Latest news with #housingfirst
CBC
01-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
2 opposition MPPs have created a plan to solve Ontario's homelessness crisis in 10 years. Could it work?
A Green and Liberal MPP have worked together to develop a plan they say could fix the Ontario housing crisis in 10 years. Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy and Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Lee Fairclough are co-sponsoring a private member's bill that they say creates a housing-first plan. Experts CBC News spoke to say while not perfect, if passed, the bill would take important steps to really addressing the homelessness crisis being felt in municipalities across Ontario. Bill 28, Homelessness Ends with Housing Act includes the creation of a portable housing benefit, setting up an advisory committee of people with expertise and collecting data on supportive housing to make sure the province is meeting its targets. "Every Ontarian deserves a stable, safe, affordable place to live, and this new legislation offers a solution and a clear path rooted in evidence, compassion and a commitment to housing as a human right," Clancy said in a news conference on Tuesday. Fairclough says the causes of homelessness need to be addressed to find real solutions. "We have the data, we have the road maps and as this bill references, housing first is a proven policy to end chronic homelessness," Fairclough said. Kelly Welch, who is from Waterloo region and has been precariously housed, said at times she only had $20 in her pocket. That meant she had to find ways to navigate the system on her own and she feels like that experience could be invaluable to the government. "I support this bill and sharing that lived experience because we do come up with solutions," she said at the news conference. "I would like to lift up the lived experience of others and to share those because everyone deserves a home and having safe, secure housing was that first step to building my life." Kitchener Centre MPP co-sponsors bill to address homelessness 5 days ago Duration 4:13 Ontario Greens deputy leader and Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy is co-sponsoring a private member's bill aimed at addressing the homelessness crisis in Ontario. The bill proposes a plan to eliminate homelessness in Ontario within 10 years by using an evidence-based, housing-first approach. People from Waterloo region joined Clancy for the press conference at Queen's Park on Tuesday. Growing number of people experiencing homelessness A report released by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in January 2025 said more than 80,000 Ontarians were known to be homeless in 2024, a 25 per cent increase over 2022. "Ontario is at a tipping point in its homelessness crisis," the report warned, noting without "significant intervention" the number of people who are homeless in the province could triple by 2035. It noted 25 per cent of those experiencing homelessness were children and youth, while Indigenous people were disproportionately affected, with 45 per cent of people experiencing chronic homelessness in northern communities identifying as Indigenous. "In northern Ontario, known homelessness has risen by an estimated 204 per cent since 2016, growing from 1,771 people to 5,377 people in 2024," the report said. Meanwhile, Ontario's cities have reported an increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers who need help to find stable housing. "The growing pressures of Ontario's homelessness crisis are felt most acutely at the local level. Municipal governments are tasked with responding to immediate needs while trying to deal with infrastructure gaps that limit their ability to address long-term solutions," the report said. "Communities are deeply affected, with individuals and families enduring the trauma of homelessness and neighbourhoods saying that long-term homelessness and people living outdoors are unacceptable, demanding urgent action from governments." Housing first works: Expert The concept of "housing first" is a major part of the private member's bill from Clancy and Fairclough and it means people should be given housing as a first step to helping them with other issues. Carolyn Whitzman, an adjunct professor and senior housing researcher at the University of Toronto, says she says it's always great when politicians understand that providing housing "is the only proven way to end homelessness." "I would hope that this understanding transcends politics, because it will take a generation to end homelessness and co-ordinated action from all levels of government, most of all provinces," she told CBC News in an email. She pointed to Finland, which has implemented a housing-first approach and aims to end homelessness completely by 2027. Maritt Kirst is an associate professor in the community psychology program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and also the co-director of the Centre for Community Research, Learning, and Action and the director of Community Mental Health Research Interest Group. She says she commended the MPPs for including the housing-first approach into their bill. "While the largest research trial of housing first was conducted in Canada in 2008 to 2013 — the At Home/Chez Soi Project — and contributed significant amounts of evidence on the success of the housing-first program, Canada lags behind in implementing this approach compared to other countries," she said in an email. Kirst said another important part of the private member's bill is developing an advisory committee of people with lived experience. "It is critical to include the voices of people with lived experience in the development of any policy initiative in order to accurately reflect the needs of the population and what works for them," Kirst said. "The enactment of a bill such as this would support a much needed shift away from governments' heavy reliance on Band-Aid solutions like emergency shelters and approaches that criminalize people experiencing homelessness, towards effective solutions to end homelessness in Ontario." Some people 'stuck' being homeless Kaite Burkholder Harris, the executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa and co-chair of the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness, says she also appreciates the focus on housing first and it is a reachable goal. "If we were to properly resource and actually build boatloads of non-profit housing, I think that we could see it seriously change in a relatively short period of time," she said in an interview. She said the current path the province is on will not solve the homelessness crisis in the next decade. Burkholder Harris says with Bill 6 — the Safer Municipalities Act which is currently in the committee stage and which would create harsher penalties if someone were caught using drugs or alcohol in a tent and for trespassing infractions — the province is "criminalizing the experience of being homeless." Burkholder Harris says there's also a misconception everyone who is homeless has complex needs but she says some people simply just need a place to live. "Some people who are very unwell, they do need a certain type of housing," she said. "Many people are waking up and going to work in the morning … and they have a minimum wage job and they can't afford rent," she said, noting if someone falls behind in their rent and gets evicted, it can take time for them to save up again to afford first and last month rent in their area. "But those folks, if they get stuck in being homeless, they are going to develop more complex needs," she said. Data collection needed to develop a strategy Dawn Parker is a professor in the school of planning at the University of Waterloo and says her first impression of the private member's bill is that would take an important step in gathering much needed data about what is happening in the province. "Politically, this is not a strategy to end homelessness. I don't think a real strategy to end homelessness has any chance of passing the legislature at this point during this government," Parker said. "What really this bill proposes is to start tracking, seriously start tracking data, on homelessness and housing for those who've been homeless or who fall back into homelessness. Beyond that, it asks the province to develop a strategy." Parker says the Green party and NDP in Ontario and nationally have put forward practical solutions to tackle different aspects of housing and why it's become unaffordable, including building non-profit housing on public lands, implementing vacant home taxes and using inclusionary zoning, which require private developers to include a certain percentage of affordable units within new, multi-unit housing developments. None of the advice is new, she says, noting she started talking to media about missing middle housing nearly a decade ago. "Housing experts have been saying the same things over and over and over and over again for years on end," Parker said. "We keep giving the same advice. It's up to the province when and how they take up that advice." Parker says she hopes the current Ontario government really considers what is in the Liberal-Green private member's bill because really, what it's recommending is getting more information to make better decisions. "This is a quite benign bill that mainly calls for consistent reporting and data tracking. I would hope that it could pass," she said. "If it doesn't happen, why not? Why is there a fear of information? We should all value and support efforts to bring data and daylight to the problems that we face, so we're all talking from the same information and about the same things."
