B.C.’s new seniors advocate, Dan Levitt has called on the provincial government to redesign a program that provides rent subsidies for low-income seniors, saying recent improvements don’t go far enough.
In April, the provincial government announced a one-time $430 payment, plus increases in monthly benefits, income eligibility and rent ceilings that will allow about 4,800 more seniors to qualify for the shelter aid for elderly renters program, or SAFER. The longer-term improvements will cost about $15.6 million.
But in his first report as seniors advocate, Levitt said the entire program needs an overhaul.
Right now, the average recipient of the rent subsidy puts over 60 per cent of their income toward rent, he said in the report. With changes, that will drop to about 43 per cent, still far above the 30 per cent mark the program is designed to hit.
Levitt said seniors who must put such a large portion of their income toward rent “are at risk of homelessness.”
His first recommendation in the report is for government to redesign the SAFER program to ensure seniors put 30 per cent or less of their income to rent. He also called for rent ceilings, the maximum rent that goes into determining the monthly subsidy, indexed to inflation and adjusted to current market conditions.
“Without question, the most precarious group of seniors are the one-in-five who rent,” he said. “For low-income seniors subject to ‘renovictions’, it can be catastrophic, and trying to find a new place to live in today’s rental market is incredibly challenging.”
