OPINION: Action needed on Canadian-Ontario Housing Benefit

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With a quarter of a million Ontarians experiencing or at risk of homelessness, there is a serious crisis happening in the province. In Toronto alone, where I work front line with homeless people, there are over 10,000 people sleeping in shelters. 431 live in tents and makeshift shelters in parks.

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I’ve been critical of Toronto’s response to homelessness — and I’ll continue to be — but I know that the city can’t handle the crisis on its own. Municipalities, even big ones like Toronto, need resources from other levels of government.

Homelessness is so widespread that Ontario’s Big City Mayors have launched a campaign asking for Ford and Trudeau’s support to address the rise of people living in tents. Without the resources — permanent housing and funding for temporary solutions like shelter — no city or town can provide a compassionate solution that works. At best, they can only offer band-aid solutions to people living in tents; at worst, they’ll hurt people through cycles of eviction that house no one. Either way, managing homelessness also costs a lot more than just giving someone a home.

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In truth, while housing is the only answer to homelessness, there’s no solution without all levels of government involved.

This is why we need the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB), a rent supplement program co-funded by the federal and provincial governments. In the absence of any real political will to end homelessness, COHB is one of the only tools we have. While it’s not perfect — it exists as a financial boost to landlords — every COHB allowance means that someone can move into their own affordable home. I’ve seen it work, including for a client who spent six years on the street after being badly injured at work. He’s been housed and healthy ever since.

Yet, Doug Ford has inexplicably delayed the release of COHB. Toronto is owed $54 million for the program, yet the city hasn’t received this year’s funding. This means that people and families who could be housed – at least 300 a month, including 1,500 since April – have been stranded in shelters and tents instead.

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All because of government negligence.

The problem is so urgent that Toronto’s City Council has passed a motion begging for the COHB funding the city is owed. Not only would this house thousands of people, it would also free up beds in the city’s emergency shelter system. This means people who want a shelter bed — including people in tents — could actually get one instead of being turned away by the hundreds every night.

The outcomes of being homeless are grim: it more than doubles your risk of death. In my work, I watch people’s health decline every day they don’t have housing. Delayed surgeries because there’s nowhere to recover. Infections from a lack of access to hygiene. PTSD from years on the street. All of it preventable — especially for 1,500 people right now.

So what is anyone waiting for?

— Diana Chan McNally is a front-line worker supporting homeless people. @Diana_C_McNally

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