities four times more likely to be unhoused.
Maria Lach, associate professor in the School of Social Work, emphasized this lack of transitional systems in an interview with The Tribune.
“There's not always a great, what I call, great ‘transition plan’ from high school into emerging adulthood,” Lach said. “I've been very critical of the government not paying more attention to setting up transition hubs, or transition centres of excellence, or something that would help individuals with those kinds of needs to try to find a way to have a meaningful life after they have graduated from high school [....] They're entitled to that.”
Accessing residential resources is particularly difficult: A person with an intellectual disability must currently wait an average of 1,211 days—which is over three years—for placement. By comparison, in 2013–2014, the wait time was 767 days. Yet even being on the waiting list, there is no guarantee that a person will access an environment that sustains their needs. Only 28 per cent of people receiving intellectual disability and autism services gain access to these housing resources, forcing many to remain dependent on their parents well into adulthood.
“There are young people still living in their 20s, 30s, 40s, sometimes even into their 50s, living with their moms and dads because there is […] no plan for them whatsoever,” Lach said. “We don't really know how many people are out there needing those services, and the government's doing very little to try and find out. There are some adult ed programs, but not everybody gets into one.”
Residential resources include: Intermediate resources for individuals who do not need full assistance, often connected to a local community service centre (CLSC); family-type residences where an individual lives with a host family; and residential resources with continuous assistance, which are often the most suitable.
To make matters more complex, housing for people with intellectual disabilities is primarily privatized, leading housing, which is a right to be treated as a product. The government allocates funds based on individuals' needs and the number of people, leading certain resource centres to prioritize quantity over quality of care to secure more funding.
Taken together, these gaps reveal a system that leaves too many people waiting and unsupported. Without meaningful public investment and oversight, housing for those with intellectual disabilities will remain a matter of profit rather than dignity.
Independence without adequate infrastructure
Even when housing is secured, financial independence is not guaranteed. In Quebec, the Social Solidarity Program (SSP) is intended for single adults or families in which one or more adults have severely limited capacity for employment, attested by a medical report and validated by the Ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale. The SSP grants these individuals financial assistance and promotes their integration into the workforce.
Though allocations vary depending on the family’s composition, income, and assets, simply gaining access to the SSP is challenging.
Additional support does exist. People whose disabilities limit their capacity for employment can benefit from the basic income program if they meet the eligibility requirements of the SSP. Having severely limited capacity for employment for at least five and a half years over the previous six years also makes one eligible, but underscores that those who are not on the SSP must wait several years after turning 18 to qualify. The basic benefits are $1,309 CAD per month, which is $15,708 CAD per year. Adjustments can be made for single persons or persons with dependent children, reaching up to $20,000 CA
However, a single person needs to make around $2,800 CAD to $3,500 CAD to live comfortably in Montreal. With the cost of living increasing and the government entering a budget deficit, housing barriers and insufficient financial aid put people living with intellectual disabilities at great risk of being unhoused and unable to meet their needs.
In an interview with The Tribune, Samuel Ragot, senior policy analyst and advocacy advisor at the Quebec Intellectual Disability Society (SQDI) and doctoral candidate at McGill’s School of Social Work, described the financial struggles these individuals often face.
“A lot of people end up with the basic social assistance […] [and] at this point, we do live in extreme poverty [....] Persons with disability often have additional costs that are related to their disability: You could think about mobility aids, […] prescriptions, or […] the assistive measures, [and] those cost something, and often the cost is not compensated by social assistance programs,” Ragot said.
He also described how the SSP financial plan isn’t necessarily best for people with intellectual disabilities or other forms of neurodivergence.
“One of the problems with social assistance is that you can't work. If you try to work, you can only get $200 CAD per month, plus 25 cents of every dollar that you make. So […] social assistance programs are a poverty trap, they're designed so that people can't try to work,” Ragot said.
The result is a system that restricts independence, keeping adults financially vulnerable, socially isolated, and reliant on governmental aid.
“We have well-thought policies on many things [in Quebec], but the problem is in the implementation of those policies [....] You can have the best policy ever written on paper, [but] if you don't put the money and the resources and human resources and the political will to actually implement those policies directly […] then […] it's not something that will have an impact [on] the ground,” Ragot explained.
Lack of spaces for leisure activities
Housing and income are only part of the picture. Access to recreation and physical activity—essential for social, mental, and physical health—is also limited. For many with disabilities, structured physical activities that are tailored to their needs are hard to find.
William James Harvey, associate professor in Kinesiology & Physical Education, and director of McGill Choices in Health, Action, Motivation, Pedagogy, and Skills Lab (CHAMPS), pointed to certain factors that perpetuate this cycle.
“Knowledge of how people with disabilities think of themselves and how others think of them, the stigma that may be related to them […] has a huge impact on accessibility. Number two would be the lack of community programs [....] If there's no program for you to go to, where in the heck are you going to go?” Harvey said in an interview with The Tribune.
He pointed to the Physical Activity and Leisure Skills Program (PALS) at McGill, which runs through CHAMPS. Children with Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from seven to 12 years old, and their parents, go to the PALS program on Saturday mornings for one hour of physical and leisure skills training. Parents receive workshops about ADHD and recreational services while their children get an opportunity to be physically active.
