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.

Keywords

housing policy targeting retrenchment welfare state Canada

The article’s main claim is that rental housing assistance is a distinctive domain of the welfare state, and, as such, targeting did not emerge as a process of welfare retrenchment as we know it. According to much scholarly wisdom, retrenchment and its targeting component are 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.” Yet this article argues that alternative views of targeting are possible. I emphasize the historic low coverage of housing assistance in Canadian provinces, which I term the housing “exceptionalism,” and which refers to the small number of people coping with housing difficulties who benefit from government support. There had been queuing among the very needy together with some provision to middle-income households. The “exceptionalism” sets the stage to understanding why the vulnerable citizen winners have gained over the moderate-income losers in the housing reforms of the past decades. Among housing policy makers, concerns for equity and efficiency drove reforms to focus the limited housing budgets toward the destitute. Surprisingly, there is little evidence suggesting that political forces were significant in the policy adjustments. The implications of these concerns and the programmatic exceptionalism of subsidized housing among other welfare state domains are this article’s main conceptual contributions.

The conventional view in political economy treats universalism as a more progressive policy orientation, while targeting, often considered its opposite, resonates as more conservative (Korpi & Palme, 1998; Skocpol, 1991). In policy studies, targeting is also seen as a process, as a type of reform that tightens or narrows benefit eligibility. Along with budget cuts, targeting is commonly understood as a form of retrenchment associated to the neoliberal paradigm, responsible for eroding social protection (Hall & Lamont, 2013, pp. 7–8). For instance, Pierson’s (1994) classic study on retrenchment under Reagan and Thatcher underlined that “[i]n many cases, services have become more threadbare, benefits have been cut, and eligibility rules have been tightened” (p. 5). In fact, the “explicit alterations of rules governing eligibility or benefits,” wrote Hacker (2004), are “the subject of most retrenchment analyses” (p. 249).

The rule of thumb suggests that retrenchment, including targeting, is largely about reduction and losses, in contrast to the welfare state expansion. The tightening of eligibility criteria usually implies that fewer people can receive welfare or unemployment benefits, compared with the pre-reform period. “[L]ower coverage is often a result of tighter eligibility rules,” wrote Starke (2008, p. 19). Many policy examples exist, including in Canadian social policy (Banting & Myles, 2013, p. 22). Most cases experienced the same process: Before the reform, a typical “broad-based” policy supports all of those in need meeting the criteria (X people), but after “conservative” targeting reforms, fewer people are eligible (X – n). Whether or not they receive more generous benefits is another question.¹ Yet the point drawn from the literature, which is emphasized here, is that post–World War II (WWII) welfare state expansion is presented as generating an increasing number of winners gaining new social entitlements, while the retrenchment reforms from the 1980s onward are portrayed as excluding beneficiaries or potential claimants (Green-Pedersen, 2001; Starke, 2008; see also Hemerijck, 2013, chapter 5). In a nutshell, targeting usually creates no winners, but mostly losers for the number of beneficiaries.²

Several researchers interested in welfare retrenchment discussed the targeting of certain policies (Clayton & Pontusson, 1998; Hacker, 2004; Myles & Pierson, 1997), but usually as one outcome among others (e.g., budget cuts). And yet, retrenchment scholars are quick to turn away from targeting per se to concentrate on broader political processes considered more important. Given that most of these analyses are conducted at a macro level, central issues and explanations focus on political and partisan dynamics, institutional structures, economic challenges, globalization, and so on (for a review, see Starke, 2008, pp. 39–40). Surprisingly, we know little about why some decision makers target certain groups as beneficiaries, which is a serious omission, because the results of targeting are observed in the literature without necessarily capturing the decisional logics. The reasons may vary from one policy domain to another. Causality, although fundamental to the advancement of knowledge, remains less well understood.

The article helps to fill this gap by scrutinizing the driving forces behind housing policy reforms in British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec. Unlike other research aforementioned, this policy-focused analysis is conducted at the sectoral level. Subsidized housing is studied less than other social policies, such as health, pensions, and social assistance. Furthermore, Canada is often overlooked as a country of the “liberal” type according to Esping-Andersen’s (1990) typology, given the researchers’ preference for the American or British cases. Countries of the liberal type are known for providing minimal coverage and targeting the most disadvantaged citizens, yet provincial affordable housing policy is interesting because it was once less targeted, but has become more so over time, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Timeline of main policy changes with regard to target groups in provincial rental housing assistance (1975–2015).

Over the past decades, rental housing assistance has shifted from a relatively broad-based policy, including low- to moderate-income families and independent seniors, to a more targeted one largely focused on vulnerable citizens such as very poor households, frail seniors, the homeless, disabled, and women fleeing abuse. How do we explain the increased use of targeting of housing assistance in Canadian provinces from 1975 to 2015? Far from a decrease in the total number or percentage of households receiving rent subsidies, there was an increase or a stabilization. But what is more interesting is the change in the primary beneficiary groups. Vulnerable citizens are the winners of past reforms, given that more of them are served among the total beneficiaries of housing assistance (i.e., vulnerable citizens get a bigger piece of the “pie”). The support they receive also tends to be more tailored to their needs. No previous study has explained or even documented this silent transformation affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

As we will see below, policy reforms result from multiple causes that defy simple generalization. Yet the research in public records and coded interview responses suggests that in light of reflection and experience, the political-administrative housing elites decided to direct the funds available to certain groups of people who, bluntly put, were deemed more vulnerable on the private housing market. Those households were facing higher housing risks, thus making them more deserving of public aid, as opposed to low-paid working households, for example. As such, vertical equity considerations are the most important drivers in the policy reorientations, although the search for efficiency also factored. Political dynamics (e.g., partisanship) do not seem to be the main factors behind the reforms, as similar reforms have been pursued by governments of different stripes, in several provinces, over several decades.

