‘B.C.’s’ expected rent supplements for Youth from child welfare system not paid in more than a year, sources say

But the province insists SAJE has been a success, and will continue.

The program is meant to guarantee Youth with experience in the foster care system up to $600 per month in financial assistance towards private-market rental housing for up to two years.

According to the SAJE website, young adults aged 19 to 27 are invited to apply over a two-week intake period twice per year, “typically” in February and September. 

Burnaby resident Jamal, 19, has been in foster care since he was seven years old. (IndigiNews is not identifying him by his real name for his protection). 

He applied for SAJE’s rent supplements at each of the three intakes since February 2024, but was declined each time. Jamal is one of the many Youth across the province who haven’t received rent supplements under SAJE since then — with ministry sources confirming none of them have been handed out. 

“I was one of the earlier applicants,” he told IndigiNews. 

Because he’s Indigenous, he has a stronger chance of being accepted onto the rent supplement program — half the promised rent supplements are set aside for Indigenous Youth. 

“Even then, I didn’t make the cut,” he said. 

Despite working two jobs — including working in a group home and as a respite worker for children and Youth with disabilities — the pay and hours are so low, he said he really needed help paying rent.

“I’m not surviving,” he said. “I’m getting by by the skin of my teeth.”

Under a previous agreement, Jamal is receiving $2,000 per month for living expenses until he turns 20 in several months. After that, without rent supplements, his support will drop to $1,250 under the program’s unconditional income support.

“It will barely cover my rent,” he said. “I have so many problems.”

‘We do not have a set date for the next round’

According to the SAJE website, the number of rent supplements available at each intake period varies. 

“To ensure that the most vulnerable young adults are prioritized, applications are sorted based on Indigeneity and self-reported income,” an FAQ sheet reads. “Once Indigeneity and income criteria are applied, applications are assessed on a first-come first-served basis”

But when an agent with SAJE was asked about the next round of rent supplements via the program’s phone support line, they said: “We don’t have any information on when the next round is going to be.”

Asked whether February 2024 was the last time Youth received rent supplements, and if September’s intake was skipped, the agent confirmed that was the case.

“Yes, you’re correct,” they replied. “It is a question we get asked a lot right now and they just have not told us anything yet.”

The province would not officially confirm allegations the SAJE rent supplements hadn’t been handed out in more than a year. 

A senior Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) official confirmed on background earlier this month that the funds had not been distributed since February 2024, but that the province plans to continue the program.

Jamal described communication with SAJE support staff known as “guides” as “exhausting.” 

He said that, despite applying for rent supplements at every intake, he had to follow up by email after receiving no response — only to learn he’d been rejected each time. 

When Jamal emailed the Rent Supplements department at MCFD earlier this year to ask when the next intake would be, they replied, “We do not have a set date for the next round,” and suggested he “keep an eye” on the website for any updates.

Minister says staff ‘explore alternatives’ to help young people with rent

But the main webpage with information on rent supplements has remained unchanged since April 4, 2024 — the day the legislation was enacted.

Since then, the webpage has stated, “The February rent supplement intake period is now closed.” 

IndigiNews requested an interview with Jodie Wickens, Minister of Child and Family Development, to discuss cuts specific to the SAJE rent supplements. 

Wickens was not available for a call, but provided an emailed statement that said applicant numbers “can fluctuate year-to-year.” 

“This means that there may be years when the demand for supplements exceeds the amount of funding,” the statement said. 

“If this happened, we would work closely with frontline staff and our colleagues in other ministries to explore alternatives so that the greatest number of young people are covered.”

Her statement included advice for young adults to work with their care team to “explore other types of rental support or [to ask] their SAJE guide to help them with an application to BC Housing.”

‘It concerns me if this support is not available’

Nearly 19,000 individuals or families are currently waiting for social housing through BC Housing, according to the latest Housing Data Book for Metro Vancouver, published in 2023.

That represents a 27 percent increase from the year before.

The same data shows that homelessness in Metro Vancouver jumped by a third between 2020-2023 — and by 122 percent since 2005. 

