What would it take to end chronic homelessness? Now we know
Posted on January 31, 2025 in Debates
Source: Maytree.com — Authors: Alexi White
Maytree.com – Publications/Opinion
January 29, 2025. Alexi White
A new report on homelessness in Ontario proves what we all knew: The situation is dire. In 2024, an estimated 81,515 Ontarians experienced “known” homelessness, meaning they interacted with a government initiative or program that was able to count them. This number is up 25 per cent in just two years.
Worse still, the number of chronically homeless, which is based on a long spell or long cumulative duration of homelessness, has nearly doubled in the past two years to an estimated 41,512 people. It is this increase in chronic homelessness, more than the overall rate of known homelessness, that indicates our homelessness response systems are overwhelmed and under-resourced.
It’s hard to believe, but until now, Ontario did not have a good estimate of how many people experience homelessness each year or how this has changed over time.
Yes, we’ve had sporadic point-in-time counts that offer a snapshot of homelessness in a specific city or region. We’ve had social assistance data showing more and more recipients are reporting they are homeless each month. We’ve even had government estimates of homelessness obtained by the media, only to see those immediately disputed by that same government without explanation or alternative.
So, what’s changed? We now have administrative data from across Ontario’s 47 municipal service managers that has been aggregated for the first time. Though the provincial government has access to this same data, the report is not theirs. Instead, it was the municipalities and municipal service managers themselves – fed up with the status quo – who came together to shed light on the situation. It wasn’t easy either. The lack of a standardized provincial data approach meant the authors had to deal with data gaps, definitional issues, and other challenges that the provincial government should have cleaned up long ago.
Homelessness is a predictable result of our social and economic structures and systems. It is also an enduring legacy of systemic discrimination and colonization, and a reminder of how governments at all levels have failed for decades to uphold the human right to adequate housing, among others. That is why, for example, Indigenous people make up over 10 per cent of people who are chronically homeless, while only representing 3 per cent of the population.
The report, which was created through a partnership between the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA), and Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association (NOSDA), and produced by Helpseeker, also aggregates what governments are spending on homelessness and affordable housing. In 2024, that number was at least $4.1 billion when considering federal, provincial, and municipal contributions. However, the report also points out that too much of this is going to treat the symptoms of the problem through things like expanding emergency shelters, with not nearly enough devoted to solutions like building deeply affordable units with wraparound supports. Our failure to make these investments means we spend much more in the long run.
Addressing chronic homelessness begins with offering stable, deeply affordable housing. Thanks to evidence in Canada and internationally, we’ve long known that. But it’s difficult to know how much is needed until you know the extent of the challenge. That’s where the new report offers another first: a costed ten-year plan to end chronic homelessness in Ontario. The authors estimate that a new cumulative investment of $11 billion over the next decade, most of it being capital costs for building new units, would create the subsidized housing spaces and system capacity needed to make homelessness in Ontario rare, brief, and non-recurring.
$11 billion over ten years is not unreasonable in the context of the full Ontario budget. Consider that over the next ten years, Ontario’s capital plan will invest $190 billion, including over $27 billion in highways, $67 billion in transit, $50 billion in health infrastructure, and $23 billion in schools and child care.
Token new investments will no longer cut it. The Ontario government is currently spending a little over half of what is needed to end chronic homelessness. It’s time the government stepped up with a real strategy, real targets, and real accountability for ending chronic homelessness in Ontario. Half measures won’t solve anything.
Tags: budget, economy, homelessness, housing
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