The article is organized as follows. The first section presents the distinctive features of the subsidized housing sector in Canada, namely, its exceptionalism. The second section reviews the sector’s history, the division of powers among jurisdictions, and so on. The third section elaborates the case selection and methodology. The fourth section takes a closer look at each province to reconstruct the gradual changes in housing policy and offer new data to capture the decision-making logics. The last section discusses the implications of the findings that call into question several assumptions about retrenchment and welfare state restructuring.

Housing Assistance Exceptionalism in Coverage

When considered in terms of coverage, housing assistance stands out. In Canada, most health services³ and public education are accessible to all citizens, and while most other social programs provide limited support to the lowest social stratum, social assistance and unemployment benefits support all the citizens who meet the criteria. Citizens must enroll in those programs, but they function on an entitlement basis. There is a crucial difference in the provision of rent subsidies, wherein the demand for affordable or social housing has always exceeded the supply, creating waiting lists in all provinces. Even if citizens meet the criteria, a huge number of them do not receive assistance and must devote a large portion of their income on private market accommodation. Recent data indicate that 283,800 Canadian households (about 2%) are currently on social housing waiting lists,⁴ but way more (between 9% and 15% depending on the province) are considered in core housing need as discussed below. To quote a Canadian housing scholar, social housing programs mostly benefit “a lucky few” (Steele, 2007, p. 80) who made it through the lists.

To be sure, the provision of subsidized housing per capita has slightly increased or flatlined over time, yet population growth combined with the cost and time required to develop housing projects have always led to a supply deficit. As shown in Figure 2, which includes programs funded by the three provincial governments, as well as federally funded units in each province, only 6% to 7% of households live in social housing or receive a housing allowance separate from social assistance. This percentage is representative of Canada as a whole and has never been superior, even at the peak of federal programs. In other words, even the larger annual production volumes of the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (see Suttor, 2016) were incapable of fulfilling all the housing needs for a certain segment of the population.

Figure 2.

Number of households benefiting from low-income housing assistance per 1,000 households.

To sum up, housing assistance is exceptional because of its historic and systemic low coverage of the numerous households experiencing acute housing insecurities, in terms of adequacy, suitability, and especially housing affordability.

Low-Income Housing in Canadian Provinces

According to the Canadian constitution, housing has always been under provincial jurisdiction (Constitution Act, 1867, art. 92, 13), yet the federal government has shaped the sector through the various interventions of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). In fact, CMHC designed and funded several housing programs, from the postwar era to the mid-1990s. Through their housing agency, the provinces chose which federal programs they wanted to implement and administer, with the majority of these programs being cost-shared between the two levels of government. The provinces also developed their own parallel programs (see Suttor, 2016, pp. 108–109, 118).

In the mid-1990s, the federal government withdrew from the affordable housing sector. CMHC maintained its previous financial commitments, but it withdrew from program designing and, most importantly, from funding new units. Provinces thus had the autonomy to develop new programs and determine which groups would benefit from housing assistance. When the federal government made a “comeback” in the sector in the early 2000s, CMHC initially required that its share of the funding provided be used to develop new units for households on social housing waiting lists (locally managed lists), but CMHC later offered greater flexibility to the provincial governments with respect to the groups eligible for assistance (CMHC, 2011, pp. 137–139). In sum, while the federal government played an important role in the postwar decades, provincial autonomy and leadership have widened over time. Therefore, the analysis of the principles governing eligibility must be conducted in this context.

Case Selection and Methodology

Canada is a typical case for studying rental housing assistance among liberal countries. The sector is not as prominent as it is in the United Kingdom, but it is comparable (i.e., residual, small in nature) with the one in the United States or Australia, although these two countries have received more scholarly attention (Gurran & Whitehead, 2011; Schwartz, 2015; Yates, 2013). The three Canadian provinces selected are generally depicted as belonging to the liberal type, in reference to the aforementioned Esping-Andersen’s (1990) typology. However, significant variations exist according to several political and social indicators (such as state spending and revenues, proactivity toward social policy, and unionization rate). Previous research showed that Alberta’s profile brings it closer to the American ultra-liberal model. In contrast, Quebec developed social policies that move it closer to European models, such as Scandinavian social democratic countries. British Columbia most closely aligns with the Canadian model, roughly halfway between Alberta and Quebec (see especially Bernard & Saint-Arnaud, 2004, pp. 228–229; Haddow, 2016, p. 68; Van den Berg et al., 2017).

Considering the provincial autonomy discussed above, one could expect a stronger targeting of vulnerable people in Alberta’s housing policy. Adversely, one could expect a more comprehensive coverage in Quebec. While it is true that Quebec’s approach is somewhat more broad-based, the housing policy of the three provinces is much more targeted in the 2010s than it was in the 1970s. Why a common direction when one might expect more variation? Exploring this puzzle in an overlooked sector within Canada’s social policy landscape is very important. We know much more about social assistance reforms in the 10 provinces (Béland & Daigneault, 2015), as well as the universality precept in health care or education (Béland et al., 2019), than we know about the policy responses to housing insecurities and resulting program coverage, despite housing being a basic human right.

