Housing Advocate Nadia Halabi is concerned that the latest changes to Canada's rent-supplement program are merely band-aid solutions to a much larger problem. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of low-income households spend more than half of what they earn on rent, and the shortage of affordable homes is worst in the largest cities. The rent-supplement program tops up what a tenant can pay, so that a family can rent an apartment on the private market. Halabi herself spent six years on a waiting list for subsidized housing after arriving from Lebanon, moving through a string of cramped flats she could barely afford. "I was only too aware of how many families simply give up and crowd into a single unit," Halabi says. "A cheque toward the rent helps, but the apartments themselves keep vanishing."

Ministry Official Douglas Kerr says that while the system is far from perfect, his department is doing its best to fix it. "Recent measures, such as larger monthly supplements and a simpler online application, have made a real difference," Kerr says. One of the major reforms lets a tenant keep the supplement when moving to a new rental, instead of losing it and starting over. Even so, the waiting lists are enormous: hundreds of thousands of households are waiting, and in some cities the wait can stretch past ten years.