The leaders of Ontario’s largest cities are calling on the provincial government to appoint a cabinet minister to manage a provincewide response to a growing trend of homelessness and a number of encampments they say have reached crisis levels.
Launching a new campaign at Queen’s Park on Thursday, Ontario’s Big City Mayors said local governments were at a breaking point trying to tackle homelessness, opioid addiction and a series of tent encampments that have appeared and stayed in the heart of the province’s towns and cities.
“What is happening on our streets across this province is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis,” Marianne Meed Ward, Burlington mayor and chair of Ontario’s Big City Mayors, said during an event at Queen’s Park.
“There are too many people unhoused, living in encampments or other unsafe conditions and they’re struggling with mental health and addiction issues. This is growing and it impacts every single municipality across our province — large and small, rural and urban.”
Last year, a total of 1,400 homelessness encampments had been set up across the province, according to research published by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. The research found that those encampments were found in both small towns and big cities.
“While municipalities did not create the homelessness crisis, they are being forced to manage it without the resources or tools to sufficiently respond,” an AMO report on encampments said.
Now, Ontario’s Big City Mayors — which represents 29 of the province’s largest municipalities — is calling for immediate action and a co-ordinated response to help them with the deeply complex problem.
The group of local leaders said property tax dollars are insufficient to address the homelessness issues they have to handle, which require funding and support from a vast network of provincial agencies and ministries.
The Big City Mayors’ new campaign — titled Solve the Crisis — isn’t only about funding but also demands the Ford government take ownership of the crisis and work to deliver a co-ordinated response.
“There have been increases in funding — but it is not how we can solve this crisis — a little bit of money here and there and no municipality knows if they’re going to get it,” Meed Ward said.
The group is specifically calling on Ontario Premier Doug Ford to create a ministry and minister responsible for housing needs, wraparound support, mental health and addiction, arguing that a whole range of ministries — from health to housing — are currently involved with a complicated, piecemeal and inadequate response.
The Big City Mayors also want to see the newly appointed minister create a task force to create a strategy to tackle municipal homelessness issues and provide resources for cities to move people out of encampments.
“We really need the federal and the provincial government to step up with certainty for municipalities,” Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie said.
Global News asked Ford’s office — which already presides over the largest cabinet in provincial history — if it would consider the request to create a new minister with responsibility for homelessness, encampments and the other issues raised by Ontario’s Big City Mayors.
A spokesperson forwarded the request to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, which did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
The stakes if the government fails to act, Meed Ward said, couldn’t be higher.
“More people will die on our streets, unnecessarily,” she said. “People won’t feel safe going to our parks, they won’t feel safe going to our downtown business areas. Businesses will close. This is a humanitarian crisis, and it needs to be approached with that level of seriousness and that comprehensive level of planning.”
The campaign, which has also garnered words of support from the Canadian Mental Health Association, has launched a website asking voters and residents to add their voices to the call.