Rental Assistance Applications

The purpose of my original request for Medical Service Plan premium assistance statistics was not to explore potential inaccuracies in MSP enrollment lists, but to examine records that might help to indicate how many families should be eligible for the government's new Rental Assistance Program. Over the past week I've posted several articles giving different estimates of how many more people may be on the Medical Service Plan's eligibility lists than there are people in the province. Health Minister George Abbott told CBC that my figures are correct (that is the tables provided by the Ministry of Finance are correct), but my interpretation is wrong. Eventually they may say that there are only a quarter million more people on the eligibility lists than there are people in the province, but you can bet that it will take months of effort and appeals under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act before they acknowledge that. In the meantime, let's assume that the 2006 MSP data are correct and look at what that means for the government's Rental Assistance Program.

Since records for MSP premium assistance contain almost all of the necessary information to determine who might qualify for the Rental Assistance Program, it struck me as odd that the government wouldn't obtain the necessary approvals to simply send an application to those who are likely to qualify. To be eligible for the Program, families must have one child under the age of 19, have lived in B.C. for the past 12 months, been employed at some point during the last year, and have a gross annual income under $28,000 per year and less than $10,000 in assets.

The Program was originally announced on October 3, 2006, with qualifying incomes being under $20,000. At that time it was claimed that the "strategy will immediately assist approximately 15,000 low-income working families and homeless individuals". On March 1st the qualifying income was increased to $28,000, the government news release did not say how many more families were expected to benefit, but the Minister of Finance's February budget speech said the expanded eligibility: "… means 5,800 additional families - more than 20,000 in total - will be eligible to receive extra money to help with their housing costs."

According to a spokesperson for BC Housing, 1,360 families are receiving assistance through the Rental Assistance Program as of March 31, 2007, with another 600 applications being processed. That is a far cry from the prediction of immediately benefiting 15,000 families.

To the government's credit, advertisements have recently appeared at bus stops and in buses to make people aware of the program. Of course, government also reaps, or hopes to reap, some political benefit through such advertising by making the general public aware of the program, even if those who should benefit fail to enroll. It shouldn't be surprising that people in the lowest income ranks who face multiple difficulties, including illiteracy, might not take advantage of a program in the same way that higher income groups seize on every change in tax rules. That's one of the reasons why government should use the resources it has to reach out to those who might be eligible for the Rental Assistance Program.

The table obtained from the Ministry of Finance on MSP premium assistance for 2006, shows that, not including those on welfare, there were 95,000 two person families with adjusted incomes of less than $20,000, and 77,000 families with three or more with adjusted incomes of less than $26,000. Adjustments consist of subtracting $3,000 for every person over age 65 and for every child. In other words, the subset of those eligible for the Rental Assistance Program is contained within the 172,000 families known to the government on the MSP premium assistance lists. There is an enormous difference between 172,000 and the government's estimate of about 21,000 families eligible for rental assistance. There are many factors that reduce the numbers. Some of the families have no children, some have no employment income and some have more than $10,000 in assets. If one was serious about wanting to maximize enrollment in the new program, one would start by making sure those 172,000 families knew about it, and since the government has birth-date information in its records, it could easily narrow its search so as to eliminate families without dependent children.

It is a reasonable guess that the most likely group to qualify for the Rental Assistance Program will be single parent families. Statistics from Revenue Canada for tax year 2004 (the most recent available) indicate that BC had 175,000 women between the ages of 25 and 54 who filed income tax returns with incomes between $10,000 and $25,000. Those records don't indicate how many had income earning partners or how many had children, but it is again a good bet that a great many of those eligible for the rental assistance program are a subset of that 175,000.

The MSP premium assistance data indicate that 46% of singles, 21% of families with one dependent, and 18% of families with two or more dependents qualify for some form of premium assistance. There are a lot of people in BC who have been left behind. As Finance Minister Carole Taylor said in her February 2007 budget speech: