Rent Assistance Policy for Residents of Retirement Villages

Abstract

Objectives: To assess whether policies on rent assistance for retirement village residents are targeting help towards those who need it, and to provide an information base for future policy decisions on eligibility for assistance. Method: A telephone survey of managers of a national sample of 52 retirement villages and a postal survey of residents in 49 of these villages. Results: The findings did not support the policy rationale that higher entry contributions were correlated with lower ongoing charges. Just over 40 per cent of residents of self-care housing and two-thirds of those in serviced apartments had paid entry contributions low enough for eligibility for rent assistance with their ongoing housing charges. Many of these were not, however, receiving assistance, mainly because their charges were below the minimum rent threshold. The distribution of reported levels of non-housing assets tended overall to match the varying levels of entry contributions, but half of those paying relatively high entry contributions still had low levels of both assets and income. Conclusions: It appears that targeting remains reasonably accurate for the majority of residents, but there is a potential boundary problem created by the eligibility and minimum rent thresholds. Thus a minority of residents may be disadvantaged compared with others in similar financial circumstances.