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CBC
12 hours ago
- General
- CBC
Despite housing crisis, Ontario's social assistance rates favour people living alone
While moving in with a romantic partner seems like a go-to next step for some long-term couples, the decision is not so straightforward when one or both people are on social assistance, a recent study shows. Government programs meant to financially support people, such as Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), tend to benefit single people more than couples, according to research from a former government benefit designer. "Usually if two people move in together, they save money because they save their shelter costs, whereas for people who are on assistance, the opposite happens and they're actually worse off when they lived together," said John Stapleton, who worked for the Ontario government for more than 20 years and is now a consultant at Open Policy. "What recipients often find is that it's economically better for them to stay apart," he said. "The programs are designed to produce a sort of legislative loneliness." Stapleton's study, which is based on real-life conversations he had with Ontario couples considering moving together, found that in some situations, partners would make about 20 per cent less than they did living alone. In one example, two residents receiving OW each got $733 a month, which totalled $1,466. However, if they lived together as a couple, Stapleton said, their earnings would go down to a total of $1,136. Even with a reduced rent split among the two of them, the couple would have less money available than when they lived separately, the study showed. In London, there are 10,800 people receiving Ontario Works, according to City of London data collected at the end of 2024. More than 7,000 of them are single and another nearly 2,500 are single with dependents. About 1,200 of them are couples or couples with dependents. "Obviously a lot of them are single people who are single, but then there's going to be people who are in couple relationships who have made the decision not to live together," Stapleton said. CBC News reached out to the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services for comment and will update the story with the response. Balancing the budget Londoner Diane Devine has been living alone for three years now, using money from ODSP and the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) to pay her rent. She said she knows of others who could not make ends meet living together. She lived with a partner for six years, and while the decision to live alone was not based on cost, she did say in her case, the amount of savings that one might expect from living with a partner is not much different from what she pays now as a single person. "Just because you're living with somebody doesn't mean your cost of living goes down," she said. "Each individual still has the same amount of living expenses." Changes to cost of living Nicole Davis, a community advocate at LifeSpin in London, said the topic comes up in her line of work. "The system is essentially penalizing people for being in relationships," she said. "It kind of forces individuals to choose between financial stability and pursuing a supportive relationship, so it almost [discourages] cohabitation with each other." Stapleton said he understands why welfare programs were originally designed so that people living together would not receive as much financial assistance, but times have changed. "Now we're in a housing crisis and we've got a bunch of fairly poor people who are staying in their own apartments because they're better off to do that than actually move in together," he said. "People are occupying deeply affordable housing on their own when they'd really rather be together, and of course the landlord or the rooming house operator would love to have that unit freed up so they could run it to another person." Davis agreed, adding that it is already a challenge for many Londoners to find available units. "Right now, I feel like programs operate on outdated assumptions that don't really reflect the realities of poverty, disabilities and the high cost of living especially in a city like London," Davis said. Stapleton said with new realities comes a need for new policies. These include raising social assistance rates for couples, allowing them to pool any earning exemptions and letting new couples continue with the rules relating to singles during their first year living together. Until then, Stapleton said, couples are not incentivised to become a unit.
Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Ontario welfare system encourages living alone despite affordable-housing shortage, study finds
The structure of social assistance benefits in Ontario often encourages recipients to live alone, a perverse outcome that may be exacerbating shortages of affordable housing, new research finds. Both Ontario Works (OW), which assists low-income workers, and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), which aids those living with disabilities, are designed so that income support shrinks when a beneficiary moves in with a romantic partner. The benefit drop is meant to reflect the savings that typically ensue when two people share rent and other household costs. But the reductions are so severe that they typically exceed the financial advantages of living under one roof, according to a recent study by John Stapleton, a consultant and retired social assistance benefits designer for the Ontario government. The result is a powerful incentive for welfare recipients to live on their own, a form of forced loneliness that can take a toll on mental health and may also be unnecessarily inflating the demand for affordable rentals, Mr. Stapleton argues. 'We have a housing crisis, and we have these people who are incentivized to live separately,' he said. In some cases, forming a two-person household can result in an income drop of more than 22 per cent compared with a scenario in which two partners live alone, the analysis shows. Carrick: To make housing more affordable, drop the tax hammer on real estate investors For example, two people who each receive the maximum OW aid of $733 a month, which adds up to $1,466 for both partners, would see their combined income shrink to $1,136, a decrease of 22.5 per cent, if they started living together. Similarly, OW recipients moving in with a partner who works full-time making minimum wage would see their support clawed back at such a rate that the couple's combined income would fall by nearly 23 per cent compared with a scenario in which they keep separate homes. For two ODSP beneficiaries, moving in together would come with an income reduction of nearly 16 per cent. When Mr. Stapleton applied the math to the real-life cases of three couples living on welfare in Scarborough, Ont., he found the income reductions outstripped the savings of forming a single household in every instance. Rebekah Smylie, manager of financial empowerment at West Neighbourhood House, a social services agency in Toronto, said it's common for welfare recipients to decide not to move in with a romantic partner because they wouldn't be able to make ends meet if they did so. And for those who live in affordable housing, moving in with a partner comes with an added financial risk, she said. 'If you've given up a housing spot, and you've moved in with a partner, and then you find out you're going to be penalized for it, there's no guarantee you can undo that. Right? That spot is very quickly filled,' she said, referring to the affordable rental unit left vacant. Opinion: When exactly did Canadian housing become so unaffordable – and who's to blame? Waitlists for affordable housing are often years-long in Toronto. At Maytree, an anti-poverty think tank, Alexi White, director of systems change, said welfare recipients in other jurisdictions likely face the same issues, since social assistance programs across the country are relatively similar. 'Generally speaking, everybody does what Ontario does,' he said. Making it easier for Canadians on welfare to move in with a partner would likely free up some subsidized housing and low-rent housing, according to Ricardo Tranjan, an economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The majority of OW and ODSP recipients in Ontario rent on the private market, where landlords often crank up rent when a new occupant moves in because rent control guidelines don't apply upon turnover of a tenancy, Dr. Tranjan said. But even with hefty rent increases, rental units left vacant by Canadians on welfare would likely still be some of the cheapest on the market and a good housing option for low-income workers. As for non-market housing, such as government-assisted rental housing and affordable units provided by non-profit organizations, 'freeing up one of those units can be – it's not an exaggeration to say that – a life-changing opportunity for the next person in line,' he said.
