Does Targeting Always Mean Retrenchment? Housing Assistance “Exceptionalism” in the Canadian Welfare State

Abstract

According to many scholars, policy targeting is the product of conservative and/or neoliberal politics. Targeting is perceived as a reduction of social welfare or a form of exclusion, usually resulting in no “winners” but only “losers.” Based on the study of housing assistance in Canadian provinces, this article argues that alternative views are possible. I emphasize the historic low coverage of housing assistance, that I term the housing “exceptionalism,” which refers to the small number of households who benefit from government support. The “exceptionalism” sets the stage to understanding why the vulnerable citizen winners have gained over the moderate-income losers.

Unhoused women in Niagara: Lived expertise of homelessness in community‐engaged research

“…The region's centralized waitlist for housing grew by 11.5 per cent between 2020 and 2021, increasing from 8,228 to 9,171 households (Nicolaou, 2022). In Ontario community housing is a local responsibility (Carroll & Jones, 2000) and has not attracted substantive support federally or provincially (Bendaoud, 2019: 317) but demand has always exceeded supply (Bendaoud, 2021: 442). Changes in federal and provincial funding arrangements indicate that funding for social housing will actually decrease despite predictions of population growth.…”