Homelessness in northern Ontario has grown 4 times faster than in rest of province: AMO report

Homelessness in northern Ontario has grown four times faster than in non-northern communities in the last eight years, and new research suggests the region's rates could more than quadruple over the next decade.

The numbers come from a report released on Thursday by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, in partnership with the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association and the Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association.

Known homelessness in northern Ontario has grown from 1,771 people in 2016 to 5,377 people in 2024, it says.

"By 2035, projections estimate that known homelessness in the north could climb to between 10,674 and 26,633 people, depending on economic conditions.

"These figures highlight northern communities' acute vulnerabilities, which are driven by geographic isolation, limited infrastructure, and systemic inequities," the report says.

"We knew it was there, but we didn't think it goes to that extent," said Fern Dominelli, executive director of the Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association. 

"That's really scary. For northern Ontario, first of all, we have a lack of services for homeless people in the north, lack of shelters … so it's a real concern for us."

AMO, which represents Ontario's 444 municipalities, is calling for a new approach to the crisis, and has cost out an $11-billion investment over a decade to create more than 75,000 affordable and supportive housing units.

"As well, we'd need to focus on prevention, which [helps] people from becoming chronically homeless in the first place with things like rental supplements and more case management intervention," Lindsay Jones, director of policy at AMO, told CBC's Up North.

"What we were really hoping for in doing this report is to help our provincial government to feel the same sense of urgency and priority that municipal governments feel when they think about this crisis."

The report comes on the heels of the provincial government introducing legislation that would allow municipalities to dismantle homeless encampments.

Indigenous people make up about 45 per cent of those experiencing chronic homelessness in northern Ontario, AMO's report says.

Meanwhile, about 78 per cent of the unhoused population in Thunder Bay is Indigenous, according to the city's most recent point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness.

"I think that speaks to the rural and regional disparities as well as just the ongoing displacement of Indigenous people from their communities [who] are coming to other communities and experiencing homelessness here due to racism and systemic failures," said Lindsay Martin, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Northwestern Ontario.