The quest for housing is a road paved with lingo. To help smooth out some of the bumps in the road, we’ve put together a glossary of some of the terms that you may come across when searching for affordable housing.

Rent Geared to Income

Rent Geared to Income housing is when the cost of your rent is adjusted based on how much you earn. This means that if your income increases, your rent increases, but also if your income decreases, your rent decreases. Usually, the adjusted rent is 30 percent of your total income.

Rent Subsidy

Subsidy is maybe the most used word when talking about affordable housing, and it can mean lots of things (for example, rent geared to income is a very specific type of subsidy). In general, a rent subsidy means that you will be required to pay a certain amount below the market rate, and the rest of the amount is “topped up” by either the building owners or the government. For example, if the market rate for the apartment is $1000, and you have a $300 subsidy, it means that you’ll pay $700 total each month.

The difference between a rent subsidy and rent geared to income is this: the rent subsidy is fixed and the rent geared to income changes based on your income.

Emergency Housing

Emergency housing is short-term accommodation for people who are homeless or in crisis. For example, shelters and hostels provide emergency housing, as well as facilities for laundry, personal hygiene and often meal services. Sometimes, shelters may also have a ‘drop-in’ service for people who are not staying there but would like to access their facilities.

Transitional Housing

Transitional housing is designed to help you transition from homelessness to long-term housing. It can range anywhere from 3 months to 2 years, and includes skill building to help you live on your own. This might include anything from cooking and housekeeping skills, to learning about budgeting and your rights as a tenant.

Supportive Housing

Supportive housing means that there are staff available onsite to assist with a number of different things. It could mean nursing care, assistance with getting out of bed and bathing, support with cooking or keeping house, or even just having someone around to talk to. The level of support available depends on the facility. At a maximum level, supportive housing involves 24 hour care, 7 days per week.

Market Rent

If you looked on sites like CraigsList or ViewIt.ca, you would find market rental housing. The rent charged by landlords on sites like those is dictated by the market, which is why its called market rent housing. Market rental housing is housing without any of the other things we’ve talked about here, like rent subsidies or rent-geared-to-income. What you see is what you get!

Affordable Housing and Low-income Housing

These two terms are general terms used to refer to any of the types of housing above, as long as they are low cost. In other words, Rent Geared to Income and Rent Subsidies are examples of affordable housing or low-income housing. In general, rent-geared-to-income is seen as the most affordable type of housing because it adjusts to your income. So, if someone is talking about affordable housing, you might want to ask exactly what kind of affordable housing they’re talking about.