To explain how and why the targeting trend has occurred in the three provinces, the research design adopts an inductive approach. “[A] broad inductive search for causal processes bringing about the outcome [. . .] may be a particularly natural fit for case study researchers,” wrote Seawright (2016, p. 70). A qualitatively driven mixed-methods analysis is employed to reconstruct the decision-making logics. Data collection consists of qualitative material taken from provincial archives (annual reports, policy papers, etc.) and coded interview responses with policy elites (n = 56). Interviews were conducted in the three provinces from January 2015 to April 2017 and covered a series of important policy transformations, one of them being the shift in target groups. The shortest interview lasted 30 min while the longest was 210 min, for an average of over 90 min. Three out of four interviews were conducted face-to-face and the rest by phone, all recorded with the authorization of respondents; 17 people were interviewed in British Columbia, 20 in Alberta, and 19 in Quebec. See Online Appendix 1 for the full list of interviewees (names, occupations, background, etc.).

Given that cabinet documents are restricted and that government publications tend to present outputs rather than the motives behind decisions, interviews are crucial to answer the research question,⁵ especially because the existing secondary sources are too few and analytically insufficient to explain the politics of targeting. I used the reputational snowball sampling technique (Farquharson, 2005) to select the most qualified respondents to answer the questions. “Qualified” respondents are those who made the decisions toward greater targeting or who were very close to decision-making circles. However, the “self-justificatory” and “social desirability” biases in government documents as well as in officials’ responses during interviews are a serious caveat, which was addressed in two ways. First, many qualified respondents with extensive experience within provincial housing agencies or ministries were retired and could speak more freely. Furthermore, most of the events covered had occurred years or decades ago, which allows interviewees to discuss them detachedly. Second, I also interviewed qualified respondents from different locations in the sector (e.g., non-profit organizations, housing advocates), which also allowed me to account for a variety of perspectives and identify self-serving or misremembered information.⁶

I used a basic questionnaire (see Online Appendix 2)⁷ to compile the reasons given by interviewees to explain the policy targeting. I relied heavily on manifest content when classifying answers into themes, which I will call drivers from now on. Those drivers were thus identified inductively, emerging as the more frequent and dominant ones; this technique is often labeled as thematic analysis (see Drisko & Maschi, 2016).⁸ The coding process was facilitated by the ranking attribute of the questionnaire, which ensures greater internal validity and helps to overcome the equifinality problem, when several causes can lead to the same outcome. As shown in the “Understanding Policy Targeting” section, I performed statistical analysis to present quantitatively the most important drivers (X-axis) using the numerical values obtained through the score or ranking of each driver (Y-axis). To be clear, nothing is measured along the horizontal axis; the space to the right of the vertical axis is simply used to show the different drivers (reasons) for the increased use of targeting. Box plots are employed to graphically depict the importance of each driver. The diamonds are the minimum and maximum scores. When the mean (cross) of a driver is closer to 1 (Y-axis), this indicates that it was ranked more often as the primary driver to explain policy targeting. In other words, when the mean is higher—around 3 (Y-axis)—it implies that the driver was rather considered as a secondary explanation (i.e., it is in the policy narrative but cannot be accounted as a main reason). In addition, the frequency (or occurrence) of each driver is indicated after the f in the graphs. As interviewees’ answers were expressed in their own words, when two different answers related to the same driver, it received two scores. This may inflate the importance or weight of a specific driver, but it is truer to the respondents’ answers. Yet this is partly offset by the fact that in certain occasions, the same score was attributed to two drivers, when an answer encompassed more than one driver. To conclude, documentary analysis combined with interview extracts and coding allow for a stronger triangulation in data collection.

Understanding Policy Targeting

Despite some nuances, the three provincial timelines in Figure 1 show a common trend toward the targeting of poorer and more vulnerable citizens. Among the empirical studies of this sector (Hulchanski & Shapcott, 2004; Suttor, 2016), none has made an interprovincial comparison over several decades. In addition, no study has provided clear explanations to understand why housing decision makers have changed the primary beneficiary groups. As it will be demonstrated, past experiences with programs and problem-driven reflections largely informed the judgment of policy elites on managing resources. Housing assistance exceptionalism implied that the several implemented programs never supported all the eligible households. Figure 3 provides additional data regarding the persistence of housing needs, which started to be measured in 1986 using the common metric of “core housing needs”⁹ as indicated in the timelines of Figure 1. Figure 3 demonstrates that actual programs still fall short of providing affordable and safe housing to all needy citizens; if it were otherwise, there would not be a single person with core housing needs. Simply put, Figure 3 demonstrates the unmet needs. Data in Figure 4 set forth provincial governments’ housing expenditures (about 1% of the provinces’ budget) and indicate that despite a decrease in Alberta, which will be discussed below, provincial spending did not suffer from severe cuts. In other words, there is little evidence that a conservative neoliberal retrenchment explains it all. Hence, the policy trajectory in each province is worth investigating in greater detail.

Figure 3.

Proportion of households in core housing need.

Figure 4.

Provincial housing expenditures.

