Lifting singles out of poverty in Canada

by admin | Dec 2, 2020 | Canada, Demographics, Determinants of Homelessness, Employment, Ending Homelessness, Fiscal policy, Government, Government Funding, Health Care, Homeless, Housing, Income, Income Distribution, Income Inequality, Income Support, Labour Market, Policy, Poverty, Poverty Reduction, Social Assistance, Social Policy, Unemployment

Lifting singles out of poverty in Canada

I’ve written a report for the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy making the case for higher social assistance benefit levels for employable single adults without dependants. The link to the report is here.

Here are 10 things to know.

1. In Canada, most employable adult singles without dependants who receive social assistance get less than $10,000/yr. in benefits. This amount of money is ridiculously low (keeping in mind that this figure includes all forms of tax credits received by the recipient). A person with this income must use it to pay for housing, food, transportation and other basic necessities (to see benefit levels in every province and territory, check out Welfare in Canada).

2. In relation to Canada’s official poverty line, social assistance benefit levels for this household group are dismal. ‘Welfare income’—which includes social assistance benefit levels, child benefits and all forms of tax credits—brings couples with two children to between 75% and 95% of the federally-defined poverty line, depending on the province (see figure 1 below). However, welfare income for employable singles without dependants typically comes to about 50% of the poverty line for this particular household type.

3. In most provinces and territories, $10,000 is less than half of what a minimum wage earner would earn in one year working full-time hours. Historically, policy-makers and economists have often been nervous about setting social assistance benefit levels high enough to make paid work unattractive. However, that shouldn’t be a major concern right now in most parts of Canada, as the differential between welfare incomes and minimum wage rates is currently quite substantial.

4. Increases to social assistance benefit levels could help Canada’s federal government achieve its poverty reduction targets. In Canada, we say a household is in ‘deep income poverty’ if it makes less than 75% of the official poverty line. Canada’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, unveiled in October 2018, seeks to track progress on this indicator. Increases in social assistance benefit levels would be a very easy way for progress to be made in this respect.

5. Doing so could also help provincial and territorial governments achieve their poverty reduction targets. All provinces and territories now have their own poverty reduction strategies; many of these strategies include targets pertaining to reducing the number of people under the poverty line (New Brunswick’s strategy actually seeks to reduce deep income poverty by 50%). Increasing social assistance benefit levels would help all provinces and territories achieve their targets.

6. More than half of people in Canada who are in ‘deep income poverty’ are singles. Not only do singles receive very low social assistance benefit levels relative to other household types, but they also do not realize many of the economies of scale that come with cohabitating (e.g., shared rent, shared utility costs, etc.). This reality makes this household group all the more worthy of policy attention.

7. Higher social assistance benefit levels can result in less homelessness. It’s intuitive for many of us that higher social assistance benefit levels would both reduce the likelihood of a person losing their housing and also increase the likelihood of a person experiencing homelessness to obtain rental housing on the private market. Research by Ron Kneebone and Margarita Wilkins confirms this, estimating that a $1,500/yr. increase in social assistance benefits for an employable single without dependants would (in 2011) reduce the use of shelter beds on any given night by nearly 20%.

8. Higher benefit levels can improve food security. A recent study in British Columbia confirms this, finding that overall rates of food security improved among social assistance recipients after a one-time increase in social assistance benefit levels in that province.

9. Less homelessness and improved food security would almost certainly result in public cost savings. The costs of homelessness to the taxpayer are well documented, as are the healthcare costs associated with food insecurity. Put differently, increasing public expenditure on social assistance would likely result in public savings elsewhere.

10. While higher benefit levels would likely lead to more takeup, this increased takeup would be modest. That is precisely the finding of a recent Canadian study that I co-authored with Ali Jadidzadeh. We found that a 10% increase in the real value of social assistance benefit levels for this same household group would likely result in an increase in caseloads of less than 5%.

In sum. When it comes to social assistance across Canada, employable single adults without dependants are a very neglected subgroup. Increasing their benefit levels would likely result in less poverty, improved food security and less homelessness.

I wish to thank Susan Falvo, Lynn McIntyre, Vincent St-Martin and Val Tarasuk for assistance with this blog post.

