'They're in crisis': Number of Nova Scotians waiting for rent supplement skyrockets
Housing minister says the program is under 'tremendous demand'
At a time when rental housing is becoming less affordable and harder to find, many low-income Nova Scotians are turning to the rent supplement benefit program for help.
But the program, which is funded by the federal and provincial governments, isn't keeping up with the demand.
Numbers CBC News received recently from the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing show that out of 2,340 applications to the program between October 2022 and March 2023, almost half of those applications remained pending at the end of that period.
That means 1,016 people were still waiting to hear if they will receive a rent supplement, up from just 55 six months earlier.
Housing support workers say the lag in processing in combination with a recent change to the program's eligibility requirements is leaving many people in a state of panic.
"We're hearing every day from them," said Leigh MacLean, housing and homelessness team lead at Welcome Housing in Halifax.
"They're in crisis, they are going to lose their housing. They're holding on to their sanity at this point and they're stuck in limbo."
Jasper Lennox is one of the people stuck in limbo. The 23-year-old works full-time in a minimum wage job.
Lennox and their partner share an apartment, but still can't afford rent in Halifax.
Lennox applied to the rent supplement program in January, but didn't receive a response for more than three months.
During that period, Lennox and their partner stayed at a friend's apartment while the two of them looked through rental ads, some charging $2,000 a month.
"It's been really stressful," Lennox said. "I've been emailing and calling every other week and no one really answers the phone."
Program changes
In late January, the province quietly changed the eligibility rules for the Canada-Nova Scotia Targeted Housing Benefit, known as the rent supplement program.
The definition of severe housing need was changed to only apply to those spending 50 per cent or more of their income on housing. There are also household income limits — for instance, a couple renting a one-bedroom unit in Halifax must have a household income under $45,000.
Housing Minister John Lohr said this change was made because "the demand for the program was exceeding what the budget would offer."
But the numbers show there was only an increase of 648 applications between the 2021-22 fiscal year and the 2022-23 fiscal year, a period when the budget was almost doubled from $12.6 million to $23.8 million.
MacLean said she has clients who have been waiting since October to be approved or denied, and she has seen the processing times take "twice or three times as long" as before, when the average wait time was six to eight weeks.
She believes the demand on the program is partly due to staffing shortages she has noticed in her work.
"It's pretty clear," MacLean said. "We used to see about eight or 10 different names on the emails coming back to our team when we applied.... We knew a lot of the front-line staff, we knew how good they were."
"They've all seemed to have gone missing and then we're seeing one or two names coming back on the emails at this point."
Staffing issues
Late last year, the Housing Department amalgamated the five regional housing authorities into a new Crown corporation called the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency.
A spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, the union representing some of the workers in the new housing agency, said in an email that they had filed policy grievances relating to staffing issues.
"We have resolved the grievances, as the employer appears to now have appropriate measures in place to get vacancies filled," said Holly Fraughton.
"There is a job fair happening in the western area currently, and a job fair that occurred in Cape Breton a few months ago."
Lohr wouldn't comment on staffing shortages, but acknowledged the pressures Nova Scotians are facing. He pointed out very few people exit the program once they're accepted.
"We added $20 million in the budget this spring to continue to add in 1,000 new rent [supplements] and continue to fund the ones that we are funding," Lohr said. "And so that's the reason why there's tremendous demand on the program."
But when asked what is causing the steep spike in pending applications, he said he asked his staff the same question.
"We think that's just a point-in-time of reality," Lohr said. "In fact, that's just an artifact of the numbers and the way they're presented.… It's not that there was that big a jump in pending, that's just how it's presented here in the documents."
The numbers sent from the Housing Department note "the pending column represents the number of applications that were in some stage of review during the period."
Opposition parties concerned about backlog
Braedon Clark, Liberal housing shadow minister and MLA for Bedford South, called the backlog "unacceptable."
"First and foremost we need to know why this is happening," Clark said Tuesday. "I think the government has a duty to explain to the public why there is such a backlog, and then we need to have a plan that's put forward publicly to figure out when and how those applications will be processed."
Suzy Hansen, NDP housing spokesperson and MLA for Halifax-Needham, echoed Clark's sentiment and said more needs to be done to fund and build new non-market and public housing.
"We need to start building up our supply," Hansen said. "Because we know that it's going to take time, but if we don't do it now, our numbers are going to start getting worse and worse and worse."
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