In Ontario, homelessness rates in the north are nearly double that of big cities in the south. The solution is not just about housing vulnerable populations — but keeping them alive
Small strings of battery-powered lights encircle a vine, brought from the outside in as a houseplant of sorts, decorating the pitch of the large tent where 15 people sleep in a space meant for five. A shelf alongside a thin nylon wall holds a pink-sparkled journal and pen, a loaf of bread, a can of soup and a small pot. A broom sits in the corner, alongside a wash bin.
Mandated vulnerable population counts show that Sault Ste. Marie and the districts of Kenora, Nipissing, and Cochrane are overwhelmed with significantly higher per capita populations of unhoused people than cities such as London, Hamilton, Ottawa or Toronto. At the same time, the opioid crisis has hit northern Ontario especially hard. For much of the pandemic, Sudbury had the highest rate of fatal drug poisonings in the province.
More recently, however, cities have turned away from a heavy-handed approach to more gentle initiatives: increasing shelter spaces, providing acute housing outreach, opening warming centres and, in one case, renting out a college residence. A recent Ontario Superior Court ruling will make it even harder for municipalities to remove encampments: the judge concluded it could be unconstitutional to prohibit someone from erecting a tent if appropriate shelter options are not available.
All the service managers represent hub cities: large population centres like Sudbury, where social and other services are often centralized.
Besides historic spending, funding is also based on currently available data. But that, too, seems to be lacking, thanks in part to how that data is gathered. It depends on what are called Point-in-Time counts, or PiT counts. This is the number of homeless people in a given area during a given timeframe, providing a snapshot of the situation on the ground.
Vulnerable populations can and often do avoid authority figures — even trusted outreach workers — or wish to remain anonymous. Numbers can be inconsistent due to the often transient nature of those who are homeless, with actual homelessness changing from day to day. Officials say a disproportionate number of people living on the street in northern Ontario identify as Indigenous. Mike Nadeau says that in Sault Ste. Marie specifically, approximately 12 to 16 per cent of the population identify as Indigenous, but among the homeless population, 65 per cent identify as Indigenous.
“It's the lack of mental health and addiction support that are keeping people homeless,” Marks says. “And without those supports, people will fail. We need supportive housing and not just housing if we're really going to make a difference in this.” According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, approximately 21 per cent of the nation's population will experience a substance-use disorder or addiction at some point in their lifetime, including alcohol and gambling.
It’s a systemic issue that not only costs lives, it costs money. That same report continues to note mental illness and substance-use disorders account for between 11 and 15 per cent of Ontario’s “disease burden” — meaning the impact of a health problem as measured by, in this case, financial cost. However, those disorders only receive about seven per cent of health-care dollars. Those costs are often taken up by other ministries or the federal government.
The “supportive” aspects of supportive housing aren’t something municipalities are tasked with, funded for, or trained to manage. The answer, officials told Sudbury.com, is supportive housing with provincially funded care available to the residents.
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