The federal government says it can’t wait any longer for Ontario to end encampments in its cities and will offer money directly to municipalities, including Toronto, to fix the problem.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said he sent a letter to every province and territory on Sept. 18 asking them to partner with Ottawa to “urgently” find shelter for the unhoused or those living in tents.
The offer includes a total of $250 million in funding in exchange for matching contributions by the provinces and territories.
However, Fraser said since the offer was made, the feds have not heard back from Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
Can we…please just build housing directly? Just, like, build it? Not bribe billionaires, not offer P3 partnerships, just employ people, move dirt and hammer things together?
I’m glad to see this, and as someone who’s lived next to a park in a downtown where people are tenting (which, let’s be honest, has become a nexus of drug dealing, fencing and low-grade violence), this can’t come soon enough.
Why do so many people here think housing is the only issue here? Many of the people in the cities who are more notorious aren’t the kind of homeless people who would accept a home or your help. Let’s house everyone who needs it, but we have to accept that some people will need to be forcibly removed from the streets and forced into help. Otherwise you’ll have the same problem.
As someone who lives beside an urban park with a lot of people tenting in it, I do hear what you’re saying, and we do need to do both: house people who can accept it, and incarceration–humane, safe and rare–for people who can’t.
I think we definitely need care homes for people who are on their own and unable to make those decisions for themselves. I have a cousin who lives on the street, despite having a family and home he’s welcome to. He just can’t handle a normal life with a job and a regular address, he finds it easier to just live on the streets and be accountable to nobody. He needs help but he’ll never accept it willingly sadly