Why the homelessness crisis could get even worse

Toronto is in the throes of a homelessness crisis that’s only getting worse, but new budgets from the federal and provincial governments have failed to offer a life raft, says the head of the city’s shelter system. Short of a major infusion of new funds, he’s warning that Toronto could see fast-tracked shelter closures and increasingly squeezed sites as early as the start of next year.

Gord Tanner, general manager of city hall’s shelter, support and housing administration division, delivered a plain-spoken warning to city councillors at their last meeting, then elaborated on it in an interview with the Star. The city is spending $317 million more than it has to operate shelters this year, he said. If that hole is not filled in January 2024, he fears the city will be forced to shut down more shelters than planned — despite the system often operating at capacity, with 72 people on average turned away from shelter each day in February.

The city’s overall homeless population has been soaring, with an increase in the last year of roughly 1,300, to a total of more than 10,800 in February — leaving people sheltering in places like emergency rooms and the transit system when shelters are packed.

“We would be fast-tracking the closure of some of those services, and we’d be struggling to meet the needs of individuals,” Tanner warned, noting the city would also likely have to squeeze an increasing number of beds into its existing shelters. “There will be some tough choices.”

Toronto is already battling with emergency bed capacity, and losing sites one by one. Since last year, city hall has been gradually closing the temporary shelters it opened during the pandemic, when other levels of government were funnelling emergency funds to the city. That funding has dried up, Tanner said, but many of those shelters are still in operation, as staff have aimed to avoid a “sudden reversal” that leaves people in the lurch. To manage those closures, the city has already started reducing the extra space between beds added in 2020.

Tanner also fears the number of people in need will only grow. While Ontario’s budget promised $48 million more for supportive housing — out of $202 million provincewide — he said there was less funding for federal-provincial housing subsidies. Housing stability services director Doug Rollins specified that Toronto received $12.3 million for the benefits in 2022-23, but was set to receive $9.5 million for 2023-24, meaning 500 fewer benefits available.

Social assistance rates, Tanner added, remained woefully mismatched with the cost of living. The average single person on the province’s disability support program, for example, now receives a maximum of $1,228 per month, $522 of which is meant to cover housing costs, while the average Toronto one-bedroom listing on Rentals.ca in February was $2,501 a month.

“I don’t understand why folks can’t do the math,” he said. “We’ll continue to see these issues on the streets of our city, with folks that have nowhere to go, until we just have some honest conversations about the very serious challenges and deep poverty that people are living in.”

So Toronto is, once again, in a position of high-stakes bargaining with other levels of government to close its budget gap.

The budgets of higher governments have meanwhile received blistering criticism from beyond city hall. Federally appointed housing advocate Marie-Josée Houle labelled the recent federal budget a “sorry disappointment,” panning it as skimming over homelessness, presenting “no new ideas” and offering inadequate funding. The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness accused federal officials of being blind to the “scale and urgency” of the problem.

The office of federal Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen, in a statement, responded to Tanner’s concerns by pointing to existing programs — such as its Rapid Housing Initiative and National Housing Co-investment Fund — and noted the hundreds of millions Toronto was set to receive for homelessness initiatives from 2019 to 2024, as well as a promise the federal government had made last year to boost its funding commitments countrywide.

It pointed the finger at Queen’s Park on the question of portable housing benefits, saying that federal money for the program continually increased each year, but that the province managed how those funds were divided among different municipalities.

The provincial Housing Ministry, meanwhile, said it chose to use those funds to provide a higher level of funding to households already receiving the benefits to offset climbing rents, meaning less funding for new households. It pointed to the more than $200 million given to Toronto to address pandemic-related operating pressures from 2022. It acknowledged the city’s ongoing request for reimbursement on pandemic expenses, and said it would do so “in due course.”

On social assistance, it pointed to the five per cent increase to payouts made last year — a larger increase than had been made in years — and its vow to tie future increases to inflation.

Beyond the concern Tanner has expressed over the city’s pocketbook, he is frustrated to see the latest provincial budget didn’t take a step he sees as cost-free — heeding a recommendation made by Ontario’s auditor general in December 2021 to have the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing take the lead on talks for a provincial homelessness strategy.

The province, at the time, accepted the recommendation, but that still hasn’t materialized, Tanner said. He believes co-ordination would be a step in the right direction to tackle rising homelessness, suggesting those talks could fold together not only city and shelter officials, but also representatives from child welfare, corrections, mental health care and other associated sectors.

“Those are things that can be done now. Not seeing the province take action in trying to bring systems together … is probably the most underwhelming piece of the province’s budget.”

Clarification — April 11, 2023: This article was updated to clarify that Ontario’s budget promised $48 million more for supportive housing, not a total budget of $48 million.

Victoria Gibson is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering affordable housing. Reach her via email: victoriagibson@thestar.ca