implementation. My Ministry is now working hard to ensure the program will launch in April 2020, with payments to households beginning as early as that month. As communicated last April, all households in the province’s Portable Housing Benefit – Special Priority Policy program will be supported through the larger Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit. Our Ministry will provide these households with a seamless transition through the annual renewal process.

To maximize our existing investments and processes set up for similar programs and to ensure portability across the province, the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit will be provincially-delivered. The Ministry of Finance will determine eligibility, calculate the benefit, provide payments directly to households and manage the annual renewal process. Portability provides recipients the freedom to choose where to live and make the housing choices that are best for them, whether in the private market or in community housing.

Other key program design details include:

• Assistance will be provided to households that are on, or eligible to be on, a social housing waiting list.
• Assistance will be prioritized to the following vulnerable household types: survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, persons experiencing or atrisk of homelessness, Indigenous persons, seniors and people with disabilities.
• Priority will also be given to households that will no longer receive assistance as a result of expiring social housing operating agreements/mortgages and/or federal-provincial housing programs.
• Benefit calculation will be based on the difference between 80 per cent of average market rent and 30 per cent of monthly income (consistent with the benefit calculation for Ontario's Portable Housing Benefit Framework and the Portable Housing Benefit – Special Priority Policy program).
• Social assistance recipients will have a separate maximum benefit calculation to avoid a reduction in social assistance entitlements.
• Households may receive first and last month's rent assistance, if needed.
• Monthly benefit amounts may be adjusted in-year under select circumstances (e.g., change in household composition, decrease of 20 per cent or more in household income).

As the organizations that deliver most housing and homelessness prevention programs, Service Managers will have a vital role to play at the local level. This includes identifying and selecting households to apply for the program and assisting households with the application process.

The program will provide up to the following amounts to assist households approved in the City of Windsor’s service area for the first two fiscal years:

• 2020-21: $755,473
• 2021-22: $989,894

Please note that your annual planning allocation will be the incremental funding available for new households approved in your service area each fiscal year (i.e., $755,473 in 2020-21, $234,421 in 2021-22). Funding for existing households who were