Homelessness in rural and northern parts of Ontario is surging and growing faster than any other part of the province, with fewer resources to address the crisis, according to a new report.
The report released Tuesday by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which represents 444 communities, found that homelessness continues to increase across the province but is particularly acute in northern and rural regions and among Indigenous people.
Patrick Couperthwait was hunkered down inside a makeshift shelter made of tarps, plywood and metal scraps, waiting for outreach workers to come back.
It was freezing cold this early December day, with temperatures dipping below -10 C the night before. His bare fingers were red and cracked, but Couperthwait couldn’t risk leaving to warm up indoors. He needed to stay here — on a roadside patch of grass near Riverdale Park where he’s camped for two years — because outreach workers told him yesterday there might be housing for him. As midday hit, Couperthwait was getting nervous.
The Islamo-Chow Regime does not want to solve the “Homeless crisis” as it raises money funneled to their socialist scams.
“Housing first” is a failed policy that assumes a hard core drug addict or the mentally ill will be able to maintain a residence.
Life doesn’t work that way. I am curious to see if Saskatchewan’s mandatory treatment policy is a success.
Maggie Hildebrand’s first apartment in Toronto had a kitchen, a dining table, a workspace and a bed – all in the same 300-sq-ft room.
It was a decent home at first, close enough to her job downtown and with all the bare necessities for daily living.
But it didn’t take long for the 28-year-old to feel boxed-in. “It was so isolating in that tiny space,” she told the BBC. “It definitely feels like it’s just somewhere to put worker bees during the night.”
Oslo’s Deichman Bjørvika differs from downtown libraries in America by its near-total absence of homelessness.
Deichman Bjørvika, the main library in Oslo, occupies a prominent site next to the opera house and the Munch Museum. Whereas many American downtown libraries favor classical design, Oslo’s is strikingly postmodern, its asymmetrical layout featuring almost no right angles. Inside, the building blends Brutalist monumentality—massive, exposed concrete slabs—with an airiness created by natural light and a soaring central atrium. The collection of more than 450,000 volumes is excellent by my preferred standard: a wealth of older, rebound books that likely haven’t circulated in years. It’s ideal for browsing. The library organizes most of its books and private study spaces around three multistory columns rising through its center, ensuring functionality while preserving unobstructed views of the Oslo Fjord.
In just one month, Food Banks Canada reported nearly 2.2 million visits across the country, which they say is the highest number recorded in history.
This data was recorded from March this year, doubling the monthly usage of food banks in Canada six years earlier.
This troubling number makes you wonder — why the huge spike?
(Incognito)
Canadians spend between 35 and 50 per cent of their monthly income on housing and utilities, according to the government of Canada. For many, keeping up with the bills is not easy.
Ali Jafri’s rent is due on Monday, and he’s not sure he will be able to pay it.
“(The) 15th of the month is just a few days away and I am in a difficult spot right now,” the Toronto father told CTV News. Jafri has a job, a child and lives in a tight-knit community in downtown Toronto, but with the cost of living stubbornly high, he says he’s being squeezed.
Ali is part of the problem but our media love to add insult to injury.
Canadian real estate prices in several major urban centres have declined considerably since 2022, when they soared to record highs during the pandemic. As home prices continue falling in major markets across the country, the question now is whether–or when—the bidding-war era of rising home prices will return.
Average home prices in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are down over 20 percent since 2022, and down around 11 percent below the 2022 peak in the Greater Vancouver Area. Meanwhile, forced sales have risen sharply in Ontario in the last six months. Some experts say it could be the early 2030s before the 2022 peaks are seen again.
Menace, addiction and human despair have overwhelmed small towns and cities. Some say it’s getting worse. Some just want to leave.
ST. CATHARINES, Ont. — Gigi and Nick are stoking a fire on the right bank of Twelve Mile Creek. It is the sunset hour in St. Catharines, Ont., but the atmosphere is damp and heavy from a November morning rain.