British Columbia

In the 1970s, British Columbia’s housing policy was broad-based, supporting families and independent seniors with low to moderate incomes. The income-mixing approach of the co-operative housing sector also included middle-income households, mostly families (British Columbia Department of Housing, 1975). The desire to increase policy targeting toward the most disadvantaged people became more visible in the 1980s, as illustrated in Figure 1. The mid-1980s marked a milestone in the reflection and analysis of housing policy regarding the support provided to needy households and public spending. The federal and provincial governments were preoccupied by these concerns, as this 1986 publication from the provincial housing agency indicates:

These concerns, which are shared by the provincial governments, stem from three main factors: the increasing demand for funds available for social housing, the cost of existing social housing commitments, and the relatively small percentage of households most in need that are being assisted by current social housing programs [. . .] Despite these large expenditures, households other than the most needy are being assisted. The existing program [developing community housing own by third sector organizations] guidelines require only that 15% of households in each development be most in need; the remainder can be moderate or middle income. Consequently, only about 1.5 - 2.0% of all households most in need nationally are being housed each year through the current social housing program. A survey of all co-operatives in Vancouver indicated that 40% - 45% of residents could afford non-subsidized rental housing, and that only about half of the residents in housing co-operatives surveyed were high priorities for assistance. Many households receiving social housing benefits do not require them and more people in need could be assisted with the dollars available. (British Columbia Housing Management Commission, 1986, pp. 1–2)

Since 1986, the same year that the federal-provincial agreement focusing on “core housing need” households was adopted, the British Columbia government has reoriented its approach toward a stronger targeting on vulnerable citizens. To be sure, Figure 1 shows some deviations, but overall, there is a visible tendency to allocate resources to the neediest. Figure 5 synthesizes the reasons or drivers identified by 17 expert interviewees in the province to explain the policy shift.

Figure 5.

List of drivers for explaining policy targeting. See Case Selection and Methodology section above, and Online Appendix 3 for full statistical analysis.

As mentioned in the Case Selection and Methodology section, each driver (X-axis) is assessed with its score (Y-axis); the closer to 1, the more important is the driver. In addition, the frequency of each driver is indicated after the f. The crosses in the box plots represent the mean, and the central horizontal bars are the medians. Two drivers stand out in the analysis. The first driver Concentrate limited resources on the vulnerable was ranked most often as the primary driver, echoing the previous quotes about using the available resources more efficiently for those who need it most. The second driver Deservingness/stronger needs of the vulnerable includes all the interviewees’ answers that mentioned the word “deserving” or highlighted the extensive housing needs of the socially and physically disadvantaged. Two other drivers are closely connected to this: Vulnerable people were Not supported enough in former welfare/housing programs, and Deinstitutionalization, which broadly refers to the release of former or “would be” patients of health institutions.

Although it was not frequently mentioned, the driver Lower cost and better housing than institutional care system/avoid overloading it merits some discussion. Decision makers have realized that the development of housing formulas tailored to specific clienteles, such as frail seniors and the homeless, allowed the government to save money on other expenses. This driver was underlined by key actors such as the former Deputy Minister responsible for housing (interview with J. O’Dea, January 23, 2015) and the current CEO of the provincial housing agency since 2000 (interview with S. Ramsay, January 26, 2015). With regard to its commitment to a large program dedicated to frail seniors, the provincial government’s 2006 housing strategy stated, “Evidence shows that helping seniors remain in independent housing not only contributes to an enhanced quality of life, it also helps to reduce pressure on health and long-term care resources” (British Columbia, 2006, p. 9). The updated version of the strategy published in 2014—not included in the timeline of Figure 1 because it explicitly maintained the focus on the same target groups—puts forward similar arguments: “We know that stable housing prevents homelessness, leads to greater community wealth, participation in education, training and employment opportunities, and reduces our social and health services costs” (British Columbia, 2014, p. 4).

Two other drivers related to politics are worth discussing. First, the driver Vulnerable people’s needs attract political attention adds the element of political attention to what has been said about the deservingness/stronger needs of the most vulnerable. All respondents pointed to the visibility of the homeless population, notably in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Given that other large urban centers were concerned and seeking tangible solutions, former Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell established the Premier’s Task Force on Homelessness, Mental Illness and Addictions in 2004. The Provincial Homelessness Initiative was introduced afterward as a major funding program targeting the homeless and those at risk.

Second, the driver Political ideology refers to partisanship, assuming different approaches to housing policy whether a right- or a left-of-center party is in power. The respondents’ argument is that targeting is due to the longer governance of right-of-center parties, that is, the British Columbia Social Credit Party (1975–1991) and the British Columbia Liberal Party (2001–2017). In contrast, the left-of-center British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) was in power for far less time (1972–1975, 1991–2001). The NDP did subsidize new non-profit and co-operative housing units for families with low to moderate income through the HOMES BC program launched in 1994, but the program also targeted the homeless or those at risk such as people with addictions, people with disabilities, and women fleeing abusive relationships (BC Housing Management Commission, 1994, p. 2). HOMES BC was later expanded to target other groups such as the lower income urban singles and frail seniors who require assistance to live independently (British Columbia, 1999). After the BC Liberals won the 2001 election, they stopped subsidizing new social housing units for families with moderate income. In response, former Director of the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association argued that new constructions should also be dedicated to families with children: “They said ‘We’re in power now and we don’t agree with you. We think that the most vulnerable are the frail seniors, the people with mental illness, people who are on the street’” (interview with A. Sundberg, February 4, 2015). However, the BC Liberals did not initiate but rather pursued the focus on frail seniors and the homeless. Moreover, a new housing allowance strictly focused on working families with low to moderate income was implemented in 2006 (British Columbia, 2006), reaching thousands of such families. Therefore, it is rather difficult to conclude that partisan politics in British Columbia had a major impact on the targeting trend, which is rather due to the changing “preferences” of housing officials.

