Canada has a long history of public support for housing. A lot of that support has gone to the private sector for housing that people own and for housing that people rent. There have also been programs that support non-market rental housing, which include public, non-profit and co-operative housing.
The supply of non-market rental housing is relatively small compared to private market rental housing, but it’s large enough to compare differences based on the kind of housing where people live. Thanks to the Canadian Housing Survey (the CHS), we can find out about differences by housing type. We should be interested in these differences when deciding the best ways to invest public funds in housing.
One study compared the economic well-being of tenants in non-market housing with people in market rental housing. It also looked at the economic well-being of people who received public assistance to help pay for their rent in market rental housing.
There is a unique aspect of this study, which makes its findings important for decision makers and the general public. This study matched market housing tenants demographically with tenants in non-market housing. Income, age, gender, and household composition are examples of the demographic characteristics that were matched. When the demographics of the two groups is compared, the characteristics of the groups are very similar. The thing that’s different is whether they live in market rental or non-market rental housing.
After the matching, the people in the non-market group again had significantly better economic well-being than the ones in the market group.
The people living in non-market housing also had better economic well-being than people who lived in market housing and received a rent supplement to help to pay for rent. Even though they received a cash supplement, the economic well-being of people in private rental housing was virtually unchanged.
The study gives good evidence for public investment in non-market rental housing. Ironically, the government has been focussing our public investment on the private rental market. The authors of this study recommend that the government change course and put public funds toward non-market rental housing.
Readers in other countries may wish to consider whether the research methodology and the report’s findings would be applicable elsewhere.
This research is reported in Housing Studies: Rental Housing Types And Economic Wellbeing In Canada
