[homeles_ot-l] Housing Benefit for Ontario - report & letter to endorse

Thu Oct 30 17:13:55 EDT 2008

FYI – the full report, summary and the endorsement letter are attached.

Lynne Browne

Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness (ATEH)
147 Besserer Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 6A7 
HYPERLINK "mailto:lbrowne at ysb.on.ca"lbrowne at ysb.on.ca,  613-241-7913 ext 205

www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca  

A Housing Benefit for Ontario: One Housing Solution for a Poverty Reduction
Strategy 

Background 

A coalition of industry and community organizations has submitted a proposal
to the Government of Ontario to implement a housing benefit. The new benefit
will help low-income working age renters with high shelter-to-income burdens
in communities across Ontario, particularly in the Ottawa and Greater
Toronto Areas where rents are higher. The proposal would add a necessary
affordable housing component to Ontario’s highly anticipated Poverty
Reduction Strategy. It is a carefully targeted, fiscally conservative
proposal -- the right step to help low-income renters make ends meet. 

Unlike other provinces, the only permanent housing benefit provided in
Ontario is paid exclusively to social assistance recipients. The working
poor do not get any on-going help to cover the cost of their housing. This
acts as a barrier to employment, making the transition from social
assistance to the labour market very difficult. 

Many low-income workers cannot afford to live and work in the same
community. They have to travel long distances across multiple transit
systems to get to work. This places unnecessary strain on both our transit
system and families. Others simply cannot take available work because they
cannot afford to live close enough to their job or cannot afford the cost of
transportation. Ongoing welfare costs can be reduced by repurposing a poorly
targeted welfare program and implementing a highly targeted housing benefit
that uses available funds more wisely. 

Cities are the economic engines of our province - they need an integrated
work force to operate at capacity. Barriers to work such as high cost
housing for low-income families keep cities from optimum growth. That
doesn't have to happen. A housing benefit would bring more working age
adults into the workplace allowing our cities to thrive while reducing
welfare costs. A properly designed housing benefit is a win-win-win–win:
better targeted benefits that work - lower welfare - more people working -
cities operating at full capacity. 

Proposal 

The housing benefit we envision pays 75% of the costs of rent from a floor
amount to the median cost of housing. The benefit starts to fall and
gradually reduces to zero as income rises. It responds to variations in
costs across the province. Specifics of the design and examples are provided
on pages 16-20 of the paper A Housing Benefit for Ontario.

It is estimated that almost 66,000 families and 129,000 individuals would
receive an average benefit of $1,236 a year. 

By helping to defray the high cost of housing for all low-income working age
adults they would retain housing that they might otherwise lose. Many more
would be able to live in the same communities in which they work. The
benefit would also help provide new work incentives by paying benefits
outside of the social assistance system in the same way as the successful
Ontario Child Benefit. The main difference is that the proposal contains no
unpopular benefit clawbacks. 

The coalition recognizes that simply extending the shelter component of
social assistance to the working poor would be costly and it would not solve
the problem. Our housing benefit was developed with this in mind and employs
a formula that is targeted to those who need help in the most cost-effective
way possible. The annual cost of the program is estimated to be $240
million. The coalition is also recommending that existing provincial tax
credits and housing subsidy programs be folded into the new program to make
it more effective. The coalition also advocates leaving existing tax grants
to seniors in place while paying those benefits more frequently. 

It is expected that the Ontario Government, working with the Canada Revenue
Agency, could implement the new benefit within two years. 

Coalition Members 

The housing benefit proposal was authored by a unique group of supporters
that includes both the private sector and front-line agencies that work with
low-income communities on the ground. Based on a highly successful Quebec
design but fully adapted for Ontario, the proposal was jointly commissioned
by the: 

• Federation of Rental Housing Providers of Ontario 

• Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association 

• Greater Toronto Apartment Association 

• Daily Bread Food Bank 

• Metcalf Charitable Foundation; and 

• Atkinson Charitable Foundation. 

The Housing Benefit Proposal was prepared in partnership with: 

• Marion Steele, University of Guelph & Centre for Urban and Community
Studies, University of Toronto 

• Steve Pomeroy, Focus Consulting/University of Ottawa 

• John Stapleton, Open Policy, Policy Fellow at St. Christopher House & the
Metcalf Foundation 

• Joshua Hoy, University of Guelph 

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