Province-wide homelessness report confirms concerns advocates have had for years

Advocates working to fight homelessness say a report released this week by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) confirms the reality they see on a daily basis, and highlights the challenges they've worked for years to make known to decision makers.

The report released Thursday paints a grim picture of a province that is at "a tipping point in its homelessness crisis." It says, based on data collected from Ontario's 47 municipal service managers, that more than 81,000 Ontarians were homeless in 2024 — a 25 per cent increase from 2022.

Of those, more than 41,000 experienced chronic homelessness.

"Sadly, I'm not surprised," said Terilee Kelford, co-chair of the National Alliance to End Rural and Remote Homelessness.

The AMO report said rural communities have seen the fastest growing levels of homelessness, a reality Kelford knows well, having spent the last 25 years watching the situation evolve.

She said she was glad to see that the AMO report highlighted the lack of shelter space in rural communities, a challenge that's been ongoing for her group.

"At this time, 25 years ago, the reason why we set up [a community coalition to fight homelessness] was because we were putting kids on Greyhound buses and shipping them off to Ottawa or Kingston, because we had no supports or services here," Kelford said.

She also said rural communities typically have higher rates of domestic violence and poverty, and lower rates of education. Hospital emergency room closures, like those plaguing southwestern Ontario towns, also contribute to the precarious situation people experiencing rural homelessness experience, she said.

"Also, when you look at a federal or provincial policy perspective, rural communities are often neglected when it comes to capital programs and financial programs for supports for folks who are homeless," Kelford said.

The importance of policy decisions and who pays the bill was a major focus of the AMO report. It sounded the alarm over "municipalities increasingly bearing a larger share of the overall financial burden" of fighting homelessness.

That section of the report is what stood out to Abe Oudshoorn, an associate professor in the School of Nursing at Western University in London, Ont. He points out that the province, according to the report, isn't shoulder its share of the costs. 

"We see that the federal contribution increases by 10 times [since 2016]. We see that the municipal contribution increases by about four times, and then we see the provincial contribution only increases by about 2.5 times," said Oudshoorn, whose research focuses on homelessness, service model outcomes and policy decisions.

Of the $4.1 billion spent by all three levels of government in Ontario to that end in 2024, municipal governments shelled out $501 million for homelessness programs, where the province spent $700 million.  At the same time, the province spent $319 million on projects to build housing, which was dwarfed by the $1.6 billion municipalities spent.

"With the province actually being primarily responsible for housing, having them do the least in terms of responding with the finances, I think, is a pretty telling statement," Oudshoorn said.