Ephesians 2:10 ...join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing." (The Message)

 Mission Update:  October, 2005 - Andy Coats

 The Homeless Describe Their Problem

The Final Report of the Peel Regional Task Force on Homelessness

The Economics of Shelter - "You Can't Take 7 from 6"

In the consultation process the Task Force heard a deputation from a man who was a resident of the shelter at 52 Rutherford Rd. Throughout his presentation the man repeatedly stated that "you can't take seven from six". He explained that what he meant was that the cause of homelessness is quite simple. If you are a single person reliant on Social Assistance under Ontario Works, the maximum that you are entitled to is $520 per month. If you can find a room in a rooming house or a small inexpensive apartment, you can expect to pay about $100 per week or $425 or more a month. This leaves about $95 with which to buy food, transportation, clothing, toiletries and anything else that you need. It is not enough! "You can't take seven from six!"

The numbers will vary depending upon the size of the household (larger families are eligible for a larger allowance) and the cost of the housing (again larger families will pay more for more housing) but the result is basically the same.

A family of three with two adults and one child needs a two-bedroom apartment at least. Based on CMHC apartment vacancy survey data (October 1998) the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Brampton was $873 per month and $901 in Mississauga. This household of three persons would be eligible for $1,030 from Ontario Works (reduced from $1,300 prior to the reduction in Social Assistance imposed in 1995). This household would have $157 to spend on all of the other essentials of life for a month, $129 in Mississauga.

Not surprisingly, food bank usage is up significantly as households, fearful of losing their housing, pay their rent first and are left at month end with no money for food. Other households choose to buy food and not pay the rent, risking eviction. These are hard choices that people have to make when they realize that you can't take seven from six.

Similarly, a single worker working full time at the provincial minimum wage would earn a gross income of $1,187 per month. This amount would be adequate if the worker were single with no dependents. With a family of three it would not meet the costs of living.

Information collected from a sample of users of the Rutherford Road shelter in the winter of 1998/99 revealed that a large proportion, 28 per cent, were in receipt of public assistance. An additional 29 per cent were working. Despite the fact that they had a regular income, these people were homeless and reliant on the shelter. In some cases the reason they were in the shelter was that they had left their family home due to domestic conflict and would not be able to rent accommodation until their next pay date. For most, however, the problem was an inability to find housing that they could afford with the income that was available.

Affordable Housing

Although there are many reasons why particular individuals find themselves without a home, the shortage of a range of appropriate affordable housing is the main reason why there is homelessness. If an adequate supply of affordable housing were available, some of the currently homeless individuals and families would need support to access and maintain their housing. At the current time, however, there is not sufficient affordable housing to meet the needs of residents of Peel Region.

In 1996 there were 82,500 rental housing units in Peel Region. The vacancy rate in rental apartments was less than one per cent in 1998 (.64 per cent). At the same time, there were more than 32,000 households paying more than 30 per cent of their income for shelter.

There are currently over 15,000 units of social housing in Peel Region, of which 7,200 are rented on a geared to income basis. The waiting list for these geared to income units is an estimated 21,000 households for a waiting time of three to seven years.

The Commissioner of Housing and the General Manager of the Peel Regional Non-Profit Housing Authority reported to the Task Force the loss of Rent Supplement units, which are subsidized geared to income housing in privately owned apartment buildings. With the changes made to rent control under the new Tenant Protection Act, the landlords are able to get higher rents and, consequently, are not renewing Rent Supplement agreements. The existing tenants continue to receive rental assistance until they move, at which time the unit and the associated subsidy are lost to the Region.

The Region has appealed to the federal government to continue to provide the subsidy either for new Rent Supplement agreements or for other forms of assisted housing. The Region has also appealed to the federal government for other areas of flexibility to allow current federal subsidies to be used to produce new affordable housing. An announcement by the Provincial Minister of Community and Social Services on March 23, 1999 suggests that the funds saved by the loss of these Rent Supplement units will be reallocated to house people with special needs; it is not clear how this will be implemented.

The Government of Ontario insists that the private sector always has been, and will continue to be, the leader in the creation and maintenance of rental supply in Ontario. However, in the past 20 or more years the private sector has produced virtually no rental housing. In fact, in 1998, the private sector started only 36 new rental housing units in Peel Region; in 1997 there were 18 starts. The reality is that the cost of building and operating rental housing is greater than the market rents will provide. The private sector cannot earn a return on their investment sufficient to motivate them to produce rental housing.

The Region of Peel was very active in the development of non-profit housing for many years, both as a developer of housing for its own housing company Peel Living and as a developer and facilitator of housing for other small community based non-profit housing companies. Shortly after the provincial election in 1995, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing cancelled all new development under the non-profit housing program, including cancellation of any projects previously committed but not yet built. In Peel this resulted in the cancellation of 457 units in eight projects. Since that time no new non-profit housing has been developed.

There is a need for different levels of government to intervene in the housing market in order to stimulate a greater supply of rental housing in this community. One way is to implement changes in the regulations and the housing environment to reduce the cost of producing such housing. Many factors such as sales and property tax changes, zoning and planning issues and the high cost of land are the subject of recommendations in the Golden Task Force report. We need to push the senior levels of government to implement these changes.

However, these measures are not sufficient to produce housing that is broadly affordable. Some level of government financial support is still needed if the private sector is going to realize a sufficient return to make rental housing an acceptable investment. If government subsidies are to be provided an alternative is to provide support to community sponsored non-profit housing. We need to revisit past non-profit housing programs to develop a new approach which will be accountable to the taxpayers and as efficient as possible.