Mayors campaign for Ontario to tackle homelessness, drug crisis

A broad coalition led by Ontario mayors is calling on the provincial and federal governments to devote more resources to tackling a surge in homelessness and addictions in communities across the province.

"Ontario municipalities are struggling. We are struggling with an issue that we can't solve on our own," Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said at a news conference Thursday. Ward is chair of Ontario's Big City Mayors (OBCM), a group that represents 29 of the province's largest municipalities.

"What is happening on our streets across this province is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. There are too many people unhoused, living in encampments or other unsafe conditions," she told reporters at Queen's Park.

The big city mayors have launched a public campaign to put pressure on higher levels of government to provide increased and consistent funding to municipalities for supportive housing, harm reduction programs, crisis centres and mental health supports.

"Both levels of government have answered the call with some funding for programs over the last year. But it's not consistent or enough, it's piecemeal. Taking on the homelessness crisis takes a whole-of-government approach that spans multiple ministries and multiple levels of government," Meed Ward said.

"It affects our residents, our businesses and our local governments need solutions now."

The campaign, called "Solve the Crisis," is supported by a wide range of groups including the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP).

The coalition has five specific demands. Chief among them is for the province to appoint a single minister and ministry with appropriate funding and powers to act as a point of contact to address the full spectrum of housing, addictions and mental health needs in municipalities.

That effort is currently spread across roughly 16 provincial ministries, making it nearly impossible to co-ordinate a holistic response to deeply complex problems, Meed Ward said.

LISTEN | CBC's Frontburner on the drug harm reduction backlash: 

Front Burner23:09The drug harm reduction backlash

Vincent Lam is a Canadian addictions doctor and award-winning author who's written a couple of op-eds in the Globe and Mail on the opioid crisis in recent months, and his most recent novel, On The Ravine, is about the subject.  Over 44 thousand people in Canada have died since 2016. Some see safer supply, or the prescription of pharmaceutical-grade opioids to drug users, and supervised consumption sites as crucial parts of curbing this crisis.  Lam talks to host Jayme Poisson about the backlash to those measures, and what he thinks is missing from the conversation about it. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts]

Crises outpacing solutions

In the last several years, OBCM and affiliated groups have met with ministers and ministry representatives, including Health Minister Sylvia Jones, to discuss their roadmap for addressing the various crises unfolding in their communities. Meed Ward said there has been some progress, and additional funding for specific initiatives.

"But it is not sufficient to address the current crisis. The issue is growing faster than the solutions being deployed to meet it," she said.

The group's other demands include: 

• Have the minister strike a task force with broad representation to develop and implement a "made in Ontario" action plan.
• Commit predictable funding to communities to address gaps in the current system.
• Give municipalities the tools and resources to transition those living in encampments to supportive housing.
• Invest in 24/7 crisis centres and community hubs to relieve pressure on hospital emergency departments and first responders.

According to AMO president Colin Best, there are about 1,400 encampments in communities across Ontario, which he called a "symptom of deeper system failures that hurt Ontario's social and economic prosperity."

Province highlights investments, blames federal government

In an email statement, a spokesperson for Housing Minister Paul Calandra said the province takes housing affordability seriously and blamed the federal government's policies for "escalating" the number of people experiencing homelessness.

Press secretary Bianca Meta said the province has provided over $240 million to Toronto and Ottawa for shelter and homelessness support, along with a $700 million annual investment in homelessness prevention.

On the toxic drug crisis, Meta said "the recent disastrous examples of British Columbia and other jurisdictions" has shown decriminalization does not work.

"Instead, it encourages dangerous behaviour in public spaces, victimizes innocent people and undermines law enforcement's ability to protect our communities," Meta wrote.

She said the province allocated $396 million investment in this year's budget for mental health and addiction services over three years.

Issues years in the making, mental health group says

Speaking at Thursday's news conference, Best said successive governments have failed to invest in the resources necessary to effectively combat homelessness. Long-term underinvestment has coincided with an increasingly toxic illicit drug supply and the ongoing opioid crisis.

"Local parks becoming homeless encampments and increasing numbers of opioid-related deaths across the province are not the best we can do for Ontario. In a place as prosperous as Ontario, we can solve big problems," Best said.

"It's time for provincial and federal governments to take a leadership role in finding the right solutions."

Camille Quenneville, chief executive of the Ontario division of the CMHA, said Ontario would need an additional 100,000 supportive housing units to manage the existing waitlist.

In 2015, the CMHA lobbied the previous Liberal government to invest $30 million annually to build about 3,000 units each year. 

"Had that been met in 2015, we likely wouldn't be here today and we wouldn't be having these conversations," she told reporters.

Quenneville added she'd like to see immediate and significantly boosted funding for crisis centres in communities across the province.

"We have the solutions and we have the data to know they work," she said.