Alberta

Unlike British Columbia, the same right-of-center Progressive Conservative Party governed Alberta from 1971 to 2015, the longest uninterrupted governance in Canadian history. During the 1970s, Alberta’s housing policy was very broad-based, as shown in this government publication titled Housing for Albertans: “Many Albertans may benefit from these programs . . . both low and average wage earners, farm operators, people on fixed incomes, senior citizens, residents of remote rural areas and residents of booming new industrial towns” (Alberta Home Mortgage Corporation and Alberta Housing Corporation, 1976, p. 1). Figure 1 exhibits the slow but gradual focus toward the most vulnerable from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. When questioned in the interview about the federal-provincial agreement of 1986, the former provincial Deputy Minister said that the issue of target groups was paid less attention than federal funding commitments for new housing units, which was the main concern of the provincial government at the time (interview with M. Rasmusson, April 28, 2015). In fact, the targeting of housing assistance became more important during the reorientation of the provincial housing agency in 1990. After an internal evaluation which led to a review of the agency’s mandate and programs, government officials firmly decided to focus their resources on the neediest households experiencing difficulties in obtaining affordable and safe housing on the private market (Alberta Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 1990, pp. 4–8).

In December 1992, the election of Premier Ralph Klein certainly did not reverse the new targeting trend toward the most vulnerable citizens. Under his leadership, the Alberta government promoted self-reliance and encouraged transitional use of social housing,¹⁰ presumably because of the administration’s conservative ideology, which puts emphasis on individual responsibility as opposed to collective solidarity. Historically, Klein’s first government (1993–1997) marked Canadian society for its lack of support to those benefiting from social policies, especially social assistance. Its main objective was deficit elimination by reducing spending, for which Figure 4 provides further evidence. However, adjustments to the housing policy in favor of the least well-off citizens had started a few years earlier and continued after Klein left office in 2006. How can we explain the policy shift toward a stronger policy targeting, in comparison with the 1970s broad-based approach? Figure 6 provides some answers.

Figure 6.

List of drivers for explaining policy targeting. See Case Selection and Methodology section above, and Online Appendix 4 for full statistical analysis.

As in British Columbia, findings show that the driver Concentrate limited resources on the vulnerable is the most compelling if one looks at the mean and especially the frequency of that reason given by interviewees. Another main thrust behind the emphasis on the more disadvantaged citizens, such as the homeless and frail seniors, is the Deservingness/stronger needs of the vulnerable. The idea that former welfare or housing programs were not adequately serving vulnerable populations was also mentioned, as was the impact of deinstitutionalization, although to a lesser extent than in British Columbia. The driver Broad socio-economic changes in province refers to Alberta’s changing demographics which are affected by in-migration and the fluctuation of its oil-based economy; when the economy is booming, it usually creates a higher pressure on the rental housing market due to in-migration. Although the driver Lower cost and better housing than institutional care system was not mentioned very often, the argument was clearly stressed in key government documents with regard to frail seniors (Alberta Health and Wellness, 1999, p. 26) and homeless populations (Alberta Secretariat For Action on Homelessness, 2008, pp. 7–9).

Figure 6 shows that the driver Vulnerable people’s needs attract political attention is very important in terms of average ranking and frequency. Alberta differs from British Columbia because while homelessness was also mentioned as a more visible issue over the years, Albertan politicians became more concerned by the housing needs of low-income Albertans in general. Indeed, a housing crisis had shaken the province in the mid-2000s, raising the political salience of housing affordability in the legislative assembly and the media (Tsenkova & Witwer, 2011, p. 54). However, the low frequency of the driver Rewarding politically suggests that the targeting of vulnerable citizens was not perceived as an important credit claiming opportunity for politicians. The government’s sponsored housing task force, established right after the crisis, rather points to a problem-solving endeavor. The data demonstrate another striking difference from British Columbia: No one in Alberta mentioned the political ideology as a driver of the changes to the principles governing housing assistance eligibility. The comparison shows that partisanship is surely not a strong factor affecting the commonality of direction, given that the two provinces have made quite similar shifts to their housing policy despite their different political landscapes.

The driver Influence of federal government decisions was mentioned by a few respondents in Alberta, whether pointing to the federal-provincial agreement of 1986 which increased policy targeting or to specific federal funding for homelessness in the early 2000s. A last interesting driver is the Pressure from advocacy groups. Respondents mentioned the lobbying by different groups or associations, advocating on behalf of disabled people, frail seniors, and especially the homeless. Admittedly, many reasons given by interviewees were put into Other. In fact, the superior number of driver categories in Figure 6, as compared with Figure 5, is a deliberate effort to reduce this Other category as much as possible. Some reasons in Other include the following: push at the bureaucratic level where provincial civil servants have pushed for the targeting of vulnerable populations, Alberta government does not value enough the community integration/mixed-income approach, and philosophical shift where the purpose of the postwar housing policy (accommodate returning veterans, urbanization) was done.