Social assistance: Do higher benefit levels lead to higher caseloads?

by admin | Oct 10, 2020 | British Columbia, Canada, Data Sharing, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Fiscal policy, Government, Government Funding, Health Care, Homeless, Income, Income Distribution, Income Inequality, Income Support, Labour Market, Policy, Poverty, Poverty Reduction, Research and Data, Social Assistance, Social Policy

Social assistance: Do higher benefit levels lead to higher caseloads?

I’ve recently co-authored a journal article [1] with Ali Jadidzadeh that asks the question: Do higher social assistance benefit levels lead to greater take-up? The short answer is yes, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t increase benefit levels.

Here are 11 things to know about the study.

1. The study looks only at employable adult singles without dependants. Other studies asking the same question have looked at other household groups; but ours focuses on single adults without dependants in part because this group receives very little public policy attention, and in part because they comprise most persons experiencing absolute homelessness in Canada.

2. While the study measures the impact of a variety of independent variables on caseloads, the one we were most interested in was benefit levels. Other independent variables considered in the study are: the official unemployment rate; ‘working poor’ income (e.g., third and fourth decile income); population variation over time; and social assistance rule changes.

3. The study uses three alternative models to estimate the impact of these variables. Essentially, different measurement techniques have their strengths and weaknesses, so it’s common for statistical work like this to use a variety of approaches so that the reader can compare findings.

4. The first model finds an important relationship between benefit levels and caseload growth. Specifically, it finds that a 1% increase in the real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) value of benefit levels results in a 0.372% increase in caseloads. This model uses pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), an approach that doesn’t account for provincial fixed effects (i.e., characteristics of provinces that don’t vary over time). These results should therefore be taken less seriously than the other two models.

5. The second model finds a rather modest relationship between increases in benefit levels and caseload growth. Specifically, it finds that a 1% increase in the real value of benefit levels results in just a 0.157% increase in caseloads. This approach uses fixed effects OLS, meaning it accounts for unobservable provincial characteristics.

6. The third model finds the relationship to be a bit stronger. This approach uses Panel Fully Modified OLS and finds a 1% increase in the real value of benefit levels to result in a 0.457% increase in caseloads. This approach is considered good when researchers want to study long-run relationships between continuous (i.e., quantifiable) variables. It’s a relatively new approach that has gained currency in the past five years.

7. There’s an important takeaway from this. Specifically, a 10% increase in the real value of social assistance benefit levels would likely result in caseload growth for this group of between 1.57% and 4.57%. Many observers would consider this to be modest caseload growth.

8. Rule changes are important, but they are difficult to measure. In the mid-1990s, several large provinces introduced strict eligibility criteria (including the introduction of work-for-welfare provisions). The study finds their impact in reducing caseloads to be statistically significant. However, in general, it is very challenging for statistical analysis to measure the impact of rule changes on caseloads.

9. The unemployment rate has a modest impact on caseloads. In the first model, a one percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate is found to be associated with a 7.3% drop in caseloads (in the second model, it’s associated with a 5.8% drop). One implication from this is that provincial and territorial officials should not expect job creation alone to wipe out social assistance caseloads for employable singles.

10. The study cautions policymakers against focusing too much on the sizes of caseloads. In other words, when deciding on the appropriate levels of benefits, the study encourages policymakers to consider positive outcomes associated with higher benefit levels.

11. Higher social assistance benefit levels can help accomplish other policy objectives. As the study points out, they can reduce the percentage of Canadians living in poverty, reduce levels of food insecurity, improve health outcomes and reduce homelessness (all of which can result in savings of their own to the taxpayer). So if higher benefit levels also result in modest caseload growth, that may not be so bad.

In sum. There are many positive outcomes associated with higher social assistance benefit levels. Having said that, when policymakers decide to increase benefit levels, they should budget for some increased take-up.

I wish to thank the following individuals for assistance with this blog post: Susan Falvo, Ali Jadidzadeh, Richard Shillington and Vincent St-Martin.

[1] For a full copy of the article, please email me at falvo.nicholas@gmail.com.

Canada’s history of residential schools

by admin | Aug 1, 2020 | Aboriginal Peoples, Canada, Determinants of Homelessness, Government, Government Funding, Homeless, Indigenous peoples, Policy, Social Policy

Canada’s history of residential schools

When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages…He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed upon myself…that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in…schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.