“We'll have people with ADHD, the children and their parents saying, you know, they don't have a place to go, and this is the first place they feel like it's their own, where they belong,” Harvey shared.
In his classes, he also tries to incorporate programming that emphasizes the importance of quality recreational and leisure time in Project Triple Challenge, aimed at supporting people from seven to 50 years old.
“We bring in about 120 people with disabilities […] and our students are required to as part of their course, […] to create a physical activity program right from assessment to completion in an eight-to-nine week period […] for them to have their own belief systems challenged about what disability is and it isn't.”
Though many in the field do create programs to encourage physical activity and leisure time for people with disabilities, lack of knowledge and funding remains an issue.
“The challenge is trying to see how you could get people in, because you can create a program and not have people get there,” Harvey said. “There are programs that we can create, but the challenge is always funding [....] Who's going to fund and who has the knowledge to be able to create those types of programs [....] How would you set up a structure in order to incorporate or to include people?”
Intersectionality further complicates participation. Social stigma, coupled with systemic discrimination and societal attitudes, can deter individuals with intellectual disabilities from participating in physical activity.
A microcosm of systemic barriers
For people who are neurodivergent, the path to care exposes yet another layer of systemic barriers that carry forward into adulthood and higher education. ADHD has a higher prevalence among children and adults in Quebec than in other provinces, yet receiving a diagnosis remains a long process. This is similar for people with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). In the public sector, access to assessments is free but requires a medical referral; their wait times often range from six to 18 months before individuals can see a psychiatrist. Accessing assessments through the private sector is faster, but the costs put them out of reach for many.
For people with disabilities, these obstacles are not only bureaucratic—they shape life trajectories.
“Children whose brains are developing need early intervention. Early intervention is a […] stimulation to help them to play, use their hands […] to develop skills around mobility and also develop expressive and receptive language skills,” Lach emphasized. “There are children that are aging out of those early preschool years without having ever received any kind of service, so waitlists are really problematic.”
The problem doesn’t disappear when these children grow up; these systemic barriers and flaws are also embedded in educational institutions such as McGill.
As of April 2023, 8.8 per cent of McGill students identify as persons with disabilities. The most prevalent disabilities students experience are ADHD, learning disabilities, and mental health-related concerns.
Students receive academic accommodations through Student Accessibility and Achievement (SAA), where they must first schedule an appointment with an SAA advisor. After providing an official medical note listing a disability or diagnosis and receiving approval, an advisor helps determine what accommodations are needed to improve their university experience. However, some students report long wait times for assessments, coordination issues, and logistical challenges during exams.
One student, who requested anonymity, realized that they had a learning disability when arriving at university. They explained that the Student Wellness Hub referred them to professionals covered by their insurance since McGill no longer outsources diagnostic services. Although covered by insurance, they had to pay an upfront payment of over $1000 CAD before being reimbursed after submitting a request.
The student noted they do see differences academically with the services being provided, but that they sometimes feel like the accommodations—such as smaller rooms for test-taking and more time during exams—are simply the bare minimum.
“I've seen the difference that has made in my grades […], but I do find that it is, at times, very much more like […] ‘Because we do this, like that should be enough for you,’” they said in an interview with The Tribune.
They recalled further challenges relating to logistics when taking exams.
“There is sometimes poor coordination, and I've seen that in the case where I took my first exam with accommodation. I was in a different room and […] two minutes into the exam, they started construction right outside of the room, not even like the building, just right outside of the room, and I remember just tearing up.”
While grateful for the support they did receive and overall positive experiences with staff, the student noted that access remains uneven. When calling the Student Wellness Hub to schedule medical appointments, they recognized that despite calling at the opening hour of the centre, booking appointments is also not guaranteed due to an overflow of requests.
“I've been very, very lucky […] [to have] been able to get appointments when I have had friends who are not able to […] [and] I've had great experiences with the staff.”
The student’s experience underscores how access is not always consistent, and many face barriers, reflecting a larger societal pattern where systems intended to protect neurodivergent individuals fall short. While staff work hard to accommodate students, limited resources, long waitlists, and monuments of oversight reveal how gaps in support persist even within institutions committed to inclusion. These inconsistencies not only affect academic performance but also shape students’ sense of belonging and trust in systems meant to support them.
What’s next?
As we look ahead, the challenge is not a lack of willingness to help, but more frequently a lack of knowledge, public awareness, and adequate funding from the government. People with disabilities cannot be treated as mere recipients of services; they are vital members of our communities. Their full integration and participation strengthen society as a whole and must be recognized as a collective responsibility, grounded in the fact that they are people with the same rights and dignity as anyone else. Ensuring they have meaningful access to the support they need requires more than good will—it calls for sustained funding and policies implemented by individuals with experiences of living with intellectual deficiencies and forms of neurodivergence.
This action can begin on an individual level: Treating people with disabilities with respect, educating ourselves about their experiences, and challenging the stigma that often isolates them.
Meaningful inclusion means that people with disabilities are fully supported, valued, and recognized as integral members of our communities.
On campus, students too can play a role. By voicing our concerns to SAA, advocating for inclusive campus policies, supporting peer networks, and volunteering with programs like McGill’s PALS, we can help create a more accessible and welcoming environment for all.