E-Blast: It’s Time to Build Real Solutions to Homelessness

Let me ask you something. If you lost your housing today, no warning, just evicted, could you come up with $5,000 on the spot? That’s roughly what you’d need for first and last month’s rent, plus a key fob deposit, just to get into a basic market rental in Toronto.

Most Torontonians don’t have that kind of money sitting in their account. That’s how close many of us really are to falling into homelessness. One lost job, one unexpected crisis, and you're out of options.

We like to think it’s something that only happens to other people, but the truth is, many of us are closer to that possibility than we care to admit.

Why is homelessness rising while cranes fill the skyline?

At this week’s Economic and Community Development Committee meeting, staff presented sobering updates from Toronto’s latest Street Needs Assessment: around 15,000 people rely on shelters or emergency supports, including 6,300 refugee claimants. Before the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Toronto operated just 3,600 shelter beds. I remember the debates in Council chambers, the cautious optimism that we could manage. Those days are long gone. Now, homelessness is growing in every part of Ontario and across the country, and despite our best efforts, we’re falling behind.

Yet, cranes and constructions sites are clear evidence of growing development in Don Valley North, and across the city. Every few weeks, I find myself reviewing another proposal for a high-rise or mid-rise building. We keep hearing about the urgent need to de-regulate our planning process and provide incentives to get more units built faster.

So why aren’t all these new condos solving the crisis?

It’s a question I get asked all the time, often in frustration: If we’re building so much, why are people still sleeping in parks and shelters?

The answer is simple, even if the solution isn’t: we’re trying to solve two different problems with the same conversation.

New condo and market rental developments are absolutely essential. They help meet the needs of young professionals, students, newcomers, and families trying to stay in Toronto. These buildings are part of a healthy, functioning housing market, and they’re crucial if we want to maintain a strong economy and attract jobs and investment. Frankly, they’re where your adult kids will live one day if they can afford to leave home.

These market homes are not intended, or equipped, to serve people who are already homeless. Those experiencing chronic homelessness need deeply affordable and supportive housing options, not just market units. Without coordinated investment and wraparound supports, people in shelters today won’t be able to make the leap to private rentals tomorrow.

We need to keep building, but if we want to end homelessness, we need a different toolkit, and all orders of government need to help build it.

Homelessness is not a housing supply issue. It’s a support and affordability issue.

At this week’s Economic and Community Development Committee meeting, staff presented these updated homelessness numbers from Toronto’s Street Needs Assessment and the infrastructure plan required to meet this urgent need for shelter beds. At the core of that plan: Toronto needs 20 new shelter facilities, each housing no more than 80 residents, to replace pandemic-era emergency hotel shelters and meet growing demand in every part of the city.

Hotels are too large and too costly. Park encampments are not a solution. What works are small-scale, well-designed shelters embedded in communities, with onsite case management and a focus on helping people transition to permanent housing and employment.

This isn’t just a City responsibility. We need the Province and the Federal government at the table.

When I was growing up, I heard stories from my parents, both children of the Great Depression, about neighbours feeding hungry men who arrived by train, just looking for a warm meal. Those stories stuck with me. They taught me that in a crisis, Canadians help each other. That’s how the social safety net began.

Today, that social net needs mending and it can’t be done at the municipal level alone. We need:

• Provincial investment in Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) housing, addictions and mental health care, and social assistance programs that actually reflect today’s cost of living.

• Federal follow-through on their commitment to fund shelter space and transition support for refugees and asylum seekers (which they are currently well behind on delivering).

• From both levels of government, we need investment in the Canada Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) that has quickly and effectively moved thousands of individuals and families out of shelters and into stable market housing, and urgent capital investment to build new shelters and subsidized housing units that will help us responsibly close the over-capacity emergency hotels, including the two still operating in Don Valley North.

The City is ready. We’ve granted staff delegated authority to proceed with six new shelters on city-owned land. We’re working across departments to bring neighbours and businesses into the conversation early so that these facilities are welcomed and supported. The City cannot address this crisis alone. Without meaningful investment from senior government partners, we risk remaining in a perpetual state of emergency.

The longer we wait, the more expensive the problem becomes.

Every month, we spend millions on hotel leases that were never meant to last. That money could instead be going into purpose-built, supportive shelter facilities, small enough to be effective, and designed to move people toward permanent housing.

Based on 2025 operating costs, every month a new 80-bed site is delayed, it will cost the city $280,000 in foregone operating cost efficiencies. Over a 10-year period, the cost savings for each new site is $33.6M compared to shelter hotels.

 I know change can be hard. No one dreams of building a shelter in their neighbourhood. I also know no one wants to live in one longer than they have to. These new facilities are being designed not as places to stay, but as places to start over.

Homelessness is a shared challenge. So is the solution.

We cannot expect three downtown wards to carry 70% of Toronto’s shelter capacity forever. I’m proud of the way our community embraced the new, smaller and appropriately scaled shelter in our Ward. That kind of compassion and pragmatism is exactly what we need across the city. This is a city-wide issue, and it needs a city-wide response. Together, we can help every person experiencing homelessness take a step toward safety, stability, and a place to call home.

Read the Full E-Blast Here