Ottawa’s $3M from Canada-Ontario housing benefit to help 400 households

About 400 Ottawa households are set to get a monthly subsidy relief of about $614 to help with housing costs for permanent private market housing.

That is what the community and protective services committee is set to hear at its meeting on Thursday, April 21.

This is made possible by the Ontario government, which has announced the third year of the Canada-Ontario housing benefit (COHB), a provincially administered portable housing benefit (PHB) program that was established in 2019 as part of the National Housing Strategy.

In its third year, Ottawa will be getting an allocation of $3,089,500.

“The PHB is also portable anywhere in Ontario if households choose to move later on, which provides the household with far more flexibility as their circumstances evolve,” the report, which will be presented at the committee meeting, explains. “This is not the case for Rent-Geared-to-Income units, as the subsidy is attached to the unit rather than the individual, and therefore the family will lose access to their subsidy should they need to leave the unit for any reason.”

The first two years of the program allocated $1.8 million in 2021 and $2.48 million in 2022 to Ottawa.

The first two years of the program targeted single women and female-led households with children, with priority consideration for Indigenous women in the first year, and households at risk of homelessness due to the termination of the portable housing benefit program in 2021.

For 2022, the funding will be broken down as such:

• $100,000 will go towards 20 household housing survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking;
• $2,135,025 is earmarked 280 households for individuals at risk of homelessness;
• $600,000 will go towards 80 households with seniors and persons with disabilities;
• $100,000 will go towards 20 households with Indigenous individuals;
• Administration fee will cost either $250 per application or $154,475, whichever is less.

The City says recognizing the demand will exceed the earmarked allocations, and eligible households will be selected within the proposed priority groups based on their date of application to the Centralized Wait List, with those who have been waiting the longest being offered the benefit first.

The provincially eligible priority groups, as well as the City of Ottawa staff-recommended priority groups, that will be selected to apply and access the COHB include:

• Survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking;
• Households with children at-risk of homelessness and households experiencing homelessness;
• Seniors aged 60 and over and people with disabilities;
• Indigenous persons.

Staff also recommend that these targeted priority groups continue into 2023-20224 in the event the program is extended for another year.

The COHB is a jointly funded, provincially delivered federal-provincial portable housing allowance program.

The purpose of the program is to increase the affordability of rental housing by providing an income-tested PHB to eligible households in need that are on, or are eligible to be on, the social housing waiting list.

According to the City, a total of 377 households secured permanent housing in the city with the help of the benefit in the first two years of the program as the average household received a monthly PHB of $614.

City council will hear about this plan at the next scheduled meeting on April 27.