Commentary
As Canadians settle in for the holiday season, 60,000 people across this country will spend Christmas night in a tent, a doorway, or a shelter bed intended to be temporary. Some will have been there for months, perhaps years. The number has quadrupled in six years.
In October 2024, enumerators in 74 Canadian communities conducted the most comprehensive count of homeless people this country has attempted. They found 17,088 people sleeping without shelter on a single autumn night, and 4,982 of them living in encampments. The count excluded Quebec entirely. The real number is certainly higher.
In Ontario alone, homelessness increased 51 percent between 2016 and 2024. Chronic homelessness has tripled. For the first time, more than half of all homelessness in that province is chronic. People are no longer moving through the system. They are becoming permanent fixtures within it….