Homelessness is an expensive, complex issue across Southern and Southwestern Ontario, with municipalities and their taxpayers shouldering much of the responsibility. Historical policies, slow-ascending social assistance, and unaffordability have intensified the crisis.
“The general public tends to see homelessness as individually caused… a step towards changing [this] is educating people on the broader issues,” says Stephanie Baker Collins, McMaster University Professor of Social Work. “There are poor choices being made all around, and I don’t first look to the homeless population to figure out who’s making poor choices.”
Baker Collins began working in the field when there were cooperative and nonprofit housing projects being built across Canada.
These projects operate today and are protected stock by the National Housing Strategy. She adds that governments should “go back” to funding these projects, which are an affordable housing option for many. The provincial and federal governments must view non-market housing as vital national infrastructure because temporary interventions don’t solve homelessness.
People experiencing homelessness are far more likely to spend time in shelters, hospitals, and prisons.
“What we tend to do is throw a lot of money to very temporary ‘Band-Aid’ solutions that do nothing to resolve homelessness. [We] make far less investment in programs like Indwell and other supportive housing programs that solve homelessness for people, with the types of supports that they need to stay housed. [The] hospital system, jails, and shelters are all very costly ways of not addressing homelessness,” says Mary-Elizabeth Vaccaro, McMaster University Lecturer of Social Work.
According to Dr. Andrew Boozary of the University Health Network in Toronto, a one-month hospital stay for one person costs an average of $30,000. For that same period, prisons spend $12,000 and shelters over $6,000.
With a 34 per cent increase of shelter beds across the province, folks are remaining in the homelessness system longer or indefinitely.
Within the 2024 annual budget of over $4 billion allocated to housing and homelessness in Ontario, “emergency shelters accounted for 65.2 per cent of total expenditures, with approximately $957 million on shelters in 2024,” according to a 2025 report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). Supportive housing received less than 12 per cent of spending.
Furthermore, Ontario’s 2017 Auditor General Report on Social and Affordable Housing compared the average cost of social housing per household in Ontario (which at the time was $613 — it would be much higher today) to other temporary housing options. The report found that a shelter bed was more than three times that figure, while a long-term care bed cost more than six times as much. One correctional facility bed cost seven times that figure.
Alleviating the homelessness crisis begins with deeply affordable homes where people can invest in their health and wellness. Indwell builds and operates affordable, permanent, and supportive housing communities and reduces the overall cost of service per person to below $75 per person a day. (Some programs cost more, some less.) Supports like health care, food security, safety, and psychosocial support are included, which reduce the financial burden on emergency and other services.
Of the approximate 5,848 supportive housing beds across the province, Indwell provides 22 per cent of these with over 1,300 supportive homes. The AMO estimates that an intentional investment of $11 billion over 10 years would result in functional zero homelessness, beginning with a $2 billion investment over three years to prevent and resolve encampments. The alternative, without this significant intervention, is a projection of up to 294,266 homeless Ontarians by 2035.
While supportive housing can come with a high initial cost, the long-term public savings can’t be ignored. When people have a safe, stable place to live — along with the support they need — they rely less on emergency services, hospitals, and shelters. Investing in housing with supports isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s the smart thing to do, benefiting individuals and entire communities for generations to come.
Sources and Additional resources
Association of Municipalities of Ontario. “AMO’s Compendium of Work on Housing and Homelessness: AMO Documents and Submissions: Municipalities Under Pressure: The Human and Financial Cost of Ontario’s Homelessness Crisis,” January 9, 2025. Learn more here.
LinkedIn. “Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages: Moving to a New Framework,” June 26, 2025. Learn more here.
LinkedIn. “Dr. Andrew Boozary MD MPP: CP24 Interview Clip,” 2025. Learn more here.
Mary-Elizabeth Vaccaro, phone interview with author, July 18, 2025.
Office of the Auditor General of Ontario. “3.14 Social and Affordable Housing,” December 6, 2017. Learn more here.
Stephanie Baker Collins, phone interview with author, July 2, 2025.
Steven Rolfe, in-person interview with editor, July 11, 2025.
