On the one hand, I have a crown corporation that claims to have significantly exceeded its objective of providing services to citizens. On the other hand, I have a statement which shows that, on the contrary, this crown corporation serves an ever-decreasing number of households. How is it possible ?
With regard to social housing, I explained to you how difficult it is to know exactly how much our public funds finance social housing.
Read the column again Social housing: 1 billion funds in the dark
Today, I am showing you how these inaccuracies allow the Société d’habitation du Québec (SHQ) to assert that it has increased its offer in recent years, while in fact, the number of households assisted annually has declined. .
In its 2017-2021 strategic plan, the SHQ set itself the objective of increasing “by 25% the proportion of new households assisted”. Four years later, the 2021 annual report tells us that this target has been largely exceeded, with a four-year jump of 50% rather than 25%!
Wow, one could conclude, our SHQ is helping a growing number of less well-off households to find adequate housing.
In fact, the picture is very different. According to the SHQ’s own data, 213,150 separate households were assisted by the state corporation in 2021, which represents a drop of some 18,000 – or 8% – out of the 231,120 households in 2017.1.
And even, going back in time, we see that the SHQ has never helped so few households in a given year for at least 10 years (the figures before are difficult to compare).
How can we say that the supply has increased by 50% when the data shows a decrease of 8%?
This is because the SHQ uses a specific indicator to measure its performance. It does not calculate the growth in the number of social housing from one year to the next or, in other words, the evolution of the housing stock. Rather, it adds up the new households that have benefited from any assistance, whether it is one-off for a given year or permanent (over several years).
Thus, to the number of beneficiaries for the year 2017, the SHQ added the households which, in 2018, received a one-off subsidy to renovate their housing. In 2019, new households received new subsidies to renovate their homes, which were added to those of 2018. And so on.
Obviously, the number of households assisted can only increase. Between 2017 and 2021, 7,700 households received such subsidies each year, on average, for a total of around 31,000 over four years.
These 31,000 represent more than a quarter of the increase of 115,050 new households assisted between 2017 and 2021, indicates the SHQ. This figure of 115,050 is equivalent to 50% of the 231,120 households assisted in 2017, hence the jump of 50%, indicated in the annual report.
That’s not all. The remaining portion of the 115,050 new households assisted over four years – the other three quarters – also raises questions. These are households that receive assistance that can be considered permanent, over several years, for example the granting of an HLM or a subsidy to enable them not to pay more than 25% of their income for housing.
Now, there is a turnover in these households. Some have improved their lot and no longer need help. Above all, others die and release low-rent housing (or rent supplement allocations). Moreover, more than half of these “permanent” beneficiaries are elderly people, according to the SHQ report, who end up dying.
Households that replace the old ones – deceased or otherwise – are considered as new assisted households, according to what we can understand from the SHQ figures. And the organization judges that this bearing should be considered in its good performance of 50%.
In fact, the SHQ has sometimes failed in its mission and sometimes succeeded. For example, beneficiaries of the Housing Allowance program – which offers up to $ 960 per year to certain poor tenants – have fallen sharply over the past four years, from some 101,900 in 2017 to 71,500 in 2021. In other words, some 30,000 needy households, who often earn less than $ 18,000 a year, have not claimed the $ 960 they should be entitled to.
How to explain this decrease? Difficult to know. The SHQ has not answered my questions on this subject for… three weeks. According to my research, this decline is not explained by a tightening of the rules of the program, but probably by a lack of advertising to make it known or by its complexity for a clientele not always able to navigate government paperwork. Or is it the lack of funds?
Another failure of the SHQ, this time recognized in its 2021 report: the number of HLMs restored to good condition. In 2017, the state-owned company planned to repair 100% of the 1,426 HLM buildings deemed to be in poor or very poor condition. However, in 2021, only 53% of these buildings had been refreshed.
On the other hand, the SHQ can claim certain successes. For example, the number of households benefiting from an HLM or a rent supplement increased by around 5% over the period 2017-2021, to some 109,000. We are far from 50%, but all the same, there is an increase.
Another relative success: the number of households waiting for low-cost housing or a rent supplement fell by around 7% over the period, to some 37,150.
The SHQ will soon make public its new strategic plan, pending approval by the Conseil du trésor. In this context, it would be relevant for it to present clear targets on the supply of social and community housing in Quebec as well as on its renovations, especially in the context of a difficult housing market.
These kinds of targets are imposed on all other Canadian provinces under the bilateral federal-provincial agreements signed in 2018. Basically, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) disburses funds to the provinces with the condition that over eight years. , they increase the number of social housing units by 15% and repair 20% of existing units.
Quebec’s agreement with the federal government, signed in October 2020, two and a half years after the others, does not contain such requirements. The federal, interventionist, obviously came up against Quebec negotiators who did not want to have rules imposed on them. It makes you wonder if the long delays of the agreement have had the effect, in the meantime, of depriving households of funds for housing.
Still, is it too much to ask the SHQ to have clear targets concerning the evolution of the social or affordable housing stock, both for new units and for those renovated?
1– Several figures have been rounded for ease of reading.