Landlord association says 30 per cent of SIS clients again did not pay rent in October

Source: Regina Leader Post

Landlords say two months into the SIS program previously identified issues linger, and little is being done to resolve them.

​After two full months of the Saskatchewan Income Support (SIS) program, Saskatchewan’s landlords are asking for the government to make some changes.

Cameron Choquette, executive officer of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association (SLA), said that in both September and October, members of the SLA say that 30 per cent of SIS clients did not pay any rent at all.


“In October another 12 per cent only paid a portion, so we continue to see persistently high rent arrears for SIS clients and we are expecting evictions to increase in November as a result,” said Choquette.

He said evictions will go up this month since those arrears have not been recovered through the ministry.
Minister of Social Services Lori Carr has said this week that her ministry is “hearing anecdotally from landlords that there’s a possibility people may end up homeless,” but that there is not yet any statistics or data showing that.

Choquette said it is not anecdotal.

He said the SLA has been able to provide information “both quantitive and qualitative in nature” to make sure she and the ministry are aware of the arrears landlords are currently experiencing.

“30 per cent of SIS clients not paying any rent in September and October is not anecdotal evidence and shows there is a large percentage of SIS clients who are not paying any rent, at which point evictions will be executed because landlords are financially unable to carry these tenants any longer,” he said.

He said the “anecdotes” that they have shared with the ministry relate to calls from tenants describing their inability to access supports through the ministry, wait times for call centres and “other challenges being faced by SIS clients” said Choquette.

“I think the general public can look to streets of Saskatoon and Regina and Prince Albert to see that evictions have increased and homelessness has increased.”

Another area of concern is security deposits, which are provided once every two years.  Choquette said this is a “systemic barrier to success,” since legislation requires an SIS client to pay half the security deposit upon the beginning of a tenancy and the rest within 60 days.

“It is tremendously risky for landlords of all shapes and sizes, for-profit, not-for-profit to rent to people on income assistance programs that do not provide direct payment,” he said.

During question period in the legislature on Wednesday, NDP MLA Meara Conway asked Carr if she would “concede this program has been an absolute failure.”

Carr did not, saying it was still in its early days of full implementation.

“There is a growing chorus of stakeholders calling on the government to scrap this program or to make changes at the very least,” said Conway, following question period.

She added that while there may be some capacity for the government to assist some people on SIS to directly pay their bills, there are bigger systemic issues at play, like the capacity of social workers to assist clients in need.

Fred Curtis went to Camp Marjorie on Monday in search of tenants. At that time, he said people are using their SIS cheques for things other than housing and utilities.

“Housing? It’s not going to housing. You talk to other landlords and they’ll tell you the same story,” he said.

Curtis said he understood the idea behind SIS was to try and give people greater autonomy and the ability to manage finances, but to him, it was clear that intent was not working.

“I don’t understand what the government is doing, it’s not enough,” he said, in reference to the allowance given to clients. “It’s insufficient in money.”

Curtis said that the city should be doing more to provide “a nice warm building for these people to stay in,” especially as the weather gets colder.
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“The program is not acceptable for people to live comfortably and leads them to other activities. I’m disheartened.”