“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

What Doug Ford’s government gets wrong about Ontario’s homelessness crisis — and why it’s a problem

When Ontario’s new deputy housing minister assumed the role this summer, he was given an internal document briefing him on the housing crisis. That document included a staggering figure the government now concedes is false — an “unofficial” estimate that nearly a quarter of a million Ontarians are homeless.

The 234,000-person “unofficial” estimate is repeated twice in the footnotes of the transition documents prepared for MPP Vijay Thanigasalam in June. First reported by the Trillium, it’s a figure that bewildered experts — if true, it would suggest more than 95 per cent of Ontario’s homeless population is either living outside Toronto or off the radar, as the city’s own count in June sat at 10,627 people.

When local councillors and mayors descend on Ottawa next week for an annual municipal lobbying event, homelessness and growing social problems in Ontario’s towns and cities will be top of mind.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa — set to run from Aug. 18-21 — is an annual opportunity for local leaders to bend the ear of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s most senior ministers.

Pressure in recent weeks has grown from Ontario municipalities telling Queen’s Park the current system isn’t working, demanding a so-called new deal for property taxpayers and a top-to-bottom review of social and economic prosperity.

Hamilton is studying ways to provide sanctioned outdoor housing in the Southern Ontario city to alleviate a worsening homeless crisis that has surpassed the capacity of its shelter system, potentially through legal encampments or by building small cabins or tiny homes.

The city created a protocol last year allowing encampments of limited size on public property, with a rule of five tents per encampment and a minimum distance from places such as highways, schools and daycares, as well as any private property. But Mayor Andrea Horwath said she wants the city to go further.

I question the implied success rate of transitions from “Tiny Homes” to regular housing given the rental rate crisis in Canada and the shortage of public housing.

“Housing First” has not been the hoped for success in the US it was hoped to be.

A drug addict is still an addict whether in a tent or tiny home.

It is a sight sadly all too familiar for bleary-eyed New Yorkers braving their morning commute.

Homeless drug addicts lie strewn across subway staircases and platforms, many barely conscious from their breakfast hits.

But it is also one that New York Mayor Eric Adams promised to be rid of as part of a drive to clean up the city’s filthy subways two years ago.

I dunno seems pretty Toronto.

As rent prices have risen in Toronto, instances of tenants withholding rent in protest have become more common.

It’s called a “rent strike” and it is a practice that has gained widespread attention in the city in recent years, as the cost of a one-bedroom apartment surged to nearly $2.500.

In some cases, tenants use rent strikes to bring attention to poor conditions in their buildings. But for most, it’s a tool used to protest larger rent increases.

A neighborhood in Portland has spiraled into chaos as the locals clash with those living in a homeless encampment.

Residents in the city’s southeast say the area has become like a ‘war zone’ as tensions continue to rise between locals and the homeless who have lined the streets with tarps and tents.

Lacey, a woman living in the encampment, told KGW8 that someone hit her dog with a car, leaving him with a broken leg and an open gash.

The leaders of Ontario’s largest cities are calling on the provincial government to appoint a cabinet minister to manage a provincewide response to a growing trend of homelessness and a number of encampments they say have reached crisis levels.

Launching a new campaign at Queen’s Park on Thursday, Ontario’s Big City Mayors said local governments were at a breaking point trying to tackle homelessness, opioid addiction and a series of tent encampments that have appeared and stayed in the heart of the province’s towns and cities.

Rents are still rising in Canada but the year-over-year pace of growth has slowed, according to a new report.

The data from Rentals.ca and Urbanation says asking rents for all residential property types averaged $2,201 in July, up 5.9 per cent from last year.

The year-over-year increase is the slowest rise since early 2022, while more recently, growth has often topped 10 per cent, the report said.