Quebec

Quebec differs from the other two in that many housing projects favoring income mixing were built since the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, Quebec’s housing assistance has become more targeted since the 1970s. As illustrated in Figure 1, we can observe a greater concentration of government resources toward very low-income households, seniors experiencing a loss of autonomy, and homeless people. Much like British Columbia, the mid-1980s were also a turning point in Quebec social housing history. In 1984, under the governance of the left-of-center Parti Québécois, the Quebec Minister responsible for housing published a Green Paper. With regard to housing co-operatives and non-profit organizations, it stated, “there is little control over the beneficiary groups. Yet, the importance of the subsidy would justify a more systematic verification of the beneficiary clienteles of these programs” (Quebec, 1984, p. 69). The primary recommendation to reorient Quebec’s housing policy was the following: “[T]o seek horizontal equity (equal assistance for those with equal income) and vertical equity (assistance inversely proportional to the level of income) with respect to the beneficiary groups, in terms of government financial interventions” (Quebec, 1984, pp. 95–96).

The previous quotations paved the way for the 1986 federal-provincial agreement, resulting in a stronger policy targeting. Following the withdrawal of the federal government in the mid-1990s, the Quebec government developed the AccèsLogis program in 1997. It is still the main program in Quebec, financing most of the new units over the past two decades (Société d’habitation du Québec, 2018, p. 80). The first component of AccèsLogis supports independent households, through a mixed-income approach. However, the second and third components are clearly oriented toward the citizens in more precarious situations: The second is dedicated to frail seniors and the third to people with special housing needs such as the homeless population. How do we explain this targeting trend in Quebec as well? The question was asked to key policy actors in the Quebec social housing sector.

Again, the results for Quebec suggest that the driver Concentrate limited resources on the vulnerable has a fairly robust explanatory leverage. The second driver Deservingness/stronger needs of the vulnerable is also of major importance. I have added the driver Equity in Figure 7, because it was mentioned explicitly by several interviewees. In fact, this word captures the essence of the first and second drivers, which is vertical equity: the redistribution of government resources to the most needy due to their stronger needs. Another driver was mentioned quite frequently: Criticism of housing co-operatives. The 1986 BC Housing publication quoted earlier directly pointed to the situation in housing co-operatives where some members or residents could have afforded private rental accommodation. It also deplored the fact that a very small proportion of the households in need was supported by existing social housing programs. This parallels the perspective of Quebec housing officials. Jean-Paul Beaulieu was then vice-president of the provincial housing agency when he signed the 1986 federal-provincial agreement.

When the agreement on social housing was negotiated in 1986, it was to try to better target the assistance. We wanted to do more with the money that was available, to be less criticized. Public criticism, abuses¹¹ in programs both at the federal level and the fact that it was indirectly supported by the provinces, undermined the public image of housing assistance. The political dimension was very strong: abuses. In addition, the budgetary dimension has always been important: the state has always tried to do better with the money it has. (Interview with J.-P. Beaulieu, May 6, 2016)

Figure 7.

List of drivers for explaining policy targeting. See Case Selection and Methodology section above, and Online Appendix 5 for full statistical analysis.

For the spokesperson of the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU), Quebec’s long-standing housing advocacy group, there was little mobilization of the representatives of the moderate-income “losers.” When referring to one of the main and stronger unions in the province, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, he said,

It was in their general discourse for the preservation of the universal character of social programs. A struggle that took place in the late 1980s. But I cannot say that they’ve put a lot of energy on it [social housing]. (Interview with F. Saillant, April 25, 2016)

Much importance is attributed to the driver Lower cost and better housing than institutional care system/avoid overloading it, discussed by the former vice-president and then CEO of the provincial housing agency who successfully convinced the Minister of Finance to subsidize 3,000 new housing units per year through AccèsLogis, instead of 1,500 units. That increase took place under the governance of the Parti libéral du Québec, a right-of-center party.

When we demonstrated to the government in the late 2000s that we needed more units through AccèsLogis, that was our argument: supportive housing with non-profit organizations is much cheaper for the government than keeping frail seniors and other vulnerable people in the hospital, long-term care facility and so on. That is part of the reason for the increase in the AccèsLogis budget allocated by the government at that time. (Interview with J. MacKay, August 17, 2016)

The driver Political ideology was mentioned a few times, yet it is the left-of-center Parti québécois that has introduced most of the housing programs and is, to a large extent, responsible for the targeting analyzed here. Respondents were aware of this, but still considered that a more left-wing policy would have sustained a broad-based approach, by promoting the right to housing for all, for instance. The right-wing politics of former Canada Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was also mentioned, given that the 1986 federal-provincial agreement was concluded under his mandate. This agreement was also brought up by those who responded Influence of federal government decisions. The last driver Pressure from advocacy groups is similar to what has been said about Alberta, but Quebec interviewees emphasized the advocacy of non-profit housing providers serving specific clienteles such as the homeless or mentally disabled.

Discussing Retrenchment as We Know It

The purpose of this research is to explain how and why the allocation of housing assistance in British Columbia, Alberta, and even Quebec became more focused on vulnerable citizens since the 1970s. Provincial policies now prioritize poorer households, frail seniors, the homeless, disabled, women fleeing abuse, and so on. This similar policy direction is rather counterintuitive, given that the three provinces are known to have different approaches to social policy, all the more so as provinces enjoy greater autonomy from the federal government. The article’s first contribution is an empirical study of a sector rarely explored in the universe of social policies. The diachronic comparison of three large provinces regarding the beneficiary groups, from the 1970s to the 2010s, had never been conducted before. The cumulative changes to each provincial policy coupled with interview responses suggest an alternative view to the typical portrayal of targeting, which may not always mean retrenchment as we know it, generally implying no winners and only losers. Targeting reforms in the affordable housing sector have resulted in winners: the vulnerable citizens. As many were not supported by previous housing programs, largely because of the historic low coverage or exceptionalism, reforms gave them priority access in the provision “bottleneck” of subsidized housing. Many went from non-beneficiaries to new beneficiaries, and some received more adapted services, such as frail seniors or populations with special housing needs. In the end, this also proves that policies can be updated to changing social risks (e.g., population aging, homelessness), challenging the policy drift storyline frequently told to account for welfare state evolution (Hacker, 2004; Hacker et al., 2015).

