Significant Increase in Use of Property Tax Deferral, Decrease in Home and Community Care for Seniors

Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie released an annual report called Monitoring Seniors Services 2018, showing that the number of seniors using property tax deferral increased by 53% in the last 4 years. The last year alone showed an increase by 21%, with 57,305 seniors deferring their property taxes, of which 13,179 were new users of the program.

Though there was a 4% increase in seniors over the age of 65 and 5% increase in those over 85%, there was a 1.4% decrease in the number of seniors receiving home support service. More hours were delivered as the total number of hours delivered remained about the same resulting in a 2% increase in the average hours of care. There may be shift moving assisted living into the private sector, a there is a 2% decrease in publicly subsidized registered assisted living units, but a 7% increase in privately funded registered assisted living units. Long-term care facilities saw a 2% reduction in turnover with an 8% reduction in new admissions with 1,379 people awaiting placement. Waitlists for these facilities as of March 2018 were 7% longer than March 2017, but 23% shorter than September 2016. 

Mackenzie noted, “As always this report highlights there are a significant number of supports for seniors, and while some services increased in tandem with the growing seniors’ population, others are not keeping up with demand.”

See Rattan Mall, Significant Increase in Use of Property Tax Deferral, Decrease in Home and Community Care for Seniors, Voice Online, January 9, 2019.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.