To most people, $20 a month doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But if you’re living on B.C.’s welfare rate of $610—an amount that is supposed to cover rent in Vancouver and which hasn’t increased since 2007—$20 can mean the difference between eating and going hungry.

In an unannounced change, B.C.’s provincial government has decided to let thousands of people living on welfare keep an extra $20 a month.

The change pertains to people on welfare who are also enrolled in the provincial methadone program for the treatment of an opioid addiction.

In the past, the province forced such individuals to enter into an agreement that resulted in monthly deductions of $18.34 from their social-assistance payments.

Last November, a notice of civil claim, naming Laura Shaver as the applicant, was filed in the B.C. Supreme Court. The document claimed that Shaver, a welfare recipient and long-time methadone patient, was not being treated equally under the law.

The notice of claim states that because the fee is only applied against methadone patients, the monthly deduction from Shaver’s social-assistance payments amounts to a violation of Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It states that every citizen is equal before the law and ensured equal treatment regardless of any mental or physical disability.

“The Fee Agreement purports to allow the Province to deduct $18.34 from Ms. Shaver’s social-assistance payment per month despite the Province’s implicit understanding and awareness that Ms. Shaver has no resources to cover that cost and that going without methadone was not a practicable option for Ms. Shaver,” it continues.

News that the government will stop collecting the monthly deductions from methadone patients came in the form of the province’s response to the lawsuit.

In a telephone interview, Jason Gratl, the Vancouver lawyer who represented Shaver, said the provincial government has stated in court filings that it will cease collecting deductions from methadone patients’ welfare checks effective July 27.

“I’m thrilled,” he told the Straight. “It’s not often you get to do decent things as a lawyer.”

Gratl emphasized that $20 is a significant sum for many people who will be affected by the change.

“Social-assistance rates are already below subsistence levels,” he explained. “So depriving persons on social assistance of $20 is essentially depriving them of subsistence necessities.”

According to a May 2014 B.C. government report, in 2012-13 there were 14,833 patients enrolled in the province’s methadone-maintenance treatment program.

That document states that to keep one patient in opiate substitution therapy, it costs B.C. approximately $3,268 per year. When the government stops its monthly deductions from cheques like Shaver’s, that amount would grow to approximately $3,488 per year.