There is not another soul in sight, down here in the riverside parklands below a street called Gale Crescent, a few blocks east of downtown. For kindling, Gigi has scavenged an armful of twigs from the municipal shrubbery. She stacks it inside a makeshift hearth of flagstones and tries to get it to catch, but the twigs are wet and will not accept the flame from Nick’s pocket lighter.
TORONTO – The mayors of Ontario’s 29 largest cities are calling on the province to declare a state of emergency as municipalities deal with what they call a “community safety and humanitarian crisis” created by homelessness, mental health and addiction.
Ontario Big City Mayors urged the province to provide more funding and engage more actively with cities and other stakeholders in a motion passed unanimously on Friday.
The mayors caucus says municipalities covered more than 50 per cent of the $4.1 billion spent on homelessness and housing programs in 2024.
Even if we double home building, buying a house is expected to become less affordable for nearly half the country
The federal government wants to build 480,000 homes a year over the next decade to restore housing affordability to pre-pandemic levels. That’s double our normal rate and a pace not seen since the Second World War.
They’ve put some money and resources behind the effort: Along with the new federal agency Build Canada Homes, Budget 2025 included other measures to ramp up activity, such as a fund only accessible to provinces that lower construction-related taxes.
The dream of home ownership is alive, but not well. According to a recent Abacus poll, nearly nine in 10 young Canadians, those aged 18 to 29, aspire to own a home – but a similar share worry about the current state of housing in Canada.
Of course, those worries are justified. According to our new study, in 2023 (the latest year of comparable data), typical homes on the market were unaffordable for families earning the local median income in every major Canadian city. It’s not just Vancouver and Toronto – housing affordability has eroded nationwide.
I trust our Corporate Titans to lead us out of this morass. Therefore the answer must include importing additional cheap foreign labour in their millions.
Spending on housing programs will decline by more than half over the next four years with the federal government’s $13-billion signature housing initiative leading to the construction of just 26,000 new homes, a new parliamentary budget officer (PBO) report says.
The budget watchdog’s report specifically looks at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new housing agency, Build Canada Homes, and how it and other programs will contribute to the construction of new homes between now and 2029-30.
The report concludes that the $9.8 billion the federal government is spending on housing initiatives in 2025-26 will decline to just $4.3 billion annually by 2028-29, a drop of 56 per cent.
h/t Mauser
Ontarians continue to be using food banks at a record-breaking rate, with a new report warning the number of users grew for the ninth straight year as some families are “barely holding on.”
“What we’re seeing is really a greater depth of need in with the affordability crisis,” said Carolyn Stewart, CEO of Feed Ontario which released the report. “It’s really pushing more families from really that just getting-by area to barely holding on.”
We are being asked to support our replacement. Much pushback in the comments here.
What is rarely revealed is the number of “migrants” , “foreign students”, “TFW’s” etc… who use the foodbanks.
h/t Patti Jo
Andrea Griffith thought an annual income of $200,000 would be enough.
Enough to stay in Toronto, enough to buy a modest home and enough to build a stable life with her partner and new young daughter.
Only one problem — it wasn’t.
Unspoken is the White Flight from Toronto’s vibrant diversity.
House prices in Toronto are declining. But the city’s affordability crisis is far from over — and government policies will likely make it worse.
While most Torontonians know there’s a crisis, the numbers make it clear. According to our new study, in 2023 (the latest year of available data), a family earning the city’s median after-tax income ($60,510) had to save $216,240 (the equivalent of 42.9 months of its after-tax income) for a 20% down payment on a typical home of any type (single-detached, semi-detached, condominium). But even if that family could somehow clear this monumental hurdle, it then had to dedicate 110.2% of its after-tax income for monthly mortgage payments ($5,557) — a financial impossibility, unless the family can share housing costs (e.g. live-in tenants) or rely on financial support from elsewhere.