— John A. Macdonald (Canada’s First Prime Minister)

I recently had the chance to read the Volume 1 summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which discusses Canada’s history with residential schools.[1]

Here are 10 things to know.

1. Residential schools were part of a deliberate policy to assimilate Indigenous peoples against their will. Such schools existed in Canada for over a century, with federal support for them beginning in in the 1880s (peak enrolment was reached in the late 1950s). Federal officials hoped that students who went to these schools would stop feeling connected to their culture and would sever ties with their families and communities. Canada’s federal government used such schools to gain control over land and resources of Indigenous peoples.

2. Initially, attendance was voluntary; but this soon changed. It is also very important to bear in mind that many reserves did not have schools of their own, meaning that Indigenous people typically had no alternative to residential schools.

3. Residential schools were funded by the federal government, but administered by churches. The major religious denominations that administered Canada’s residential schools were: Roman Catholic, Anglican, United, Methodist, and Presbyterian. The Roman Catholic Church ran more of these schools than any other denomination. Most of the staff were recruited by the church. Each school’s principal was typically a priest or minister (as opposed to an educator). Staff were disproportionately women, many worked for free, and many worked seven-day weeks. Turnover was high—it was common for a staff person to work for a residential school for no more than two years before moving on to another job.

4. Residential schools were profoundly disruptive to families. Some students were sent to schools located several thousand kilometres from their communities; some went several years without seeing their parents. Siblings attending the same school were separated from each other.

5. Students were not allowed to speak Indigenous languages in residential schools. Often, they were physically punished when they tried. When students returned home, it was challenging for them to communicate with their parents, as well as discuss the abuse to which they were subjected in school. Only English—and French, to a lesser extent—were allowed to be spoken in residential schools.

6. Residential schools were woefully underfunded and used students as child labour. Prior to the early-1950s, students typically spent half the day in class, and the other half of the day working (e.g., growing much of the food they ate, fixing their own clothing). Not surprisingly, this resulted in a considerable number of workplace accidents (e.g., hands being caught in equipment). It also meant that students did not receive the same quality education as students in Canada’s mainstream schools.

7. Students at residential schools faced many forms of abuse. Students who wet their beds were often subjected to organized forms of public humiliation. One TRC witness testified that staff would line up the bedwetters and parade them through the dining hall at breakfast time in order to shame them. Sometimes students were forced to eat their own vomit.[2] One school even built its own electric chair. As is now well known, sexual abuse of Indigenous children was all too commonplace in the schools.

8. Not surprisingly, students often ran away from residential schools. Chanie Wenjack was an Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 while trying to return home after escaping from a residential school. His story is now the subject of a multimedia art project, the centrepiece of which is Secret Path (the last studio album ever released by Gord Downie). And Trent University has the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies. Hundreds of others ran away and died, and thousands died at school.

9. Parents often fought back. Sometimes they refused to enrol their students; sometimes they refused to return their children after they had run away from school and come home (or after summer holidays). Sometimes these tactics were effective, forcing some schools to close. Having said that, parents often faced legal sanctions (e.g., jail time) for employing such tactics. Parents also advocated for better conditions pertaining to pedagogy, food and clothing.

10. Beginning in the late 1940s, mainstream thought in Canada began to shift. Increasingly, public officials began to encourage the integration of First Nations students into the public school system. By 1960, more First Nations students were attending public schools than residential schools.

In closing. In the late-1960s, the federal government began to take control of residential schools away from churches. It then began to close them, with the last one closing in 1996. As of 2005, more than 18,000 lawsuits had been filed by residential school survivors against the federal government, churches and individuals. Despite the work of the TRC and the financial compensation, many Indigenous people are still experiencing intergenerational trauma from the experience of residential schools. The implications for homelessness have been studied extensively by Peter Menzies (see this book chapter, for example).

I wish to thank Frances Abele, Angele Alook, Kelly Black, Susan Falvo, Josh Gladstone, Root Gorelick, Katelyn Lucas, Jenny Morrow, Allan Moscovitch, and Vincent St-Martin for providing feedback on an early draft of this blog post. Any errors are mine.

