|
On September 10th, Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office released a new report looking at how the province is responding to our growing homelessness crisis. What it found was concerning.
According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario nearly 85,000 people across Ontario are experiencing homelessness today, and that number continues to grow. Despite the scale of the crisis, the FAO report shows that much of the province’s spending is focused on responding to homelessness after someone has already lost their housing, rather than helping people stay housed or find a permanent place to live. It also determined that the funding is not expected to grow in order to meet the growing demand.
Almost half of provincial homelessness funding is being spent on services for people who are already homeless, including emergency shelters. Meanwhile, just 15.6 per cent is going toward housing and other assistance that helps people actually exit homelessness. And a mere 10.3 per cent on keeping people housed in the first place.
Of course we need shelters. When someone has nowhere else to go, they need a safe place to sleep.
But shelters are an emergency response. They are not housing, and they cannot and should not be the foundation of our response to homelessness.
When we allow someone to lose their housing and spend months or years in the shelter system, their needs can become more complex. Someone who may have once only needed a rent supplement to stay in their apartment can eventually need supportive housing with mental health and addictions services, or rely more heavily on hospitals and other emergency services just to get by.
All of those interventions cost significantly more than helping someone stay housed in the first place. Even supportive housing, which provides people with a permanent home alongside the services they need, costs far less than relying on shelters, hospitals and other crisis services.
That is why investing early matters.
It means investing in housing allowances that can keep people housed before they ever reach a shelter. It means protecting and expanding the affordable housing we already have. And it means making sure the wrap around supports in housing are there for people who need it.
Instead, we are spending more and more money responding to the crisis after people have already lost their housing, while homelessness continues to grow.
This is not just more expensive. It is failing the people who need our help.
We will always need emergency services for people in crisis. But we cannot keep putting a bandage over the problem and expect it to heal.
Homelessness will continue to grow as long as Ontario keeps investing in crisis response instead of housing. We need to stop managing the consequences and start investing in the solution.
|
