END HOMELESSNESS NOW:

With your help, we won funding for 1,100 new supportive housing units this year from the province. Now, Ford needs to provide ongoing funding.

Recently, the provincial government felt our pressure and agreed to fund 1, 100 units of supportive housing to address the homelessness crisis. The City has the infrastructure but needed funds to provide the services to keep people housed such as harm reduction and mental health supports. Now, we’re calling on the province to provide ongoing funding for 2,000 permanent supportive housing units every year.

To tackle the homelessness crisis, we need long-term sustained funding for years to come. The crisis will not be over this year. Send an urgent message to your MPP and the Premier to fully fund supportive housing now.

For the thousands in our city experiencing chronic homelessness, supportive housing is the solution. It’s not only an affordable place to live but also includes services like harm reduction and mental health supports that help people stay housed.  The provincial government needs to urgently fund those services at the scale that is needed now. We are calling for:

  • $48 million in annual, ongoing funding to create and maintain 2,000 new supportive housing units annually.

We also need to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place. The Province must enact a complete moratorium on all residential evictions for the duration of the pandemic.  This includes:

  • Prohibiting eviction on the basis of unpaid rent for the pandemic period, and;

  • Full relief for those who have been unable to pay rent in full during the crisis

This is an emergency and we need to take the first step in ending homelessness in Toronto by housing everyone now.

To build back better, we must ensure people living outside,  in encampments or shelters have access to safe, permanent housing. 

A new City of Toronto dashboard shows that anywhere between 3,000 to 4,000 people regularly rely on shelters for permanent shelter. 

During the 2021 City Budget process in February, the City committed to doing everything in their power to house everyone in need and to obtain the necessary funding from the Province to provide permanent supportive housing to those experiencing homelessness. 

We know that encampments and homelessness are the result of housing policy failures that systemically target Indigenous, Black, racialized, and working class people. COVID-19 has exasperated this crisis in our city, driving more people into homelessness and insecure housing.

We need a real plan to end homelessness in our city that starts now.

We join the call of those living in encampments, those supporting them like the Encampment Support Network and others across the city calling for:

  • Ensure enough safe supportive emergency shelter or housing for all immediately until everyone has access to permanent, safe, dignified and affordable housing. 

  • Obtain vacant buildings to convert into supportive housing, and pressure other levels of government to do the same.

  • Ensure the city provides sufficient winter survival gear and supplies  for those in encampments including fire extinguishers, sand, sleeping bags, access to food and water, and winter clothing.

  • Continue to increase investment in affordable housing for permanent solutions to this crisis.

If the Mayor, Councillors and Provincial representatives hear from thousands of Torontonians demanding that they provide supportive housing, we can save lives and ensure everyone has safe and dignified, permanent housing.