[1] The TRC’s website is here, and all TRC reports can be found here.

[2] In 1999, a Roman Catholic nun was convicted of administering a noxious substance and assault (though she received no jail time).

Trudeau government should spend more on affordable housing and homelessness

by admin | Jul 22, 2020 | Alternative Federal Budget, Canada, Ending Homelessness, Federal Budget, Fiscal policy, Government, Government Funding, Homeless, Housing, Income Support, Policy, Poverty, Social Housing, Social Policy

Trudeau government should spend more on affordable housing and homelessness

On July 21, the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) Recovery Plan was released. The document aims to provide public policy direction to Canada’s federal government, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic (more information on the AFB Recovery Plan can be found, while an overview of the AFB’s history can be found here).

I was author of the Recovery Plan’s chapter on affordable housing and homelessness, which can be accessed here.

Here are 10 things to know.

1. The COVID-19 Recession has resulted in income loss and rental arrears, especially for lower-income households who are mostly renters. Eviction bans across Canada have had some effectiveness in preventing or slowing down evictions; but when those bans are lifted, many households will be on the brink of absolute homelessness.

2. The recession has diminished people’s ability to get mortgage approvals. In part, this is due to many people having reduced income (or having lost their jobs entirely); it is also due in part to new mortgage rules taking effect on July 1.[1] This means an entire cohort of would-be homeowners will be stuck in the rental market, driving down rental vacancy rates.

3. The COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed cracks in the patchwork of social services in place for people experiencing homelessness. Challenges have included: the closing of daytime services (e.g., drop-in centres); the closing of public spaces with access to washroom facilities (e.g., libraries); and a lack of Internet access. The pandemic has also created additional costs and operational pressures on supportive housing programs and emergency shelters—for cleaning, personal protective equipment and increased staffing.

4. Across Canada, local officials in the homelessness sector have worked very hard responding to the pandemic. They have created more physical distancing at existing emergency shelters, opened new facilities, leased hotel rooms, and created facilities for both isolation and quarantine. The Trudeau government has provided important financial assistance to the homelessness sector to support these efforts. Indeed, the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, announced on 18 March 2020, includes an additional $157.5 million in one-time funding for Reaching Home (representing a 74% increase in Reaching Home funding for the 2020-21 fiscal year).

5. Nevertheless, challenges remain in the homelessness sector. They include: the existence of shared bathrooms; inadequate access to personal protective equipment; harm reduction (e.g., safe access to illicit drugs); encampments (i.e., outdoor sleeping); a dwindling workforce at emergency shelters and drop-in centres; and an anticipated increase in homelessness resulting from the economic downturn.[2]

6. The Trudeau government should provide a rental top-up to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). This could simply be added to existing CERB payments, showing up in recipients’ bank accounts along with CERB. Canada Revenue Agency could administer the program, just as it does CERB.[3] CERB recipients transitioning onto Employment Insurance could carry their rental top-up with them.

7. The recent Reaching Home enhancement ought to be made permanent. The AFB Recovery Plan would make permanent the recent enhancement to federal Reaching Home funding. Across Canada, federal funding for homelessness (i.e., Reaching Home) is rather modest. According to a 2018 federal program evaluation, for each $1 invested federally, $13 is invested by other sources (mostly provincial and municipal dollars).[4]

8. Federal spending on the National Housing Co-investment Fund should be boosted. A central feature of the National Housing Strategy unveiled in November 2017 is a new National Housing Co-investment Fund (NHCF). Primarily a loan program (as opposed to a grant program) the NHCF has been criticized for providing insufficient funding to make rent levels truly affordable for low-income tenants. The AFB Recovery Plan would enhance the NHCF with an additional $3 billion in grant money annually, over and above what has already been committed by the Trudeau government.

9. The Canada Housing Benefit ought to be enhanced. Central to the Trudeau government’s National Housing Strategy is the launch, in 2020, of a Canada Housing Benefit (CHB). This benefit provides financial assistance to help low-income households afford the rent. The AFB Recovery Plan would double the federal contribution to this benefit at a cost of $250 million annually, over and above current allocations. Province and territories would be expected to cost-share.

