SOCIAL HOUSING POLICY AND RENT-TO-INCOME HOUSING IN CANADA

Canadian social housing programs providing subsidized rental housing to low income tenants are intended to ensure housing affordability to those otherwise unable to afford adequate housing. Tenants receive benefits through the application of a rent-geared-to-income formula, which is but one of the transfer programs in a complex system of taxes and benefits. While the success of a housing program depends on its net effects within the broader transfer system, these effects have not played a major role in the development of the Canadian rent-to-income formula.;The provision of affordable housing to those who cannot afford adequate housing without a subsidy is a major goal of federal social housing programs. The federal rent-to-income formula has traditionally relied on the rent/income ratio as the primary indicator of housing affordability, but other affordability definitions are also important. Thus, this dissertation addresses three different approaches to housing affordability: (1) the rent/income ratio, (2) the ability of the household to maintain an adequate living standard, and (3) the relative rental prices of subsidized and unsubsidized adequate housing.;When all of the system's transfers are taken into account in the calculation of income, the federal rent-to-income formula is shown to produce rent/income ratios which in some cases vary widely from both the 25 per cent standard and other ratio standards. However, because of the interaction between the rent formula and other transfers, both the rent/income ratio and the amount of rent paid can be deceptive if they are used as the only measures of housing affordability. Federal and provincial formulas are compared to each other and to rents for adequate market housing with respect to their effects on disposable incomes and equity. Both the federal and provincial formulas are shown to result in interprovincial horizontal inequities among subsidized tenants. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).;This dissertation uses computer models of the income transfer systems of each of four provinces to analyze the effects on individual households of federal and provincial rent-to-income formulas, and of a hypothetical shelter allowance. Analyses focus on the impact of the application of rent-to-income formulas and the shelter allowance on the affordability, equity, and work incentives of transfer systems as they affect individuals.