2 opposition MPPs have created a plan to solve Ontario's homelessness crisis in 10 years. Could it work?
Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy and Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Lee Fairclough are co-sponsoring a private member's bill that they say creates a housing-first plan. Experts CBC News spoke to say while not perfect, if passed, the bill would take important steps to really addressing the homelessness crisis being felt in municipalities across Ontario.
Bill 28, Homelessness Ends with Housing Act includes the creation of a portable housing benefit, setting up an advisory committee of people with expertise and collecting data on supportive housing to make sure the province is meeting its targets.
"Every Ontarian deserves a stable, safe, affordable place to live, and this new legislation offers a solution and a clear path rooted in evidence, compassion and a commitment to housing as a human right," Clancy said in a news conference on Tuesday.
Fairclough says the causes of homelessness need to be addressed to find real solutions.
"We have the data, we have the road maps and as this bill references, housing first is a proven policy to end chronic homelessness," Fairclough said.
Kelly Welch, who is from Waterloo region and has been precariously housed, said at times she only had $20 in her pocket. That meant she had to find ways to navigate the system on her own and she feels like that experience could be invaluable to the government.
"I support this bill and sharing that lived experience because we do come up with solutions," she said at the news conference.
"I would like to lift up the lived experience of others and to share those because everyone deserves a home and having safe, secure housing was that first step to building my life."
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Growing number of people experiencing homelessness
A report released by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in January 2025 said more than 80,000 Ontarians were known to be homeless in 2024, a 25 per cent increase over 2022.
"Ontario is at a tipping point in its homelessness crisis," the report warned, noting without "significant intervention" the number of people who are homeless in the province could triple by 2035.
It noted 25 per cent of those experiencing homelessness were children and youth, while Indigenous people were disproportionately affected, with 45 per cent of people experiencing chronic homelessness in northern communities identifying as Indigenous.
"In northern Ontario, known homelessness has risen by an estimated 204 per cent since 2016, growing from 1,771 people to 5,377 people in 2024," the report said.
Meanwhile, Ontario's cities have reported an increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers who need help to find stable housing.
"The growing pressures of Ontario's homelessness crisis are felt most acutely at the local level. Municipal governments are tasked with responding to immediate needs while trying to deal with infrastructure gaps that limit their ability to address long-term solutions," the report said.
"Communities are deeply affected, with individuals and families enduring the trauma of homelessness and neighbourhoods saying that long-term homelessness and people living outdoors are unacceptable, demanding urgent action from governments."
Housing first works: Expert
The concept of "housing first" is a major part of the private member's bill from Clancy and Fairclough and it means people should be given housing as a first step to helping them with other issues.
Carolyn Whitzman, an adjunct professor and senior housing researcher at the University of Toronto, says she says it's always great when politicians understand that providing housing "is the only proven way to end homelessness."
"I would hope that this understanding transcends politics, because it will take a generation to end homelessness and co-ordinated action from all levels of government, most of all provinces," she told CBC News in an email.
She pointed to Finland, which has implemented a housing-first approach and aims to end homelessness completely by 2027.
Maritt Kirst is an associate professor in the community psychology program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and also the co-director of the Centre for Community Research, Learning, and Action and the director of Community Mental Health Research Interest Group.
She says she commended the MPPs for including the housing-first approach into their bill.
"While the largest research trial of housing first was conducted in Canada in 2008 to 2013 — the At Home/Chez Soi Project — and contributed significant amounts of evidence on the success of the housing-first program, Canada lags behind in implementing this approach compared to other countries," she said in an email.
Kirst said another important part of the private member's bill is developing an advisory committee of people with lived experience.
"It is critical to include the voices of people with lived experience in the development of any policy initiative in order to accurately reflect the needs of the population and what works for them," Kirst said.
"The enactment of a bill such as this would support a much needed shift away from governments' heavy reliance on Band-Aid solutions like emergency shelters and approaches that criminalize people experiencing homelessness, towards effective solutions to end homelessness in Ontario."
Kaite Burkholder Harris, the executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa and co-chair of the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness, says she also appreciates the focus on housing first and it is a reachable goal.
"If we were to properly resource and actually build boatloads of non-profit housing, I think that we could see it seriously change in a relatively short period of time," she said in an interview.
She said the current path the province is on will not solve the homelessness crisis in the next decade. Burkholder Harris says with Bill 6 — the Safer Municipalities Act which is currently in the committee stage and which would create harsher penalties if someone were caught using drugs or alcohol in a tent and for trespassing infractions — the province is "criminalizing the experience of being homeless."
Burkholder Harris says there's also a misconception everyone who is homeless has complex needs but she says some people simply just need a place to live.
"Some people who are very unwell, they do need a certain type of housing," she said.
"Many people are waking up and going to work in the morning … and they have a minimum wage job and they can't afford rent," she said, noting if someone falls behind in their rent and gets evicted, it can take time for them to save up again to afford first and last month rent in their area.
"But those folks, if they get stuck in being homeless, they are going to develop more complex needs," she said.
Data collection needed to develop a strategy
Dawn Parker is a professor in the school of planning at the University of Waterloo and says her first impression of the private member's bill is that would take an important step in gathering much needed data about what is happening in the province.
"Politically, this is not a strategy to end homelessness. I don't think a real strategy to end homelessness has any chance of passing the legislature at this point during this government," Parker said.
"What really this bill proposes is to start tracking, seriously start tracking data, on homelessness and housing for those who've been homeless or who fall back into homelessness. Beyond that, it asks the province to develop a strategy."
Parker says the Green party and NDP in Ontario and nationally have put forward practical solutions to tackle different aspects of housing and why it's become unaffordable, including building non-profit housing on public lands, implementing vacant home taxes and using inclusionary zoning, which require private developers to include a certain percentage of affordable units within new, multi-unit housing developments.
None of the advice is new, she says, noting she started talking to media about missing middle housing nearly a decade ago.
"Housing experts have been saying the same things over and over and over and over again for years on end," Parker said. "We keep giving the same advice. It's up to the province when and how they take up that advice."
Parker says she hopes the current Ontario government really considers what is in the Liberal-Green private member's bill because really, what it's recommending is getting more information to make better decisions.
"This is a quite benign bill that mainly calls for consistent reporting and data tracking. I would hope that it could pass," she said.
"If it doesn't happen, why not? Why is there a fear of information? We should all value and support efforts to bring data and daylight to the problems that we face, so we're all talking from the same information and about the same things."
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