Ontario spending on homelessness 'stagnate' while problem worsens, new report says
All parties pitch plans to build housing, shelter supports
A new report on homelessness across Ontario says the problem is getting worse while spending to address it has "stagnated," as the province's political parties offer differing solutions on the campaign trail.
The new data comes from the Maytree, a foundation committed to reducing poverty, which looked at publicly available spending figures on homelessness and contrasted them with recently released reports on the growing number of people experiencing homelessness in Ontario.
Government spending on low income housing and homelessness has remained largely unchanged over the last decade, even when adjusted for inflation, said Alexi White, Maytree's director of systems change.
"Spending has stagnated in real dollars," White said. "We really aren't spending any more than we were 10 years ago on housing and homelessness … We need a real plan, a real investment, a real time horizon, and a real goal that says we're going to solve this thing."
The report says that when adjusted for inflation, spending was around $1.3 billion in 2013-2014 and is estimated to come in under $1.5 billion in 2024-2025. The notable exception was spending during the first year of the pandemic, which shot up to over $2 billion in 2020-2021.
White says Maytree crunched the numbers during the provincial election in hopes of generating more debate over the worsening problem. Whoever forms the next provincial government must spend $11 billion over the next decade to dramatically increase the number of supportive and deeply affordable housing units, he said.
"More and more people are not only homeless, but are staying homeless for long periods of time," White said. "And that's really the canary in the coal mine (suggesting) that things are going to get a lot worse, really quickly."
81,000 Ontarians homeless in 2024: report
Maytree says its report was compiled using the province's own financial data, analysis by Ontario's fiscal watchdog the Financial Accountability Office and a recent report on homelessness released by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). That AMO study found that more than 81,000 people in Ontario were homeless last year, a number that's up 25 per cent over two years.
AMO, which represents 444 municipalities across the province, declined to comment on the issue during the election period, but last month said a different approach is needed to tackle the crisis, prioritizing housing solutions over temporary measures.
"We are at a real tipping point," said Robin Jones, AMO president and the mayor of Westport, north of Kingston. "Without concrete action it is only going to get worse."
White says the majority of the $11 billion needed over the next decade should be used to build affordable and supportive housing. The province shouldn't depend on the private sector to build market homes, hoping that it will free up space for more affordable housing, he said.
"The government should get back in the game of specifically funding the building of non-market housing," he said.
Parties pitch spending on housing, emergency shelters
Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party says it will spent $3 billion over the next three years on affordable housing, anti-homelessness and emergency shelter supports. PC Leader Doug Ford has defended his government's record on the issue, including a $44 million announcement in December aimed at clearing encampments and bolstering enforcement in community park spaces.
"I've got to keep telling you, there's never been more of an investment in homeless folks than what we've invested," Ford said at his campaign launch in early February.
All of the opposition parties have been critical of Ford's plan to crack down on encampments, accusing him of criminalizing homelessness and having no plan to provide addictions treatment.
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has spoken often during the campaign of her own father, who experienced homelessness and died in a Toronto shelter. The party has not yet said what it would spend to address the issue, but has committed to building more housing and enhancing addictions services.
"It has to be affordable housing and it needs to be supportive housing for those individuals who are living on the streets, some of them facing some vast mental health challenges, some addiction issues," Crombie said during a campaign stop in Hamilton.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles announced a platform plank aimed at solving chronic homelessness. The party says it will build 60,000 new supportive housing units, upload all shelter costs from municipalities to the province, and provide more housing benefits that help people move out of shelters and into homes.
"Homelessness is about housing," she said. "So we need not only shelters in the immediate, but we actually need deeply affordable, permanently affordable solutions."
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner has promised to build 310,000 affordable homes, including 60,000 permanent supportive homes. The party says that will cost taxpayers $2.75 billion over four years.
"We will address the deep unfairness in this province that over 81,000 people are experiencing homelessness by having government get back into building affordable and deeply affordable nonprofit cooperative supportive housing," Schreiner said at a campaign stop.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
