Increase Affordable Housing
Desired outcome: Reduced time to placement for Victims of Family Violence and choice-based applicants.
Measurement: Length of time to placement by segment (Victims of Family Violence and choice-based applicants)
Importance
An increasing number of households (families, individuals) in Peel are facing challenges with affordable housing due to rapid demographic and economic changes. This has caused a growing number of people to apply for subsidized housing through the Centralized Housing Wait List and increasingly long waits for housing. As the Service System Manager for housing in Peel, the Region is addressing this gap by focusing on reducing the time applicants spend on the Centralized Housing Wait List. The focus on the Centralized Housing Wait List has highlighted the challenges people experience with this approach to service delivery and the need to explore new options to support Peel residents.
Over the last four years, we:
- Created 71 vacancies where almost 40 were larger three to five bedrooms units. This enabled many larger families to obtain housing, who would otherwise still be on the waitlist.
- Received 86 potential applicants for the Portable Housing Benefit through the provincially-funded "Survivors of Domestic Violence" program and were able to assist 45 participants to receive the benefit. This resulted in 30 households moving into housing faster, through the use of portable rent supplements.
- Housed an average of 34 households per month through the choice-based rent supplement program1 from August 2017 to August 2018.2 This compared to an average of 10 households per month outside of the program within the same time period.
1 The choice-based rent supplement program allows applicants to be given a subsidy in a rental unit of their choice that meets specific guidelines, with an eligible landlord willing to participate, instead of waiting for turnover of current housing stock.
2 The choice-based rent supplement program was implemented in August 2017 and was placed on hold after August 2018 due to resourcing issues for housing services transition.