Province should track number of people getting both social assistance and rent supplement, says Green MLA

The P.E.I. government says it is not tracking how many of the 650 families receiving provincial rent supplements are also receiving social assistance benefits, a situation Green MLA Hannah Bell calls "disappointing."

Without tracking that information, Bell said it'll be difficult for government to assess the effectiveness of either social assistance or the rent supplement program in helping Islanders in need deal with the current housing shortage.

"I think it's very disappointing that we're not collecting data on something that is absolutely critical," she said. "We need to know exactly where that [money is] going, and what impact it's having. Is it the best way? Is there something we could be doing more?"

During the fall sitting of the legislature, Family Services Minister Tina Mundy said the province was providing rent supplements to social assistance clients, providing top-ups to the shelter allowance they receive under social assistance.

"As we take in clients and we assess their needs, if they are needed to go above the shelter rate we have been doing that and we will continue to do that," Mundy said in the fall.

Doesn't affect eligibility, says province

The province's director of social services Mark Spidel told CBC in a follow-up interview that the rent supplements are not considered a source of income, and therefore the province's social assistance program doesn't track them.

He did say the file for someone receiving a rent supplement would indicate if that person was also receiving social assistance, but said there's no running tally of how many files that is.

"From our [social assistance] program perspective it's not something — individuals can get subsidies for different things," Spidel said. "We don't track those additional sources [of income] that aren't relevant to eligibility."

Bell said her party has heard from social assistance clients who said they were denied rent supplements because they're on assistance. She said the lack of published guidelines or criteria posted online for the rent supplement program seems to be adding to the confusion.

Increases not enough: Bell

But she said if there are large numbers of social assistance clients who are topping up their shelter allowances with provincial rent subsidies, that would make it "pretty clear the primary program, the social assistance program, does not have an adequate amount of funds available in it.... [That] the increases that have been put in place are not enough."

The province increased social assistance shelter rates by three per cent in June, the first such increase since 2013. A further six per cent increase was announced in November, just days after the province revealed it had posted a $75 million budget surplus in the previous fiscal year. At the time the premier said the province's strong fiscal position made the extra increase possible.

But Bell said even with both increases, shelter rates under social assistance lag behind the rents covered under the province's rent supplement program.

She said under the rent supplement program the province will cover rent up to a ceiling of 80 per cent of market rates as established by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (with the requirement the renter contribute 25 per cent of their income).

In Charlottetown, that works out to $707 for a one-bedroom apartment.

The new social assistance shelter rate for a single adult is $588.

Those two sets of figures used by the same government department "tells us the social assistance rates aren't good enough," said Bell.

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