CBC
27-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Kitchener Centre MPP co-sponsors bill to address homelessness
Ontario Greens deputy leader and Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy is co-sponsoring a private member's bill aimed at addressing the homelessness crisis in Ontario. The bill proposes a plan to eliminate homelessness in Ontario within 10 years by using an evidence-based, housing-first approach. People from Waterloo region joined Clancy for the press conference at Queen's Park on Tuesday.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Yahoo
Florida criminalized homeless people sleeping in parks. They got creative.
Florida has found a new way to criminalize homelessness. A state law that went into effect in October makes it a crime to sleep in public parks, the grounds of public buildings or other public property. We're driving the homeless to improvise. The proliferation of large indoor self-storage facilities have become a low-cost housing solution for some homeless people, I've been told. These facilities are air-conditioned, clean and locked at night. And they're available at low introductory rates. I thought the notion of homeless people living in storage facilities was an urban legend. Then I rented space in a storage facility to handle my expanding universe of barely keepable possessions. I went there recently as soon as the storage facility opened for the day. While inside the mostly darkened cavernous building, I heard the faint sounds of recorded music being played and then saw a woman in a bathrobe pushing a shopping cart. 'There's a homeless woman living in our self-storage place,' I told my wife after I got home. On a subsequent trip, this time just before the storage facility closed for the night, my wife was with me when the same homeless woman appeared again. She was coming from outside, pushing a shopping cart and returning to the storage place for the night. Opinion: I lived in a homeless encampment for a week. I saw how Housing First doesn't work. The next day, I ran an errand at the local Publix market. I'm one of those dinosaurs who still uses cash, and so I inevitably end up with pockets full of change. So, every day, I empty my pockets, dropping the change into a sturdy box. Over months of doing this, the box fills with coins. That's when I lug it to Publix, which has one of those machines that tally up all your change for a service charge. On this day, I ended up cashing in more than $400 worth of loose change at the Publix. The worker at the service desk gave me the cash. I put it in my pocket and walked outside. And there she was! The homeless woman from the storage unit was right there, a few feet from the store's entrance. I was sure of it. She had on the same bright pink T-shirt she had on the night before at the storage unit. And I recognized her long, stringy hair. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. She was sitting on the pavement outside Publix, leaning on a wall while eating supermarket sushi from a container she had placed on the pavement between her splayed out legs. I stopped and reached into my pocket with the roll of bills in it. I peeled off a $10 bill and stood over her, extending my hand with the money. She looked up and hesitated. I further extended my hand with the bill, and said, 'Here,' while smiling. She paused again, then took the bill without saying anything. I walked away, thinking I had done my good deed for the day. But before I reached my car in the lot, I saw the homeless woman practically running up the next aisle and scampering into a Mini Cooper sports car. That's a pricier car than my old Toyota. I was confused. So, I called my wife. She had me describe the woman eating the sushi outside the Publix. 'That's not the homeless woman,' said my wife between convulsions of laughter. 'She wasn't wearing a pink shirt and she didn't have long, stringy hair.' And then my wife leveled a complaint I had heard many times before from her: 'And you have terrible facial recognition.' That's because every time I try to describe somebody by likening that person's looks to a famous person, my wife will say they look nothing alike. But I wasn't ready to take the blame for giving a well-heeled Boca Raton woman $10. Maybe she drives a Mini Cooper – and a shopping cart. 'If she's not homeless, then why is she eating supermarket sushi in a container on the ground?' I said. 'She sure was acting like somebody who is homeless.' Opinion: He was rejected and homeless at 15. Now he leads the LGBTQ group that gave him acceptance. It has been a few weeks now. The more I think of it, the murkier things get. Memory is a tricky thing. Upon further reflection, the woman outside the Publix did seem kind of young at close range. Maybe she was just a middle-class 21st century suburban hippy with unorthodox eating habits who thought she was being hit on by some dirty old man in a pickleball hat outside the supermarket. And it freaked her out so much, she ran to her car and drove away. You see my predicament? I go to that Publix all the time. One of these days I'm going to run into that woman again. What do I say? 'Sorry for the confusion, ma'am, but you looked and behaved like a homeless person. Can I get my $10 back? 'I want to give it to the woman living in my storage facility.' Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with the Palm Beach Post, where a version of this column originally appeared. He can be reached at FCerabino@ You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Homeless people get creative when we make living a crime | Opinion
