Demand-side housing assistance for low-income households in Québec
La version française de ce billet se trouve ici.
Eric Latimer and I recently wrote a report for the Province of Québec about demand-side housing assistance for low-income households (the full report, available in French only, is available here). The report was born out of a partnership with the Québec Homelessness Prevention Policy Collaborative.
Here are 10 things to know:
1. Most Canadian experts agree that financial assistance is needed in order for low-income households to truly afford housing. It’s typically understood that households should not spend more than 30% of their income on housing; however, the method by which affordability is created varies (and has been the subject of debate over the years).
2. Our report explains the difference between supply-side and demand-side approaches. When government subsidy brings about housing whose units are available at very low rent levels, experts typically call that supply-side assistance. By contrast, when government subsidy helps a tenant to afford market rent, experts typically call that demand-side assistance.
3. This report focuses on demand-side assistance available in Québec. Specifically, it focuses on both Québec’s Rent Supplement Program (known in French as the Programme de supplément au loyer Québec) and to a lesser extent the province’s Shelter Allowance Program (known in French as programme Allocation-logement). The former is more generous than the latter.
4. We find that Québec’s demand-side approaches have several strengths. They offer tenant choice in terms of unit and neighbourhood, and they do not appear to disincentivize work. Demand-side benefits in Québec also appear to last an appropriate amount of time.
5. We also uncover various shortcomings of Québec’s demand-side schemes. These include: insufficient levels of support (both in terms of the number of people assisted and the generosity of the support for those who do qualify); insufficient wraparound support (i.e., social work support) for vulnerable tenants; an overly-punitive approach to dealing with problematic tenancies; overly burdensome documentation requirements; and lack of awareness of the Shelter Allowance Program among eligible recipients.
6. We were pleased to see improvements made to Québec’s demand-side programs before we completed our report. For example, with the Rent Supplement Program, persons experiencing homelessness now have less stringent requirements with respect to paperwork. Also with persons experiencing homelessness, the Rent Supplement Program now has more financial assistance to compensate landlords in the case of damage to the unit.
7. Nevertheless, we recommend that Québec’s demand-side assistance be made more generous. For example, we encourage provincial officials to look at Manitoba’s Rent Assist Program for inspiration, where not only is support more generous, but where social assistance recipients are automatically enrolled in the program. Manitoba also has legislation mandating that benefit levels adjust annually to reflect rental inflation. We also note that Finland has a sophisticated mechanism for determining the amount of a household’s housing benefit. It achieves greater equity than the Québec or Manitoba programs.
8. We also recommend that the Rent Supplement Program be made more flexible in order to better serve various marginalized groups. Such groups include persons who have recently arrived in the province (including from other countries), persons fleeing intimate partner violence, and Indigenous peoples.
9. Other recommendations are aimed at various administrative improvements. This includes the need to speed up a person’s entry into a unit, reduce penalties to vulnerable households who have had problematic tenancies, improve the compensation process for landlords in the event of unit damages, and provide additional wrapround supports (i.e., social work support) to vulnerable tenants.
10. The report also argues that more community (i.e., social) housing should be created. In part, we note that this would take pressure off of demand-side approaches. It’s also important to underline that community housing in general keeps rent levels low over the the long term, as previously discussed here.
In sum. When it comes to the need for more affordable housing, both supply-side and demand-side approaches serve important functions. This particular report focuses on demand-side approaches, noting both the strengths and shortcomings of Québec’s existing programs, while also shining light on opportunities for improvement. The full report (available in French only) can be accessed here.
I wish to thank Eric Latimer, Jenny Morrow and Annick Torfs for assistance with this blog post. Any opinions or interpretations in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Province of Québec.