10. There should be federal spending earmarked to fund capital for supportive housing. Supportive housing refers to specialized housing for vulnerable populations that features professional (i.e., social work) staff support. The National Housing Strategy contains no specific provisions for supportive housing, even though one of the Strategy’s stated goals is to reduce chronic homelessness by 50%.[5] The AFB Recovery Plan would allocate $2 billion in new annual funding (for capital) for supportive housing.

In sum. The AFB Recovery Plan urges the federal government to create housing options to the point where, when we are hit by a future wave or new pandemic, all Canadians have a home in which to stay safe. Further, the downturn in the real estate market offers an opportunity for the Trudeau government to assist non-profit housing providers to acquire new stock in cost-effective ways.

The following individuals provided invaluable assistance with the affordable housing and homelessness chapter of the AFB Recovery Plan: Meaghan Bell, Michele Biss, Stéphan Corriveau, Katie-Sue Derejko, John Dickie, George Fallis, Sherwin Flight, Alex Hemingway, Graeme Hussey, Bruce Irvine, Brandi Kapell, Ron Kneebone, Brian Kreps, David Macdonald, Christina Maes Nino, Bernadette Majdell, Elsbeth Mehrer, Michael Mendelson, Jeff Morrison, Amanda Noble, Abe Oudshoorn, Steve Pomeroy, Tim Richter, Michal Rozworski, Natalie Spagnuolo, Marion Steele, Greg Suttor, Jennifer Tipple, Letisha Toop, Ricardo Tranjan, Stuart Trew, Samuel Watts and one anonymous source. I wish to also thank Susan Falvo, Hayley Gislason, Angela Regnier, Vincent St-Martin and Sarah Woodgate for assistance with this blog post. Any errors are mine.

Photo used with permission from Home Space Society.

[1] Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. (2020, June 4). CMHC reviews underwriting criteria. Retrieved from CMHC website: https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca

[2] Bainbridge, J., & Carrizales, T. J. (2017). Global homelessness in a post-recession world. Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, 24(1), 6. Retrieved from: https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/jpmsp/vol24/iss1/6/

[3] This proposal has been put forth by Marion Steele and also by a third-sector group of experts. For more information, see this recent Toronto Star opinion piece: https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2020/05/24/a-lot-of-toronto-renters-cant-get-by-even-with-cerb-they-need-a-top-up-from-the-feds.html.

[4] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2018). Evaluation of the Homelessness Partnering Strategy: Final Report. Retrieved from the Government of Canada website: https://www.canada.ca

[5] Having said that, supportive housing has received Co-investment Fund financing.

David Hulchanski class discussion

by admin | Jun 21, 2020 | Canada, Cities, Government, Government Funding, Homeless, Housing, municipalities, Policy, Poverty, Social Housing, Social Policy, taxation

David Hulchanski class discussion

On 9 June 2020, I participated in a panel discussion in David Hulchanski’s graduate-level social housing and homelessness course at the University of Toronto. It included perspectives from Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Participants included Kath Scanlon, Wendy Hayhurst, Andy Yan, Carolyn Whitzman, and Sharon Chisholm.[1]

Here are 10 things to know:

1. The English-speaking countries of the OECD are known for their relatively stingy social welfare systems. In other words, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom (along with both the United States and New Zealand) have relatively low levels of social spending and relatively low levels of taxation, relative to the other OECD countries. Subsidized housing is part of a country’s social welfare system and very much impacted by its other pieces (e.g., social assistance, labour market policies, etc.).

2. Not surprisingly, all English-speaking countries of the OECD also have serious affordable housing challenges and large amounts of homelessness. In England, families who lose their housing can subsequently be placed into “temporary accommodation” where they can stay up to 10 years. Years ago, such families were provided with social housing; but there’s so little turnover in England’s social housing units that now such households are almost always placed into the private rental sector.[2] Recent analysis by Steve Pomeroy in Canada looked at the period between 2011 and 2016. During that time, Canada lost more than 300,000 units of private-landlord housing that were affordable to lower-income households (and the financialization of housing is believed to be largely responsible for this).[3] During the same period, fewer than 20,000 subsidized units were created for low-income households across Canada.

