Income security policy is housing policy (at least, it should be)

In a matter of weeks, Canadians will have a new Prime Minister. Soon after, we’ll be asked to go to the polls and pick again. And all of this will happen against a backdrop of looming threats to our economy and even our independence.

Canada’s next leader will be tasked with charting a path forward amid the chaos. And in this rapidly changing political and economic context, it will be easy for them to get caught up in short-term thinking about how to put out the latest fire. 

But new leadership also gives us an opportunity to reflect on what’s working, what isn’t, and what we can do better. And when we think about the greatest policy challenges we face today, one that consistently tops the list is housing affordability.

Having housing that’s affordable is not a nice-to-have; it’s a fundamental human right. Unfortunately, many Canadians haven’t been able to attain this right, with home prices and rents growing faster than their ability to pay.

Even with so much uncertainty, conditions are expected to slowly improve. The bad news? Market rental housing will still be unaffordable to people with lower incomes.

With waitlists for social housing several years long and growing, people with lower incomes are left to pay these more expensive market rents. Even a room in a house with shared services can eat up most of their income, leaving little left over to pay for other necessities.

Unaffordable housing not only puts existing renters at risk of losing their homes. It can also keep people who are unhoused stuck in a cycle of homelessness, the situation for just over 81,000 people in Ontario alone.

Yet much of our policy efforts do not address this challenge. While the federal government has commendably stepped up in the housing space since 2017, its focus has mainly been on increasing the supply of market rental housing under the assumption that more units will drive down rents.

But in 2024, even with record-level rental completions, new supply was largely being driven by higher-priced units. While these new units may help improve overall housing conditions in the long run, we are nowhere near building our way to affordable market rents for people with lower incomes anytime soon. And while more social housing will be critical for these households, many people simply cannot wait for new efforts to come to fruition.

The focus needs to be on income, and Canada’s income security system, as enough income is the only thing that will pay the rent. Our income security system should be seen as one of the largest housing programs for lower-income people. Unfortunately, it is largely ignored in today’s housing policy debate.

If we want to get serious about income security as housing policy, the challenge will lie in figuring out what support should look like and how to integrate it into existing programs.

Across provincial and territorial social assistance programs, we see gaps that prevent people from getting more affordable housing. In Ontario, for example, benefits are often far too low to pay the rent. This is especially the case for singles who rely on the eroding Ontario Works program, where support levels (just $733 a month at most) don’t even grow with inflation. Outdated rules that require onerous reporting of shelter costs can also end up leaving people who need more support, like those who are unhoused, with much less.

At the federal level, we’ve only just begun testing the waters of an income support for renters with the cost-shared Canada Housing Benefit (CHB). While the CHB is reportedly helping people find and keep affordable rental housing, it’s temporary, varies by region, can be restrictive, and has funding to help only a fraction of the people who need it. It’s also not integrated into our current system of income supports, making it difficult to scale.  

Clearly, future Prime Ministers must do something bigger and better for renters with lower incomes. And they don’t have to take on this task alone.

Since responsibility for housing is shared among governments in Canada, so too should the responsibility for the design, funding, and implementation of an income support for rental housing. In fact, with social assistance programs under the purview of the provinces and territories, these governments must play a critical role in the development of a new benefit.  Greater collaboration will also ensure that the program complements existing supports and reflects regional needs.

This work doesn’t have to start from scratch. An income support for housing is not a new idea – many have already put pen to paper about the design elements of an assistance program for low-income renters (the National Housing Collaborative, Ontario’s Income Security Reform Working Group, and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, to name a few). We also have provincial programs like Manitoba’s Rent Assist that we can look to for examples of how to boost incomes without driving up rents.

If we want to improve circumstances for people with lower incomes now, we need to start seeing income security as housing policy. And new leadership brings the opportunity to do just that.