Over 80,000 People Across Ontario Were Homeless During 2024

January 10, 2025January 10, 20252024 numbers, AMO, homeless, homeless numbers, Homeless people in Ontario, More than 80000 people homeless, ontario, Ontario homelessness

A very bleak repost made breaking news and has spread like wildfire in Ontario. During 2024, Ontario faced a significant homelessness crisis, with over 80,000 individuals experiencing homelessness—a 25% increase from two years prior. We all knew that economy and extreme house prices are creating a difficult situation for many Ontarian’s, but this new report reveals alarming data. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), representing 444 municipalities, reported that nearly half of these individuals were chronically homeless, having lived in shelters or on the streets for more than six months or experienced recurrent homelessness over the past three years.

AMO emphasized the need for a fundamentally different approach to tackle this crisis, advocating for long-term housing solutions over temporary measures or policing. They proposed an $11-billion investment over 10 years to create more than 75,000 affordable and supportive housing units and an additional $2 billion over eight years to house individuals living in encampments.

The report highlighted that municipalities collectively spent $2.1 billion in 2024 on homelessness and housing programs, significantly more than the contributions from provincial and federal governments. Despite recent provincial announcements of additional funding—$50 million for affordable housing and $20 million for shelter funding—AMO leaders, such as President Robin Jones, argue that these amounts are insufficient to resolve the crisis.

The situation is particularly dire in rural and northern communities, where homelessness has surged by 150% and over 200%, respectively, since 2016. AMO’s report also projected that, without significant intervention, the number of homeless individuals in Ontario could rise dramatically over the next decade, potentially reaching nearly 300,000 in the event of an economic downturn.

In response, the Ontario government has announced plans to shift towards an abstinence-based treatment model for addressing the opioid crisis, which disproportionately affects the homeless population. This includes the closure of certain supervised consumption sites and the establishment of new “homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs,” along with the creation of 375 supportive housing units at a cost of $378 million.

However, municipal leaders continue to call for more substantial and coordinated efforts from both provincial and federal governments to address the root causes of homelessness and provide sustainable, long-term solutions for affected individuals across Ontario.

With all money put aside to combat homelessness and efforts to provide shelters and warm meals for people who need it, perhaps homelessness should be fought on multiple fronts.

How so?

Many homeless people during 2024 and before have been pushed into homelessness by multiple events or chains of events. Some of them have lost their jobs, went through a divorce, home prices have increased, rent prices have increased, food prices……basically there could be endless reasons quite frankly. This recent repost done by AMO shows that our society did not find a solution to homelessness. Spending money alone may not be the solution to this problem. Instead, this issue must be studied, root causes determined and those must be minimized in order to lower homelessness.

And who will be the one to address the issue of extremely high home prices and extremely high rental prices? For now, our politicians did not have the courage to do so! The outcome and solution of politicians is just the opposite…… “abandon the ship” solution. Will there be someone who will seriously tackle the symptoms of homelessness and hardship many Ontarian face? Many of us certainly hope so.