Kanchi Uttamchandani | Assistant News Editor
Featured image: Ontario’s Long-Term Affordable Housing Strategy provides affordable housing to domestic violence survivors. | Victoria Goldberg
Women escaping domestic violence will soon find refuge in the portable housing benefit introduced by Ontario’s Long-Term Affordable Housing Strategy.
Health policy professor Kenneth Lam praises the Survivors of Domestic Violence Portable Housing Benefit Pilot, which has been designed to work with the Long-Term Affordable Housing Strategy and It’s Never Okay: Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment.
“The mutual synergy among the three initiatives enhances the likelihood of success for all three plans,” says Lam.
The federal and provincial governments are investing more than $20 million over two years to provide ongoing assistance to approximately 1,000 survivors of domestic violence per year under the new program.
“Through the pilot program, survivors of domestic violence approved under the Special Priority Policy will have the option to receive a portable housing benefit, so that they can immediately find housing in their community instead of waiting for a social housing unit to become available,” says Ministry of Housing Communications Officer Conrad Spezowka.
The Special Priority Policy gives precedence to survivors of domestic violence for social housing. “To be eligible under the Special Priority Policy, a member of the household must have been abused by another individual living with the household, and the household [members] must intend to live permanently apart from the abuser,” he says.
Other requirements include Canadian citizenship or having applied for permanent residency status or refugee protection status. Responsibility for determining eligibility for Special Priority Policy rests with local service managers.
“A report validating the abuse is required and can include a record of intervention by the police, or a record of physical injury caused by the abuser,” says Spezowka.
Records of more incidents of abuse, including psychological abuse, can be prepared in an official capacity by people such as a doctor, nurse, guidance counsellor, teacher, lawyer, police officer or employees of local social support service agencies, according to Spezowka.
Meanwhile, Ontario is providing funding to 22 communities over the next two years as part of the Survivors of Domestic Violence Portable Housing Benefit Pilot program.
Funding amounts allocated for each of the communities vary, ranging from $148,549 for Waterloo to $3,985,575 for Toronto.
“The province invited service managers to propose the amount of funding they needed, based on local rent amounts and the number of eligible Special Priority Policy households they anticipated would need that rent assistance,” says Spezowka.
Lam says allocating more funding toward women’s shelters would be another positive step, provided that governments do not have to cut services in other areas.
“Otherwise, they are effectively engaging in trade-offs, by strengthening the area of women’s shelter at the expense of another service,” says Lam.
Director of Violence Prevention Programs at Canadian Women’s Foundation Anuradha Dugal says the portable housing benefit initiative is a very positive sign as it reflects more flexibility and choice.
Introducing more units in circulation, renovating units and/or transferring those previously not used into the market would help women seeking refuge from abuse and potentially address the limited and competitive applications for affordable housing, according to Dugal.
“I think community members should advocate for more social housing units within their area, where condos and other urban developments are taking place,” says Dugal.
Sixty-seven per cent of Canadians say they have personally known at least one woman who has experienced physical or sexual abuse, according to a survey carried out by the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
“Incorporating gender analysis as part of this strategy is essential to provide much needed support and services for women to move away from abusive homes,” says Dugal.
Dugal believes this benefit supports all generations of women experiencing domestic abuse, including university students who also struggle to find affordable housing, with violence as the number one reason for women’s homelessness.
“With this initiative, women have a housing benefit that they can use in different rented accommodation, which means that the domestic abuse survivor does not have to be limited to a single address. She can take the benefit with her, wherever she rents,” explains Dugal.
