Rent subsidy program for low-income seniors needs a redesign, says B.C. seniors advocate (2024)

Paula Schell was looking for a rental apartment she could afford when a listing came up in Fraser Lake.

At first, the 55-year-old widow didn’t realize it was a 10-hour drive from Mission, where she had lived for the better part of a decade after moving to B.C. from Ontario. Later, when confronted with leaving her friends and late husband’s family for a place where she knew no one, she decided it was better than “being worried all the time.”

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“I didn’t want to end up homeless, and it was getting really scary,” she said.

Schell is among a growing cohort of older British Columbians facing housing insecurity as rental costs have skyrocketed.

On Wednesday, B.C.’s new seniors advocate, Dan Levitt, called on the provincial government to redesign a program that provides rent subsidies for low-income seniors, saying recent improvements don’t go far enough.

In April, the provincial government announced a one-time $430 payment, plus increases in monthly benefits, income eligibility and rent ceilings that will allow about 4,800 more seniors to qualify for the shelter aid for elderly renters program, or SAFER. The longer-term improvements will cost about $15.6 million.

But in his first report as seniors advocate, Levitt said the entire program needs an overhaul.

Right now, the average recipient of the rent subsidy puts over 60 per cent of their income toward rent, he said in the report. With changes, that will drop to about 43 per cent, still far above the 30 per cent mark the program is designed to hit.

Levitt said seniors who must put such a large portion of their income toward rent “are at risk of homelessness.”

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His first recommendation in the report delivered Wednesday morning is for government to redesign the SAFER program to ensure seniors put 30 per cent or less of their income to rent. He also called for rent ceilings, the maximum rent that goes into determining the monthly subsidy, indexed to inflation and adjusted to current market conditions.

“Without question, the most precarious group of seniors are the one-in-five who rent,” he said. “For low-income seniors subject to ‘renovictions’, it can be catastrophic, and trying to find a new place to live in today’s rental market is incredibly challenging.”

He noted that when a senior’s federal pension income goes up because it’s tied to inflation, the SAFER subsidy is reduced, “leaving them no further ahead.”

Levitt told Postmedia News last week that he’s spoken to seniors who have had to leave their communities to find affordable rental housing elsewhere.

“Aging in place is a myth if you can’t live in the community where your family is, where your bank is, where you buy your groceries, and you have to move somewhere else because of rent,” he said.

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Schell, who isn’t eligible for the SAFER subsidy until she turns 60, began to worry after her husband died in late 2022. Using her disability payments and some life insurance, she was able to keep up with the rent payments on their home in Mission until increasing costs forced her to look for a more affordable place to live.

Scanning Craigslist for listings in her budget, she saw nothing — until the listing for an apartment in Fraser Lake came up.

She wasn’t able to see it in advance, but with the threat of homelessness hanging over her, “I took a big chance.”

Earlier this week, she packed up her possessions and moved to the small village in northern B.C. where she knows no one — unless you count her two cats, Pinky and Luke.

She’s learned there’s a community shuttle she can use, but hasn’t “figured out” how to get health care yet. She doesn’t drive.

“I’ve heard there’s a walk-in clinic,” she said.

Levitt, who took over after B.C.’s first seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, retired this spring, made several other recommendations after a tour of the province, including increasing the amount of the B.C. seniors supplement, eliminating the daily rate charge for home support and providing the shingles vaccine at no cost to seniors.

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But he said the overwhelming concern he heard from seniors was about affordability.

“They are simply unable to absorb increased costs for rent, groceries, transportation, property taxes, home support, personal care and other services needed as we age,” he said. “Seniors in homeless shelters and food bank lineups now appear to be commonplace.”

Levitt recognized that the provincial government has promised to improve the rental subsidy program, but said more needs to be done.

After the changes to the SAFER program were announced in April, the province said about 4,800 more seniors will qualify for the program, and existing recipients will see an increase of about $110 per month.

Travis Paterson, a spokesman for the Housing Ministry, told Postmedia that the maximum rent ceiling would be increased to 65 per cent of the provincial average for a one-bedroom unit, increasing the rent ceiling to $931 across the province.

The changes, which will take about six months to implement, include an increase in the minimum annual subsidy to $600, up from $300, and the ability to review rent ceilings each year.

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The province is providing $15.6 million to support the longer-term improvements to SAFER, while the one-time benefit comes from a $12.3 million federal top-up to the Canada Housing Benefit.

A Postmedia review in February found that tens of millions of dollars a year in provincial rent subsidies haven’t been spent.

Reporter Nathan Griffiths reviewed a decade of annual reports from B.C. Housing to show that in the 2022-23 fiscal year alone, B.C. Housing’s rental assistance programs reached about 30,000 households, almost 10,000 fewer than its target for the year. As a result, $32 million that was supposed to support low-income British Columbians wasn’t spent.

The SAFER program accounted for roughly 75 per cent of all rental assistance program enrolments in 2022-23. Enrolment had fallen by roughly 2,000 households since 2020, reaching its lowest level in almost five years.

About 80 per cent of senior households in B.C. are homeowners and 20 cent are renters, according to the seniors advocate’s report.

gluymes@postmedia.com

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