The second contribution is more theoretical in the search for causation, which remains a weakness in macro-level discussions of targeting. The history of subsidized housing is not marked by drastic budget cuts from provincial governments, as shown in Figure 4. Alberta under Ralph Klein would be the exception, and this, indeed, supports the claim made earlier by welfare state scholars that partisanship matters (see, for example, Clayton & Pontusson, 1998; Pierson, 1994). However, the same conservative party in Alberta increased housing expenditures after Klein left office in the mid-2000s and a housing crisis shook the province. More importantly, the policy targeting per se started before Klein and also took place in the two other provinces where there was an alternation of power between the Left and the Right. Findings tend to show that political dynamics, broadly defined and including ideology, credit claiming, and so on, are not very significant when it comes to explaining the long-term trend of beneficiary targeting. From time to time, the needs of impoverished populations may attract political attention, but politicians act more as problem solvers when they address the issue of homelessness or housing accessibility more generally, usually resulting in very limited political payoffs in the electoral sense. Furthermore, the answer to the research question does not seem to lie in the shift of so-called political-economic paradigms, from Keynesianism to neoliberalism, but rather in a different use by housing bureaucrats of the budget envelope they are granted by Finance ministries.

In sum, the vulnerable citizen winners have priority over the moderate-income losers largely because of a consensus in the changing “preferences” of housing policy makers, relying heavily on equity and efficiency purposes. Housing officials chose to concentrate resources on the most economically, socially, physically, and psychologically disadvantaged. Given that far too many households face housing insecurities (see Figure 3) if compared with the “small” size of housing budgets—the main reason for the exceptionalism in coverage—bureaucracies must make compromises or trade-offs in distributive choices. Following the principle of vertical equity, vulnerable citizens were prioritized due to their greater difficulties in accessing affordable and adequate private market housing. The search for efficiency¹² motivated the reorientation of housing budgets to support those in greater distress, which therefore avoids a misuse of resources by helping households that could afford non-subsidized housing. The targeting of frail seniors and homeless populations also contributes to relieve other resources, especially in the health sector. To be sure, this study largely relies on the interview answers; were other participants interviewed, the results may have been different. On the contrary, the similarity of the responses in the three provinces, as well as the great coherence between the archival records and these answers—provided by very credible actors with substantive knowledge—tend to confirm their reliability. While this research design and the mixed-methods employed have some limitations, they remain an effective way to open the “black box” of policy making to better understand government decisions.

Why did the losers let it go so easily? Another peculiar aspect of subsidized housing is popular disinterest in the sector. Housing differs from other social policies because it is regarded as a commodity chosen according to personal tastes and means, similarly to how food is chosen. Moreover, government responsibility with regard to housing assistance is not well defined, making housing the “wobbly pillar” of the welfare state (Torgersen, 1987). Regarding housing budget cuts in the United Kingdom and the United States, Pierson (1994) wrote, “The existence of a highly popular private alternative, owner occupation, makes public programs appear inferior, and, for most of the electorate, irrelevant” (p. 74). In liberal, capitalist democracies, most people assume that the private market serves the needs of all, through homeownership or the rental market (see Harloe, 1995); even in a progressive political setting like Quebec, subsidized housing constituency is weak. In addition, the adjustments in favor of targeting the most vulnerable do not affect the working individuals already living in social housing. Apart from the housing shortages already mentioned, workers with moderate incomes are unaware that targeting will reduce their future chances of benefiting from housing assistance if needed. Organizations such as unions promoting the interests of moderate-income people or the middle class did not seriously militate for social housing. It is easy to understand why targeting happened without a high level of conflict when the possibilities for mobilization defense of broader based housing policies are reduced. Overall, given the relatively small nature of subsidized housing programs in Canada from the start—compared with some European countries (Scanlon et al., 2015)—analysis presents an interesting case of how deservingness evolved over time and accounts for the relative consensus around deservingness.

Some critics may think that the argument about equity and efficiency is an “easy” one, professed by proponents of targeting in all places and at all times, and which often contains a neoliberal agenda (see, for example, Western et al., 2007). First, while other decisions admittedly could have been taken—such as maintaining a more inclusive housing policy or increasing the share of the state budget dedicated to housing—each policy sector needs to be analyzed separately. In the case at hand, the historical analysis unveils a rather “shocking” truth. It is very hard to say that provincial housing policies in the 1970s, during the so-called Keynesian period, were flawless. Many disadvantaged households were left without government support on the private housing market, and there were social housing waiting lists and little control over tenant selection. No matter the size of their housing budget, nothing prevents current provincial bureaucracies from allocating a considerable portion to moderate- or middle-income households. However, this would probably be less equitable and efficient. To be sure, a counterexample exists in the Canadian history of social housing. In addition to implementing the last federal non-profit housing program (1986–1993) cost-shared with Ottawa and targeted to core need households, the Ontario government unilaterally funded a few thousand units per year for moderate-income households “in order to meet provincial objectives of income mixing, and to make the projects acceptable to local communities” (Wilson, 1989, p. 22). In the Ontario case, the social acceptability aspect prevailed in provincial decision making, which is largely explained by the reluctance to public housing projects for families at the time. But overall, the subsidized housing sector in Canadian provinces seems to be the victim of its inherently residual character, which could explain the predominance of equity and efficiency considerations in policy reforms.

