Big‑city mayors sound alarm as Ontario homelessness rises
Ontario’s big‑city mayors are warning of a worsening homelessness crisis as new data from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario shows 85,000 people were unhoused in 2025 – a number nearly 50 per cent higher than in 2021. Photo: Adobe Stock
New data from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) shows that 85,000 Ontarians were homeless in 2025, an eight per cent increase from the previous year, when the original report on the housing crisis was released.
AMO’s 2025 report – Municipalities Under Pressure: The Human and Financial Cost of Ontario’s Homelessness Crisis – was startling to many people. But the new number is even more striking, representing a nearly 50 per cent increase in homelessness since 2021.
Homelessness is rising fastest in rural and northern communities. Rural areas saw an increase of more than 30 per cent last year, while Northern Ontario experienced growth of over 37 per cent.
For Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, who is also chair of the Ontario Big City Mayors (OBCM) Caucus, the latest data reinforces that municipalities were right to sound the alarm about homelessness.
“It was, and is, predictable, but it is still heartbreaking. The fact that it’s going in the wrong direction is the message here,” Meed Ward said. “We’ve been warning about this for years – as have others – that if immediate action, aggressive action, isn’t taken, then not only the problem we have now won’t improve, it’ll get worse. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing here.”
Federal, Provincial Support
In presenting its updated statistics, AMO said it continues to support the recommendations it made in 2025, including investing an additional $11 billion over 10 years to expand supportive, transitional, and community housing and strengthening prevention programs – an approach it says could end chronic homelessness in Ontario. It also estimates that a further $2 billion over eight years is needed to address homeless encampments.
AMO is also calling for the continuation of the National Housing Strategy and improved government co-ordination to ensure programs deliver the strongest possible outcomes.
Meed Ward stressed the need for federal involvement, alongside the province, as municipalities are already doing their part. That’s “a real key,” Meed Ward said, as municipalities aren’t simply asking Ottawa and Queen’s Park for funding.
Municipalities have already invested significantly, including (using Burlington as an example) purchasing hotels for emergency shelter and developing supportive housing projects.
According to Meed Ward, providing appropriate housing costs approximately one-tenth as much as managing homelessness through hospital emergency rooms and jail cells.
“We can’t do it alone. We’re doing our part. We need you to help from a policy and from a funding standpoint,” Meed Ward said. “We know we have gotten the province’s attention, other voices and AMO being a key one, because they (the province) have invested in HART (homelessness and addiction recovery treatment) Hubs and that’s housing with wraparound supports. We need more of them, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
Challenges of Escalating Costs
Meed Ward said it almost seems quaint to say that the solution to homelessness is to build housing – but it is.
The crisis extends beyond the unemployed, with Meed Ward pointing out that she knows of employed individuals in Burlington who have lived rough or pitched tents at provincial parks while working. Unfortunately, the cost of living creates challenges for too many people today.
Government building code policies that classify tiny homes as seasonal dwellings also obstruct year-round housing solutions. Meed Ward said policy changes to increase both Ontario Disability Support and Ontario Works are necessary, as these programs have not kept pace with housing costs and living expenses.
What more can municipalities do collectively? In Halton Region (which includes Burlington), an old motel was purchased to provide emergency transitional housing. The region also has agreements with local motels so that anyone living on the street can be placed in a hotel temporarily until the appropriate next steps move them into more permanent accommodation.
But the challenge is, according to some recent numbers in Halton, those efforts are operating at 140 per cent capacity.
“So, we’re doing 100 per cent of our part, plus another 40 per cent on top of that. And that’s just for the emergency shelter piece – the housing piece. And our wait lists are growing,” Meed Ward said. “The wait lists are indicative of that disconnect between income and housing. And the private sector cannot do this either on their own. The development industry right now, they can’t do it at all. There are policy changes and there are funding changes that are absolutely necessary.”
Member Municipality Communication
Municipalities have led successful initiatives in places like Kingston and London, acting as brokers to bring non-profits and federal and provincial partners together. Through this work, Meed Ward said, local governments have learned how to collaborate and are sharing their experiences to develop better solutions.
Some of those solutions are encapsulated through OBCM’s Solve the Crisis project. Meed Ward points to the HART Hub model that the province initiated as being initially based on successful models brought forward by OBCM member municipalities.
Sharing information is key for municipalities, Meed Ward said. When the caucus gets together, they share information and learn from each other.
And there’s policy moments in there, as well. One of the members, Meed Ward said, declared a state of emergency in their community. Because this community was in a two-tier situation, the declaration allowed for the social services they needed, which sat at the different orders of government, to be unlocked. This allowed the municipality to get access to the services they need quickly to address the local encampment situation and provide people with more appropriate accommodation.
State of Emergency Call
That individual declaration was reflected in OBCM’s wider call last December for the province to declare a state of emergency to address homelessness across the province.
Declaring a state of emergency focuses attention on homelessness as a solvable crisis rather than a chronic condition, Meed Ward said. It emphasizes that redirecting financial investment from reactive to proactive approaches could achieve better results at equivalent cost.
Meed Ward said that call was “extremely important” for several reasons.
But first, it underscores that homelessness is an emergency – and a solvable one. The word emergency, Meed Ward said, suggests that a given situation is temporary. Well, she said, it could be temporary if municipalities were given the resources and the attention needed to solve it.
“It doesn’t need to be chronic. It doesn’t need to be multi-decades in the making, which it has been, over successive governments of all political stripes,” Meed Ward said. “This is not partisan. This is not a shot at this particular government. Declaring a state of emergency really calls attention to the fact that these are people, some of them with jobs, who simply cannot afford to have appropriate housing. We have a role as governments and communities to look after everyone in our community.”
Compassion Drives Solutions
Meed Ward said the notion that politicians don’t care about homelessness doesn’t reflect the reality she sees every day among Ontario’s big‑city mayors – or in her own community.
Despite a common refrain that politicians don’t care about their constituents, Meed Ward said, in her experience, residents rarely accuse local leaders of apathy. Instead, they want to know what concrete steps are being taken.
People don’t want a constitutional debate about which order of government is responsible, they just want to know what their council is doing to address the problem.
That said, the emotional toll of the crisis is unmistakable. “It’s heartbreaking,” Meed Ward said, adding that the growing number of people living without shelter is “a gut punch,” especially in a country capable of supporting its most vulnerable if investments shift toward prevention rather than crisis response.
Meed Ward said homelessness wasn’t even “a major conversation” in her previous term as mayor. But now, homelessness is visible everywhere. And the public, she said, are saying they want their local politicians to solve it.
“At the end of the day, what will solve this is the willpower to solve it,” Meed Ward said. “We’re doing our part, and we’re not going to stop.” MW
✯ Municipal World Executive and Essentials Plus Members: You might also be interested in Janet-Lynne Durnford’s article: Community resilience in a housing crisis.
Sean Meyer is digital content editor for Municipal World.
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