The quirky design of Ontario’s portable rent subsidy means tenants with the same income and monthly rent may receive hundreds of dollars more or less a month depending on which municipality they live in.
The Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) provides eligible low-income households that aren’t living in social housing with a monthly amount to help with rental costs. Unlike other housing benefits, the COHB, which was introduced in 2020, is tied to the household – rather than the rental unit – and can be used anywhere in the province.
But low-income tenants moving within Ontario or house-hunting across municipal boundaries may find that they’re eligible for significantly different amounts of the benefit even in cities with similarly expensive rental markets.
“They’ve decentralized this whole thing, and it’s a complete dog’s breakfast,” Steve Pomeroy, a professor at McMaster University’s Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, said, speaking of the difficulty of finding out what each municipality is doing with the benefit.
For financially vulnerable Ontarians facing record-high rents, the consequences are stark. For example, consider a single person living on $8,796 a year from the province’s Ontario Works social assistance program. In Toronto, this tenant would receive an estimated $1,210 a month from the COHB for a one-bedroom unit renting at $1,600 a month, according to an example supplied to The Globe and Mail by the city’s staff.
The estimated amount would be the same in Burlington, according to an online benefits calculator provided by the City of Toronto, which can be used for estimates of the subsidy across Ontario. But in nearby Hamilton, the same person would receive an estimated $922, or $288 less a month, for the same rent.
Other scenarios simulated by The Globe showed differences in the amounts estimated for Toronto and Burlington, which is part of the Regional Municipality of Halton, and the gap between COHB estimates in those two cities and Hamilton widening to more than $700 a month.
The COHB was set up through an agreement between the province and the federal government under Ottawa’s National Housing Strategy, with all other provinces and territories signing similar arrangements.
But in Ontario, municipalities have some flexibility in how they design and implement the benefit locally, a set-up that traces its roots to decades-old changes that downloaded some responsibilities for subsidized housing to the cities, Mr. Pomeroy said.
The result is that, while the province has provided general guidelines, different municipalities can use different variables to calculate the COHB.
In general, the benefit is meant to bridge the gap between 30 per cent of a household’s net monthly income – which reflects a widely used metric of rental affordability – and a percentage of the local average market rent.
One point of difference is that various municipalities use different measures of average rents in their area. While the default is to refer to averages provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), cities can ask the province to use different numbers.
Both the City of Toronto and Halton Region, which includes the towns of Halton Hills, Milton and Oakville, in addition to Burlington, have asked to use higher measures of average rents, staff from the two municipalities told The Globe.
For the average rent for a one-bedroom, for example, Toronto is currently using $1,718 a month, instead of $1,538, the CMHC measure. Similarly, Halton Region uses $1,800 instead of $1,510.
Holly Einboden, a spokesperson for Halton Region, said in an e-mail statement that current rental rates in the area are “significantly higher” than the rates recorded in the latest available CMHC survey.
“Halton Region has advocated for a higher average market rent to increase the monthly Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit subsidy amount to better support individuals and families with maintaining housing affordability,” she added.
The City of Toronto has also submitted two requests for alternate average market rental rates, which were approved by the province, according to spokesperson Deborah Blackstone.
Hamilton, however, uses the CMHC benchmark, which puts the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment at $1,142, according to the Toronto calculator. (The City of Hamilton declined to answer queries about how its benefit is calculated, deferring questions to the province, which did not respond to a request for comment.)
The issue is that averages as measured by the CMHC reflect the whole rental market, including rents paid by tenants who have lived in rent-controlled units for a long time and are therefore paying far less than recent tenants. Such averages tend to be much lower than the average asking rent on available rentals, because landlords are allowed to raise rates beyond rent-control guidelines when a unit becomes vacant.
According to online rental platform Rentals.ca, average asking rents in November for a one-bedroom apartment were $2,594 in Toronto, $2,203 in Burlington and $1,846 in Hamilton.
Municipalities using average market rates higher than the CMHC rates are able to provide more generous subsidies, but that choice usually comes with a trade-off, Mr. Pomeroy said.
Within the constraint of a finite budget, a richer benefit generally means providing more help to a smaller number of people. A lower benefit, on the other hand, provides some level of assistance to a larger pool of applicants, he said.
“You just don’t have the money to solve the problem,” he added.
