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Subject: SHRA Regulation Changes effective August 1, 2007

Legislation/Regulation                                                             Release 07-04

Operational

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New regulations amending Ontario Regulations 298/01, 17/02 and 369/01, as well as Ontario Regulations 456/01 and 339/01 under the Social Housing Reform Act, 2000 (SHRA) were filed on July 4, 2007.

Consultation with service managers and other stakeholder organizations led to a number of proposed changes that had widespread support across stakeholder groups. These changes are intended to give more local discretion, provide greater clarity and consistency in the regulations and ease administrative requirements.

The updated regulations are available on e-laws (www.e-laws.gov.on.ca ). The changes become effective on August 1, 2007.

See SHnotification Release 07-05 for additional regulation changes to the Special Priority Policy provisions under the SHRA.

Summary of Changes by Topic Area:

O. Reg. 298/01

Discretion Related to Applications and Notices for Special Needs Housing

Changes to sections 5 and 6 of O. Reg. 298/01 provide service managers with greater discretion in determining who needs to sign application forms and consents for rent geared-to-income assistance. Previously, each member of a household 16 years old or older was required to sign application forms and consents.

Parallel changes were made to sections 38, 45 and 59 of O. Reg. 298/01.

Eligibility Requirements

Changes to section 7 of O. Reg. 298/01 add provisions that service managers can take into consideration a household’s reasonable efforts to enter into a repayment agreement, when determining eligibility for assistance.

A subsection has been added to section 8 of O. Reg. 298/01 to exempt certain assets of a member of a household with a disability, to a maximum of $100,000, where the assets are held in trusts.

Changes to section 12 of O. Reg. 298/01 as follows:

• Deletion of subsection 12 (1) (c) – the paragraph referring to failure to comply with section 7 is no longer necessary as section 7 was removed in November 2005.
• Changes to subsection 12 (1) (h) and (i) limits the use of ineligibility as a penalty for failure to provide information to situations where providing the information would have resulted in a rent increase or overhousing.
• Subsection 12 (j.1) has been added to prescribe a penalty for overhoused tenants who do not select or maintain a minimum number of providers as required by the service manager.

Changes to section 16 of O. Reg. 298/01 improves consistency and clarity of application, by changing the effective date for determining ineligibility to the date the offence was found to have occurred.

A tenant found guilty of misrepresenting income, or other breaches of the SHRA related to receipt of geared-to-income assistance, has a minimum two year ineligibility period. That period now starts on the date the offence was found to have occurred.

A subsection has been added to section 27 of O. Reg. 298/01 to provide service managers with greater discretion to permit overhousing in extenuating circumstances.

Changes to section 33 of O. Reg. 298/01 allow overhoused tenants to move directly to the centralized waiting list, rather than be placed on the internal transfer lists for a year.

A new subsection is added to prevent a household that voluntarily places itself on the centralized waiting list from losing its eligibility, if it chooses to leave the central list for an internal transfer list within the initial one year period.

A subsection has been added to section 36 of O. Reg. 298/01 to allow service managers to remove a prospective tenant’s name from a housing provider’s waiting list, if the provider has already refused a unit to the household.

Rules for the Centralized Waiting List

Additions are made to section 37 of O. Reg. 298/01, including provisions enabling service managers to defer or hold applications for assistance in cases where applicants would not be able to accept an offer of assistance, so as not to jeopardize applicant eligibility.

Also, additions to subsection 37 (8) require overhoused households to select and maintain a reasonable number of housing preferences when they are moved to the centralized waiting list.

A change to section 41 of O. Reg. 298/01 ensures that the deferral of an application does not affect the ranking date when the household is put back on the list.

