Friends of Lance Dingman will have another chance to say goodbye to the housing, poverty and mental health advocate at a Sunday screening in Hamilton of the documentary Unimaginable, which follows his time as a recipient of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot Project.
Dingman died unexpectedly on July 5, leaving behind a vast community of friends who are still grieving his loss. He was 63.
Dingman was involved in the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, co-founded the Residential Care Facilities Tenants Coalition and was a champion for universal basic income, sharing his experience widely while part of the pilot and after it was cancelled by the newly elected Doug Ford government in 2019.
“He inspired others in similar circumstances to do very similar things: to get on boards, to get on committees, to have a voice,” said Fiona Wilson, a friend who met Dingman while she was working in community mental health more than 30 years ago.
“He really recognized that some of the circumstances people were living in weren’t good, that there were systemic issues that should be solved.”
She said Dingman had a characteristic optimism and great sense of humour, with a “sensitive soul” that helped him easily empathize and connect with others.
“I can hear him laughing,” she told CBC Hamilton on Tuesday. “He really loved living.”
Filmmaker Terrance Odette said he made Unimaginable after meeting Dingman and being enthralled by his quirky personality.
Odette described Dingman as a relentless optimist, even though he faced many challenges, including mental health issues that led him to see visions and losing his leg after an accident when he was a young man.
Dingman grew up in the area near Burford and Brantford, where his father ran an auction hall and furniture store. He later moved to Hamilton. Time spent living in residential care informed much of Dingman’s activism, as did his struggles to live with dignity on social assistance, said Odette.
“My intention was to follow him and explain the visions he has, that he’s been living with since he was 17 years old,” said Odette.
In the film, Dingman describes seeing midway lights and carnival rides vividly in his day-to-day life, something Odette said he embraced and saw as a gift from God.
“The basic income trial happened when I was filming him,” added Odette. “He was on it and it got cancelled. [The film] changed into this story about this guy with everything against him who has the most amazing optimism. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
In the film, Dingman speaks at length about how the basic income pilot, which gave participants a guaranteed income of about $17,000 a year, improved his life. The film shows Dingman, who did not finish high school, attempting to register for courses at Mohawk College on the day he learned the pilot project was cancelled.
“He wanted to be educated,” said Odette. “He’s the perfect example of why basic income worked.”
In a tribute to Dingman on the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction website, director Tom Cooper described him as “a relentless advocate for increasing the Personal Needs Allowance,” the small monthly stipend residents of residential care received for personal expenses from the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
He said the roundtable will soon launch a new advocacy project to support people living in residential care. It will be called the Lance Dingman Initiative.
“Lance turned lived experience and challenges with disability, poverty [and] mental health into purpose, becoming a fierce voice for those too often unheard,” wrote Cooper. “Just a week before, he attended a community meeting on climate justice, still showing up for others, still speaking truth to power.”
Cole Gately, another friend of Dingman, recalled being with him when he saw a vision.
“He just said, ‘Cole, I just wish for you that you could see what I can see. It’s just amazing,’ and he had tears in his eyes like of sheer joy of what he was seeing, and he was seeing these colours of a carnival.
“He wasn’t putting anything on,” Gately said. “He’s completely authentic and was just uniquely himself.”
Gately said Dingman was “so incredibly proud and excited” to have been featured in Odette’s film, and hoped it would show others the importance of giving everyone a dignified quality of life.
“He really had a true lived experience of having the basic income and then not, and experiencing that impact,” he said. “He was devastated, not just for himself, but he was devastated that no one else was going to get this opportunity like he had.
“So, you know, he just continued to fight for people to have their basic needs met,” Gately said.
Unimaginable will be screened on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET at the Playhouse Theatre.
