Advocates say pausing Manitoba housing benefit increases risk of homelessness – APTN News
Sep 20, 2024
In early August, the Manitoba government paused the youth and homelessness streams of the Canada-Manitoba Housing Benefit (CMHB), which provides a rent top-up for low-income and at-risk populations.
The streams serve mostly Indigenous clientele including youth aging out of foster care and people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
And the unexpected change now leaves several hundred people in Manitoba in limbo who applied for housing with the benefit in mind.
“The assumption is that they’re going to get the benefit, so they signed agreements,” said Shauna MacKinnon, a professor in the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner City Studies and member of the Right to Housing Coalition, “and then they go and they apply for the supplement because they can’t get the benefit until they actually have a signed agreement.