“It concerns me if this support is not available to eligible former Youth in care who are in need,” said Kaeli Rose Sort, Community Empowerment Operator of Former Youth In Care, a “Vancouver”-based organization that provides mentorship and resources.

“People from care face unique challenges and higher rates of issues like homelessness,” she added.

Sort told IndigiNews she has not received complaints from young people in relation to the rent supplement program, but noted that she is “concerned about the system’s ability to respond”. 

Over the past year, the province’s Representative for Children and Youth released a two-part report No Time To Wait — the first part last July, and the second this February — examining the workforce capacity of the MCFD’s child welfare services.

It concluded the child welfare system is in critical condition, and urgent action is required. Sort said the two-part report, alongside potential cutbacks of the SAJE program, “underscores the urgent need for systemic reforms to support social workers and improve outcomes for the province’s vulnerable children, families, and former Youth in care.”

‘Former Youth in care will face further challenges’

Meanwhile, both the province and experts in the sector agree the SAJE program has been a success.

“The SAJE program has been successful — exceeding expectations in terms of young people served,” an MCFD spokesperson told IndigiNews in an email, citing preliminary reports of “good uptake and experiences” accessing the service.

“The SAJE program remains a priority for the ministry,” they added. “MCFD will continue to support young people with financial supports.”

At the Prevention of Youth Homelessness International Conference in “Toronto” last month, presenters from MCFD shared data on the SAJE program’s positive impact as of last December.

The program’s successes, presenters said, included distributing nearly 2,000 rent supplements, and an equal number of SAJE support agreements signed, to allow young people to remain in their under-19 housing placements until age 21.

They said young Indigenous men saw particularly significant benefits from SAJE, with the percentage of signed support agreements nearing 60 per cent in 2023, almost tripling from 2020 levels. 

Although Youth in care make up less than 0.3 percent of “Canada’s” population, they face disproportionately high risks of long-term hardship. 

Six-in-ten homeless Youth had been involved with the child welfare system, according to a 2017 report from Homeless Hub. That figure rises to nearly three-quarters among those who experienced homelessness before age 16.

Homeless Youth are also nearly 200 times more likely than the general population to have had child welfare involvement — underscoring the strong correlation between the foster care system and Youth homelessness.

“Support should be available to address individuals’ unique needs and aspirations with lived child welfare experience,” Sort said. “Without these supports, former youths in care will face further challenges that adversely affect society.”

Sort said the whole point of enshrining SAJE into provincial legislation was to improve outcomes and give a chance for former Youth in care “to reach the same or similar milestones as their peers in the general population,” Sort added.

‘You can’t budget with money you don’t have’

Jamal’s struggles with SAJE extend beyond rent supplements. When IndigiNews asked what aspects of the program were working well, he simply replied, “Nothing is really working.”

He also questioned SAJE’s money spent on kits promoting the program, which he said would have been better spent helping “countless Youth keep their rentals or pay the rent.”

“I just don’t think that their money is always going to the right place,” Jamal said.

After receiving encouragement from SAJE guides, Jamal applied for funding through SAJE’s ‘Life-skills, Training and Cultural Connections’ program, which provides up to $11,000 for “learning and skill development.”

Jamal says the process was laborious and extractive. 

“I’ve had to go back and forth with workers for days or even weeks and explain why the funding is necessary, why it fits into this category of funding, why it meets my ‘SAJE goals’, and why those were my SAJE goals,” he said. 

“And in the end, I still didn’t end up getting funding.” 

After being rejected by one post-secondary institution, Jamal said he requested funding to apply to other universities, costing roughly $100 per application. SAJE denied his request, he said, citing that he had already received funding for his first application, despite it being unsuccessful.

He’s also been denied money to take a Class 4 driver’s licence exam, which would have enabled him to drive a bus at the group home where he works. 

He said SAJE’s response was that he “should be able to budget” money from his existing income supports.

“I don’t think that they understand that this is not something extra that I wanted,” he said, “like going to the movies or going on a date or anything like that.” 

He found the alleged remarks about budgeting condescending.

“I’ve been living alone since I was 16,” he said. “So don’t tell me how to budget … You can’t budget with money you don’t have.”