3. Housing affordability challenges in all of these countries appear to be getting worse, largely due to the financialization of housing. The financialization of housing refers to the increased use of housing as an investment tool, rather than to serve social needs. It is often facilitated by public policy that makes it attractive for corporate interests to invest in housing, thereby jacking up the price.

4. Poorly-designed tax policies appear to encourage the financialization of housing. For example, in Australia, even people with median incomes have found it attractive to buy a property and rent it out; any losses they incur can be written off against their income. Australia’s capital gains tax system has also made it attractive to do this. One of the undesirable outcomes of this phenomenon is that Australia has a lot of landlords who are not terribly passionate about being landlords.

5. In recent years, there has been growing awareness of the financialization of housing. Both Leilani Farha (former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing) and Martine August (an emerging scholar based at the University of Waterloo) have written and spoken extensively on the topic over the past several years. And Canada’s just-launched Recovery For All campaign includes several demands related to the financialization of housing.

6. Perversely, large groups of each country’s respective population benefit from many of the same rules that create homelessness. When an existing homeowner sees the value of housing increase, they recognize that the value of their assets is growing. Further, homeowners in Australia, Canada and the UK pay no capital gains tax on the windfall earned from the sale of their primary residence, representing substantial foregone revenue for their national treasuries.

7. England has very landlord-friendly rules. Right now, a standard tenancy in England lasts between six and 12 months, after which point the landlord is under no obligation to renew the tenancy. (Fortunately, the UK government is now talking about changing that law.)

8. Authorities in England are starting to focus more on homelessness prevention. When a person becomes legally homeless in England, their reason for becoming homeless is recorded. Now, the single biggest cause is eviction from a private tenancy, and over time that’s grown as a reason. Local authorities have therefore been directed to prevent homelessness when a person is on the verge of an eviction (e.g., with temporary grants). This focus on prevention is getting big in England, but it’s quite reactive; the household in trouble needs to reach out to the authority for help.

9. There are some silver linings worth noting. In Australia, Canada and England, the COVID-19 pandemic has generated an urgent imperative to deal with homelessness. For example, whereas so-called rough sleeping had previously been regarded as an intractable problem in England, a recent political commitment and funding enhancement essentially eliminated it (at least for now) in a matter of days.

10. Some panel participants encouraged ‘big thinking’ with respect to social housing. One participant suggested that housing advocates should advocate for social housing to eventually comprise 50% of all new housing units in Canada, noting we need to stop seeing social housing as the housing of last resort.

In Sum. Housing affordability challenges experienced in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom appear to stem from poorly designed public policy. Low aggregate levels of taxation make it more challenging for governments to make substantial investments in social policies, and pro-landlord public policies appear to drive up housing prices. But if bad public policy brings on a lack of affordable housing, good public policy can help address it. Let’s hope the Recovery For All campaign gains some traction here in Canada!

I wish to thank Susan Falvo, Wendy Hayhurst, David Hulchanski, Kath Scanlon, Vincent St-Martin and Carolyn Whitzman for assistance with this blog post. Any errors are mine.

[1] We followed the Chatham House Rule, so the present blog post will not state who made which comment.

[2] Forty years ago, social housing made up one-third of England’s total housing stock. Now, it makes up about 20% of total housing stock.

[3] The lost units in question had monthly rents of $750 or less.

Ten things to know about subsidized rental housing in Alberta

by admin | Feb 20, 2020 | Aboriginal Peoples, Alberta, British Columbia, Calgary, Ending Homelessness, Fiscal policy, Government, Government Funding, Housing, Indigenous peoples, municipalities, Policy, Social Housing, Social Policy

Ten things to know about subsidized rental housing in Alberta

On February 27, the UCP Government of Jason Kenney will table its second budget. With that in mind, here are 10 things to know about subsidized rental housing in Alberta:

Housing need has been increasing in Alberta. The percentage of Alberta households in core housing need has been rising steadily over the past three Census periods. In 2006, 10.1% of Alberta households were in core housing need; by 2011, this figure had risen to 10.7%; and in 2016, the figure stood at 11.4%. In 2016, this represented more than 164,000 Alberta households.

