Does Premier Ford even know homelessness is an issue in the North?
December 6, 2024
With the holiday season upon us, most of us turn our thoughts to the love of family, friends and thoughts of home, past and present. As to what ‘home’ means, those sounds, visions and memories are as individual as we ourselves are. For some, home is within the community where we live today. For others, it is where we may have been raised in our youth, hours away or across the province or country. For some, home brings visions of lands and places far away.
Wherever it is, home is home…at least for most of us. In these times, for some people, unfortunately, the concept of ‘home’ may be little more than a dream.
When I was first elected, homelessness in Northern Ontario was not the same as it is today. There have always been people who experienced homelessness in our region. For many years, it was largely “hidden homelessness,” meaning that individuals did not have a permanent, stable location to call home but were more often able to find a way to keep a roof over their heads.
That was then, this is now. Things have drastically changed. Homelessness and the shortage of affordable housing are on the radar of most every district, municipality and township in Ontario, including the North.
Homeless Hub (HH) is a web-based research organization. It is the world’s largest homelessness research library. It provides training, data, and resources for service providers working to prevent and end homelessness. HH maintains that the homeless issue is by no means limited to large urban centres. It reaches rural areas and small towns in Northern Ontario, too. Homelessness brings with it inadequate housing, poverty, discrimination, violence, and substance abuse.
First, it is important to understand what homelessness is. The HH defines homelessness as “the lack of safe, stable, permanent, and affordable housing. It includes families on the verge of losing their home, young people staying with friends because they have nowhere to go, and women who are trapped in cycles of abuse by a lack of housing options.”
Northern Ontario community leaders concur with HH that the problem is that municipalities are not mandated, equipped, or funded to handle it adequately. The Northern homeless crisis is a highly complex issue that is well beyond the ability of smaller communities to tackle on their own. These reasons include:
- The rising cost of living, inflation, housing costs and interest rates.
- Insufficient health care and mental health care services to meet the population’s needs.
- A lack of infrastructure and services to prevent or reduce the worst outcomes of homelessness.
- The degree of poverty in the North leads to increased pressures on individuals, families, and communities.
- The cold experienced during the winter makes the possibility of surviving without shelter almost impossible.
In August 2022, the Northern Policy Institute published a 29-page report by Holly Parsons entitled “More Than Just a Number.” In the report, Parsons stated that Northern communities are now experiencing “a homelessness, addiction and mental health crisis.” By way of example, Parsons noted that both the Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay District Services Administration Boards reported an astonishing growth of homeless populations within their service area boundaries. Between 2016 and 2018, Sault Ste. Marie reported a 70 percent increase in the city’s homeless population. Between 2018 and 2021, it reported a 58 percent increase. In the District of Thunder Bay, the homeless population increased by 50 percent between 2016 and 2018.
Just weeks ago, the mayors of Northern Ontario’s Large Urban Municipalities (NOLUM) met to discuss housing and homelessness issues. As the group deliberated on the problems, the consensus was that Northern Ontario definitely has a crisis on its hands and that, despite bringing the concerns to both the federal and provincial governments, the needs of Northern municipalities are often overlooked by both levels of government.
The thing is that the Ford government was reelected in 2022 on a platform that promised to help solve housing and homelessness issues. At any time, they could have used their substantial majority to make plans to implement solutions that could have alleviated some of the pain by this time. Here we are two years into Doug Ford’s second mandate, and things are definitely getting worse. And what is the Premier doing to address it? In typical Ford fashion, he has introduced a mixture of ill-considered ineffective planning policies, especially in housing. And when he sees his plans are not working, he turns to blame everybody but the right body.
Think back to the Greenbelt scandal in which the Conservatives swapped out vital, irreplaceable ecological tracts of land for housing development. The problem was that the homes developers were planning were high-end market homes instead of a variety of affordable homes for families that would help address their immediate needs. The Toronto Star reported that Ford’s government policies “encourage municipalities and developers to build the wrong type of housing in the wrong places at the wrong prices.” For housing to be affordable, we need to build new housing on land within our existing towns and cities, not in farmers’ fields and wildlands. Our municipalities already have more than enough land and infrastructure to accommodate growth for decades to come.
The NOLUM communities are all struggling to resolve the ever-growing homeless crisis. Last August, the five mayors met and endorsed the Solve the Crisis campaign created to end homelessness and called on the Province to implement the campaign’s recommended actions. At the conclusion of the meeting, the Sudbury Star published the group’s news release on August 17, saying, “Municipalities did not create the homelessness crisis and do not have the resources to solve it, yet they are being forced to manage its impacts.” The Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association, comprised of ten district social service administration boards, also endorsed the campaign.
With such strong support, why won’t the Ford government follow up on the recommendations from those on the front lines who see the problems day after day after day? Northern municipal leaders agree that it is because the Ford government just can’t see the needs or hear the cries of Northerners – a long-time curse we are all tired of tolerating.
World-renowned HH maintains that government “investment in affordable housing and infrastructure must be a priority, given the often severe housing shortages and limited resources available. Equitable access to education, training, and employment opportunities is vital to mitigate poverty and its role in putting people at risk of homelessness. Providing mental health and addiction services that are culturally sensitive and geographically accessible can address underlying factors contributing to homelessness. Supporting community-driven initiatives that empower residents to develop tailored solutions is also an essential step in ensuring that every community has access to housing.”
To end homelessness, solutions and policies must include both housing and necessary support. HH states, “It’s not enough to give someone shelter if their personal and financial circumstances mean that this housing is insecure. As well, supports that don’t come along with stable housing do not resolve someone’s homelessness.” For any plan or policy to work, housing and support must go hand in hand.
What does this boil down to for Northerners? We don’t necessarily need a government that has all the answers itself. We need a provincial government that will seek out and follow the advice of those who actually know what the problem is and how to fix it. And we need a government willing to hear the voices of those of us living North of the French River.
As we head into this holiday season, let’s do so with our hearts, minds and wallets open, ready to see to the needs of fellow Northerners around us who lack a home and need a hand up.
As always, I invite you to contact my office about these issues or any other provincial matters. You can reach my constituency office by email at mmantha-co@ola.org or call Toll-free 1-800-831-1899.
Michael Mantha, MPP
Algoma-Manitoulin
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