Second, and more surprisingly, equity and efficiency do not feature as important drivers in studies on social policy development (see, for example, Bonoli & Natali, 2012; Van Kersbergen & Vis, 2014). They are very rarely acknowledged as driving forces on their own (Levy, 1999). In fact, the opposite is argued by scholars such as Hemerijck (2013) or Gilbert (1995), who refer to equity and efficiency as objectives from a normative perspective, or outcomes to be achieved where varying results are explained by other factors. Other authors just seem to ignore them. For example, Hausermann (2010) stresses that pension reforms in Europe have included individuals at the bottom of the social scale who were previously excluded from entitlements. This form of inclusion is referred to as targeting and recalibration, yet the rationale and the result are the fostering of vertical equity. Nonetheless, the word equity (or fairness) is never used by the author, a regrettable omission because the book suggests that it was around this “value” that alliances among political parties and social groups have mobilized. Those mobilizations favored the extension of pension coverage to include outsiders (low-skilled, atypical workers, etc.) as opposed to traditional insiders (male breadwinners in industrial sector). In all cases, the dyad equity and efficiency put forward in the analysis challenges as much as it enriches existing knowledge on welfare state restructuring.

Why is housing politics different? Why is policy targeting increased out of concern for equity and efficiency, as opposed to conservative political forces? Should governments not always target their housing budgets sharply on those most in need? In Canada, and during the time period covered, one must acknowledge that subsidized housing had a rather low political salience (see Suttor, 2016, p. 184). Home affordability and rental choice are surely a daily preoccupation of most households in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and the Greater Toronto Area. However, the shared expectation of personally finding affordable housing typically does not translate into electoral preferences or political expectations of stronger government action. Citizens blame the market, like they would for rising gas prices, but largely accept this situation even if it sometimes involves moving to cheaper locations. Thus, politicians do not consider subsidized housing a prime policy issue and, for the most part, let the bureaucrats exercise a good deal of control over the modest budget envelope. On the contrary, housing officials do not have to overcome strong power interests when reforming this marginal social policy area, which may explain why rational policy making and considerations for equity and efficiency superseded politics (Frederickson, 2015). Yet Canada is far from alone in this targeting trend. Harloe’s (1995) classic book in housing studies documented the convergence of Western democracies toward what he calls the residualization of social housing, including a targeting toward the destitute.¹³ His thesis on the converging government interventions in favor of beneficiary targeting is still confirmed two decades later in several Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations (Scanlon et al., 2015). In short, housing politics is distinctive because of the nature of the good in and of itself.

The programmatic exceptionalism of housing forces us to consider the conceptual problems that may arise if we portray the welfare state as a whole and neglect to analyze its distinctive parts. The international welfare state literature contains two persistent assumptions already stated: (a) policy targeting is the product of conservative and/or neoliberal politics, and (b) targeting usually creates no winners but only losers. The research findings advocate for greater agnosticism. Different policy arrangements and dynamics are present in specific areas, which have profound implications for our understanding of their political processes. Of course, top bureaucrats in health care and education also face imperatives when using limited resources, but this article points to a fundamental difference often overlooked by welfare state scholars: the principle of market failure. The principle—which is used by some economists to justify government intervention—is not as strong in housing, which was not decommodified as much as health care, education, or pensions, largely because the private market alone can meet the needs of most people (Malpass, 2003; Torgersen, 1987). Non-access to health care would be considered an illegitimate, almost indecent alternative in the modern-day Western world. Yet there is a reasonable alternative to subsidized housing, namely, private dwelling, and it is morally accepted by the vast majority of the population. For the vulnerable citizens whom the market fails to serve adequately, the housing policy targeting was beneficial and that, in turn, calls into question the conventional wisdom about retrenchment.

Supplemental Material

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Supplemental material, Online_Appendices for Does Targeting Always Mean Retrenchment? Housing Assistance “Exceptionalism” in Canadian Welfare State by Maroine Bendaoud in Administration & Society

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

In addition to the reviewers, the author would like to thank Jane Jenson, Peter Graefe, Olivier Jacques, Paul Pierson, Jacob Hacker, Richard Zeckhauser, Jonah Levy, Eric Patashnik, Patrick Le Galès, Nicholas Barr, Julian Le Grand, Chris Ansell, Neil Gilbert, Steve Pomeroy, Kathleen Thelen, and John Myles for their helpful suggestions throughout the writing of this manuscript based on his PhD dissertation. Sabrina Bendaoud is also thanked for her editing assistance.

Author’s Note

This is to acknowledge that the author has no financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of this research. The opinions expressed in the text are those of the author and not of the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture.

ORCID iD

Maroine Bendaoud

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biography

Maroine Bendaoud received his PhD in political science from the Université de Montréal. Prior to working for the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy as of 2020, he has held postdoctoral research positions at McMaster University and at Université du Québec à Montréal. Over the years he spent in academia, he did research stays at several universities, including Berkeley, Yale, and Sciences Po Paris. He won the Francesco Kjellberg Award for an outstanding paper presented by a New Scholar at the Congress of the International Political Science Association.

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