Some household types face especially dire circumstances. Across Alberta, 30.6% of female lone-parent families are in core housing need, while 30.8% of seniors living alone are in core housing need. Further, the rate of core housing need for Status Indians is more than double the rate for non-Indigenous households (and these figures do not account for households living on reserve).[1]

More than one in four persons experiencing absolute homelessness in Alberta is Indigenous. That’s according to Alberta’s 2018 Point-in-Time Count. It’s worth noting that Indigenous peoples make up just 7% of Alberta’s total population.

On a per capita basis, Alberta has far fewer subsidized housing units than the rest of Canada.[2] According to the most recent Census, subsidized housing represents just 2.9% of Alberta’s housing units; for Canada as a whole, the figure is 4.2%.

Comparing Alberta to British Columbia is instructive. As can be seen below, from 2007 until 2010, Alberta produced more housing units funded unilaterally by the provincial government than BC on an annual basis. But since 2011, BC has been outperforming Alberta in that respect. In fact, in 2017, BC’s provincial government funded more than 15 times as many housing units than Alberta, despite having a roughly similar overall population, and despite Alberta having an NDP government at the time.[3]

Note. Figures compiled by David Macdonald and Greg Suttor using provincial reporting. Figures only include unilateral provincial spending, and do not include cost-shared initiatives.

The impact of Canada’s National Housing Strategy will be modest. Recent analysis by Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer projects future federal housing spending to actually decrease over the next decade (relative to GDP). The same analysis projects that total spending on Indigenous housing by Canada’s federal government will be “substantially lower” going forward.

When Alberta’s provincial government does fund new subsidized units, the process lacks transparency. Even when Rachel Notley’s NDP government was in power, housing funding was not allocated via a formal grant program through which non-profits (i.e., community housing/non-market housing providers) could apply for funding. Such a process has not been in place in Alberta since 2012.

The Government of Alberta lacks a clear, public reporting structure for provincially-subsidized housing. For example, most Albertans—including very well- placed sources in the affordable housing sector—do not know: how much recent funding was used for repairs vs. new builds; how much of this funding has been dependent on cost-matching from other orders of government; what types of projects have received the funding; which types of households have been targeted; or to which municipalities the funding has flowed. This lack of transparency makes it very challenging for key actors in the non-profit housing and homeless-serving sectors to plan; it has also made it virtually impossible for key players in the sector to have a democratic dialogue about how public dollars are being allocated.

In October 2019, the UCP government unveiled its first budget, announcing some housing cuts. Starting in 2020, operating budgets for Housing Management Bodies (HMBs) will be reduced by an average of 3.5%. There will also be a 24% reduction to the Rental Assistance Program, which provides financial assistance for low- to moderate-income households to assist with monthly rent payments for up to one year. This 24% reduction begins in 2020 and takes full effect within three years.

There has been long-time speculation that the recent provincial funding reduction (or a portion of it) may be retargeted and used to match federal funding through the new Canada Housing Benefit. That program, set to take effect 1 April 2020, requires that the Government of Alberta match federal funding.[4] This speculation was confirmed in a 26 December 2019 Canadian Press article.

In sum. There is need for both more subsidized rental housing in Alberta and more transparency at the provincial level. In its upcoming provincial budget, the Jason Kenney government has the opportunity to address both issues.

Acknowledgements. I wish to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post: Zain Abedin, Damian Collins, Martina Jileckova, Jonn Kmech, Ron Kneebone, David Macdonald, Jedd Matechuk, Katrina Milaney, Jeff Morrison, Jenny Morrow, Steve Pomeroy, John Rook, Greg Suttor, Vincent St-Martin and one anonymous source. Any errors are mine.

[1] Rates of core housing need are not calculated in many of Canada’s First Nations communities, largely because in order to calculate core housing need, one must know the cost of market housing (which often does not exist in First Nations’ communities).

[2] According to Statistics Canada’s 2016 Census of Population, subsidized housing “includes rent geared to income, social housing, public housing, government-assisted housing, non-profit housing, rent supplements and housing allowances.”

[3] According to the 2016 Census, Alberta had a total population of 4,067,175, while BC had a total population of 4,648,055.

[4] The Canada Housing Benefit is expected to provide an average of $2,500/annually, per eligible household, to Canadians in housing need.

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