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Bob Gardner

Ontario’s holiday gift to Toronto restores some of housing and homeless funding that was cut

Toronto will get a $12.3 million holiday gift from the province – partial repayment, for one year only, of $21 million in housing and homelessness funding cutsthat took effect on January 1st. The Ontario government rushed out its announcement of $42 million in transitional housing and homelessness funds to municipalities in the middle of the holiday season, just days before major cuts to provincial housing and homelessness funding were due to take place. While the new funds are one-time only and only a partial replacement for the funds that were cut, municipal and community advocates are welcoming the news as a partial victory in their campaign to restore funding for the cuts to Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit and other provincial housing and homeless funding.

Toronto officials are meeting to consider how to allocate the transitional funding from the province. The provincial cuts had triggered a number of cuts in the City of Toronto’s 2013 proposed budget for Shelter, Support and Housing, including plans to eliminate Personal Needs Allowance. This is a $3 million annual program that provides a small allowance to people who are forced to live in the city’s homeless shelters to buy personal items, such as sanitary napkins or transit tokens. There is no word from the city, as yet, on whether it will use part of the restored funding to renew PNA.

Other funding and service cuts that are still part of the draft 2013 Toronto budget and will be considered by Toronto City Council in the coming days as it completes its budget deliberations:

  • A cut of 41,172 bednights in the homeless shelter system, including 24% of the bednights at the city’s family residence (for homeless families), and a 10% cut in bednights at Robertson House, the city’s main shelter for homeless women.
  • A 50% cut in funding for new affordable homes at a time when the city’s affordable housing wait list continues to set a new record every month.

There has been a spike in the number of reported homeless deaths in Toronto in December, leaving advocates concerned that cuts to housing and homeless funding could lead to increased homelessness and a continuing heavy burden of poor health and premature death.

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Bob Gardner

Bob Gardner

Bob Gardner was the Director of Policy at Wellesley Institute, 2006-2014. His expertise was in health equity policy working with governments, LHINs, service provider networks, and community partners to develop effective strategies and action plans to enhance health equity. He served on many health policy advisory forums, working groups and boards. Bob has a Ph.D. in sociology; has been an academic, public sector executive and consultant; and has been a community activist on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, and other issues

Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Revised by the Ceremonial Committee at the University of Toronto Office of Indigenous Initiatives in April 2021.