Tackling homelessness will be a key challenge for incoming Ontario mayors, councils

The rise in homelessness is one of the most pressing issues mayors and councillors elected next week across Ontario will have to face as the struggle to fund housing, mental health and addiction services persists.

A seminal study from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario warned last year that the province was at a "tipping point" in the homelessness crisis.

It found nearly 80,000 Ontarians were homeless in 2024. That number rose to about 85,000 people in 2025 and the association expects it to rise again.

"Eighty-five thousand is breathtaking in the sense that it's shocking how big that number is in a province as wealthy as we are," said Riley Brockington, president of AMO, which represents the province's 444 municipalities.

More than half of those people have been homeless for more than six months, the association said.

The vast majority of Ontario's municipalities are struggling with the issue and it's eating up more and more of their annual budgets, Brockington said. Without the ability to run deficits, it puts municipalities in a bind.

Brockington, an Ottawa city councillor who was acclaimed in his ward ahead of Monday's election, said the province and the federal government need to step up with stable, long-term funding.

It's the only way to try to get a handle on homelessness, he said. "We're calling for a national housing strategy with some real money."

The AMO's ask is big: $11 billion over 10 years. That would cover supportive, transitional and community housing for 75,000 people, along with money for prevention programs.

The association is also asking for $2 billion over eight years to deal with the rise in encampments. There were nearly 2,000 encampments across Ontario last year, it said. 

The encampments have been popping up all over the province, including in many smaller towns where there are no shelters.

"We believe every person in Ontario needs a safe place to call home every night, but it's very expensive," Brockington said. "This is why the burden cannot be on the shoulders exclusively of municipalities."

The frustrating part for municipalities, Brockington said, is the fact that every level of government agrees on the path forward: more housing, particularly supportive housing.

While municipalities are appreciative of every dollar from the federal and provincial governments, much of that comes in the form of time-limited funding, Brockington said.

"Municipalities need to be able to budget and have some assurances going forward that the money will still be there," he said. Otherwise, it will be the same scramble every year, he said, with little ability to plan long term.

A recent report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario said provincial spending on homelessness programs has fluctuated since 2020, before reaching a projected $948 million in 2026-27. But that figure is expected to decline to $708 million in 2028-29 because of time-limited funding, the report said.

Northern and rural Ontario are driving the growth of homelessness, which is increasing 37 per cent in northern Ontario and 31 per cent in mostly rural communities in one year, AMO found.

Another troubling statistic the association uncovered: about 20,000 youth are homeless across the province. 

And on any given night in Toronto, more than 1,000 teens and children are in the city's shelters or on its streets.

For Mark Aston, the CEO of Covenant House Toronto, Canada's largest charity serving youth in crisis, prevention is key. Covenant House has a crisis shelter, offers transitional housing and wraparound support services including education and employment support. 

"It is getting more difficult for young people to get out of that situation because of a whole bunch of things: affordability, the job market, and also acute crisis and disabling conditions that need co-ordinated specialized services to help young people," he said.

Covenant House has seen great prevention results by going into Toronto's schools, Aston said, adding that the program is very successful, with more than 90 per cent of at-risk young people avoiding homelessness. 

"We have solutions, we just really need to get attention to this and do a bit of scaling," Aston said, arguing that the program should be in every single school in the province. Covenant House also has its own on-site school that helps youth complete their secondary education.

The reason is simple, Aston said. Between 30 to 50 per cent of adults experiencing chronic homelessness can trace their journeys back to their youth.

"That's when they first experienced homelessness," Aston said. "So if you don't solve the problem when somebody's young, it can become really entrenched, really pervasive."

For young people, the largest driver of homelessness is family pressure, conflict or breakdown, he said, while for adults the leading cause is eviction.

When a young person becomes homeless, early intervention is key. Aston said Covenant House gives them space to breathe, connects them with health-care workers, mental health professionals and tries to reconnect them with family -- but not necessarily the family that may have driven them away.

"If you can do that and you can maintain those connections and you can provide them with housing, with social supports, with community, it can really be life altering for those young people," he said. "You can change the trajectory of where they're going."

Aston has a message for all incoming mayors.

"I think the mayors across Ontario should make a commitment to end youth homelessness," he said. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2026.

By Liam Casey | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.