The Department of Social Rights of the Generalitat de Catalunya has published the order of the call for the Provision of social care for people with disabilities (PUA) of 2023. People who have a recognized degree of disability equal to or greater than 33% can opt for this financial aid that contributes to improving personal autonomy in mobility, home or training.
This call will make it possible to meet the corresponding requests for this year and also the unmet requests for 2021 and 2022. To make this possible, the Department has doubled the budget for this itemgoing from the 2.6 million euros of the previous call to exceeding the 5.2 million euros for this year.
PUA aids contribute to the expenses caused by the acquisition of products and actions that promote the personal autonomy of people with disabilities
The PUA aid contributes to the expenses caused by the acquisition of products and actions that promote personal autonomy of people with physical, mental or sensory disabilities, with the aim of improving the quality of life and promoting social integration. Among others, this benefit encourages people with disabilities to obtain or reconvert the driver’s license or adapt your vehicle.
They can also be requested for purchase support products or servicessuch as stair chairs, hearing aids, mobile phones with voice, in addition to learning courses sign language or lip reading, as well as interpreters for deaf or deafblind people in post-compulsory and occupational training, among other products and services. Altogether, the catalog of the current call provides for more than 130 products and actions.
As a novelty, this year several changes have been incorporated regarding the previous calls, to simplify managementamong which stands out the electronic processing of applications as the preferred means, that will only require identification with idCat Móvil.
The 2023 call also includes changes approved at the end of last year by the Government to simplify the requirements, so that more people can access them. One of these modifications refers to the economic criteria that allow them to benefit from these aids. In this sense, only the economic capacity of the applicant is taken into accountwithout assessing that of the members of the family unit.
Another novelty this year is that the benefit will not be reduced based on the economic capacity of the applicant, but it will correspond to the amounts of the modules established to order. The amounts to be received according to the type of product or action have been set by the Area for the Promotion of Accessibility and the Removal of Barriers of the Department of Social Rights, which takes into account the estimated median market values.
Another of the modifications of the new call affects the benefit payment system. If up to now the payment was conditional on the previous justification of the expense, this year the benefits will be paid according to the amount that appears in the resolutions, without the need for prior justificationand the expense will be verified a posteriori.
Interested persons can consult here the of March 27, which opens the call for the social benefit of an economic nature of the right to compete for social care for people with disabilities, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 (ref. BDNS 684328).