Changes to section 50 of O. Reg. 298/01 relating to the treatment of income for the purposes of calculating geared-to-income rent:

• Regular RRSPs and RESPs are treated the same way as pension or locked-in RRSPs.
• The following types of payments are specifically excluded from income calculations:
• Income of foster children
• Income from certain disability trusts to be used for the purchase of disability related equipment
• Canada Pension Plan Child Disability Benefit
• Special allowances under the Refugee Resettlement Program that exceed the amount a similar family would be eligible for under Ontario Works
• A new subsection is added outlining that negative income of a self-employed member of a family unit will be considered zero income (i.e., will not be subtracted from the positive income of the family unit).
• The first $1,000 of bank balances continues to be exempt, but the steps required to calculate this exempted amount are deleted.
• A change to subsection 10 clarifies the provision on transfer of assets for a person receiving geared-to-income assistance.

A subsection has been added to section 52 of O. Reg. 298/01 to provide service managers with the flexibility to review the geared-to-income rent of fixed-income households less frequently than every year. The default would be an annual review.

Change in Rent from Internal Reviews

A subsection has been added to sections 52 and 53 of O. Reg. 298/01 to ensure that a review of a decision by a service manager to increase or decrease geared-to-income rent, should not delay the change, unless it is an increase caused by an administrative error that the tenant would not have previously been aware of.

A subsection has been added to section 54 of O. Reg. 298/01 stating that reimbursements not be collected from tenants, if the reimbursement was caused by an administrative error.

A change to section 58 of O. Reg. 298/01 adds a provision that after receipt of a request for a review of a decision, the service manager or housing provider shall disclose the information that led to the decision being reviewed.

Changes to section 60 of O. Reg. 298/01 clarify provision of public information related to modified units provided by service managers.

Table 2 of O. Reg. 298/01 has been amended to remove housing providers with only modified units so that it includes only supportive housing providers able to maintain their own waiting lists.

References have been updated from Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal and Tenant Protection Act, 1997 to Landlord and Tenant Board and Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 in subsections 4 (1) (b) and 7 (1) (h) of O. Reg. 298/01.

Changes also made to correct name address information for certain housing projects in Halton Region in tables or schedules in Ontario Regulations 369/01, 17/02, 339/01 and 456/01 as follows:

• Items 1, 4 and 37 in schedule 4 to O. Reg. 369/01 have been updated to correct the housing provider name and/or contact information.
• Item 8 under Halton Service Manager in schedule 1 to O. Reg. 17/02 has been updated to correct the name of the housing provider.
• Table 1 of O. Reg. 339/01 has been updated to correct the name of one housing provider.

The table in O. Reg. 456/01 has been amended to remove housing providers with only modified units so that it includes only supportive housing providers able to maintain their own waiting lists.

A new paragraph 8 is added to section 11 of O. Reg. 339/01 to allow the removal from internal transfer lists, overhoused tenants who have requested to move directly to the central waiting list.

A change to section 20 of O. Reg. 339/01 adds a provision that after receipt of a request for a review of a decision, the service manager or housing provider shall disclose the information that led to the decision being reviewed.

Capital Reserve Requirements

A change to section 24 of O. Reg. 339/01 adds a provision to enable service managers to approve contributions to a housing provider’s capital reserve in addition to the prescribed amounts.

A change to section 25 of O. Reg. 339/01 to enable service managers to accommodate name changes for the prescribed providers to ensure that the new corporations and their successors will be covered.

A change to section 26 of O. Reg. 339/01 to ensure that the three eligible providers from section 25 are not inadvertently covered by the regulation to invest in SHSC as they are exempted.

References to the Tenant Protection Act, 1997 are replaced with the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 in sections 2, 22 and 34 of O. Reg. 339/01.

The Guide to Rent Geared-to-Income Assistance will be revised as needed to address the changes, and copies highlighting the changes will be sent to service managers in the near future.

Should you have any questions or require further information, please contact:

Sarah McQuarrie, Manager of Social Housing, by telephone 416-585-6160 or email sarah.mcquarrie@ontario.ca ; or,

Roy Sanger, Sr. Policy Advisor, by telephone 416-585-6405 or email roy.sanger@ontario.ca .

Sincerely,

Karen Maxwell
Director
Housing Policy Branch
                                                                                                July 18, 2007