‘Catastrophic’: Peel advocates frustrated over latest homelessness data; Carney vows to fix housing as Ford continues to ignore the crisis

“It’s giving [staff] the rubber stamp and moving on.”

That’s how Michelle Bilek, founder of the Peel Alliance to End Homelessness, describes Region of Peel council’s silence during a recent meeting. 

A report presented to Peel council on April 24 described a disturbing reality. In three years, the region has seen a 223 percent increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness. As of November, 2,799 individuals were living in shelters or on the streets, according to the Region’s Point in Time Count. Not including asylum claimants, the count represented a 93 percent increase among the local population compared to 2021 numbers. The data provide an estimate of the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night, as required by federal and provincial governments to monitor the situation and inform future policies. 

Despite the dire findings, Peel’s elected officials passed the report on consent without any acknowledgement of the crisis or debate about how to address it, part of a pattern of apathy at regional council toward the issue which is costing taxpayers tens of millions each year. 

“I really sometimes wonder how much of a stake in the game they really have when I go to these meetings. How invested are they?” Bilek asked. “It's more like, ‘Let's just leave it to staff, and they'll do their thing and we're good to go.’ 

“I just find that sometimes there's very little dialogue and questions. 

“Maybe the reasoning is because they just don't want the public or even the service providers to see the accurate situation that's happening, which is pretty catastrophic,” Bilek told The Pointer. 

“It’s pretty staggering.”

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario reported earlier this year that in 2024, there were more than 80,000 Ontarians experiencing homelessness, a number officials said has grown by more than 25 percent in two years. Without significant intervention, the Association anticipates homelessness in the province could double in the next decade, leaving nearly 300,000 people without stable housing. Across Ontario, more than 268,000 households are on housing waitlists, with average wait times exceeding five years, and some surpassing 20 years. The report warned “Ontario is at a tipping point in its homelessness crisis”. Targeted investments, it highlighted, could reverse the trajectory. 

To address the failure of municipal councils across the country, Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed to building 500,000 new homes a year by creating a new federal corporation that will act as a developer to create “affordable housing at scale, including on public lands.” He said $25 billion in financing will be provided to “innovative prefabricated home builders in Canada,” an idea that Mississauga and regional councillors Joe Horneck and Alvin Tedjo have previously proposed to address Peel’s housing crisis. Staff and others around the council table failed to act on their concerns and ideas to find solutions after two people died waiting for shelter space to open up in Peel. 

Carney has committed an additional $10 billion in low-cost financing only to those builders who invest in affordable home construction, not the developers whose high-cost projects across Mississauga and Brampton routinely get approved for buyers who can afford much more expensive units. 

According to the April 24 staff report, of the 2,799 individuals experiencing homelessness across Peel, 2,593 were staying in shelters or transitional housing (including 1,125 individuals within the asylum response system). The remaining 141 were unsheltered, residing in encampments or public spaces and 65 individuals were observed to be homeless and/or declined to answer the survey. Staff warned “the findings of the Count should be interpreted with caution, as the numbers most likely represent the minimum number of people who may be experiencing homelessness on any given night in Peel.” 

“[It] does not capture all individuals experiencing homelessness—especially those in hidden homelessness situations such as couch-surfing or temporarily staying with friends or family.”

Mississauga and regional Councillor Natalie Hart told The Pointer the staff report was intended to be for information on the latest homeless count and that key staff have already been instructed to bring back details on the action being taken by the Region.

“It is really just an information report but they also provide us with these numbers in real time every month,” she said. “So because we are updated continuously on that, and we’re getting them every month about where they are each month, we’re getting that information so regularly that it wouldn’t necessarily be something that we would discuss.”

Asked if not discussing the crisis in the public chamber, where that type of dialogue with residents is supposed to happen, makes it seem like the issue is being overlooked, Hart said, “I don’t think so.” But she acknowledged how the silence could be perceived.

“I could see how there could be a perception there but I don’t believe that to be the case just based on the volume of conversations and work that we’ve been seeing on that topic.”

She said the housing situation, including the circumstances of asylum seekers and those in makeshift encampments, “is frequently on the agenda and frequently discussed.”

Makeshift shelter space in tent encampments across Mississauga and Brampton have proliferated over the last five years.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The number of encampments across Brampton and Mississauga has surged in recent years. In just one year, from 2022 to 2023, the number more than doubled, from 125 encampments to 258 (all but three were in Brampton and Mississauga).

Recent investments from Queen’s Park fall far short of the local need across the province. This week the Ontario government recommitted to putting $75.5 million to “support homelessness prevention and provide people living in encampments with access to reasonable alternative accommodation,” through what it has dubbed the Safer Communities Act. The funding, first announced earlier this year, will create 1,239 additional housing units, including 815 long-term affordable and supportive housing units, and 971 additional shelter and temporary accommodation spaces. Peel submitted a business case for funding but a letter from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing revealed the request was denied, though it is unclear why. No reason was provided and The Pointer’s request to the Minister’s office for further details went unanswered. 

Not documented in the Peel Region report are the two deaths that occurred outside Mississauga’s Dundas Shelter in three months at the end of 2023 and start of last year, as people waited in tents outside during the cold.

Latest data from the Region of Peel reveals a 223 percent increase in homelessness, largely attributed to an influx in asylum claimants the last two years.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files) 

“The one thing Peel can do well is make reports,” Bill Graham, a Mississauga resident that runs his own food drive initiative, told The Pointer.  

“They do a nice, fancy looking report. As long as the councillors get that ‘they say, hey, everything is great, we can go home and everything is fine’ and they look no further,” he said. “I try to tell the councillors ‘these people work for you, do your due diligence. Get out and look, find out for yourself.’” 

Bilek told The Pointer while the rate of the increase is alarming, it is not surprising. 

“It's a reality. There's no doubt that over the last four years, with the asylum seekers, but also just the exacerbation of affordability in general, it has led numerous, various different demographics to end up in situations where they're having to go to shelters.”

In 2023, there were 258 known encampments reported in the region, more than double the previous year. In Peel, it is now estimated that approximately 97,000 households are living in core housing need. This means 1 in 5 families or individuals are living in homes that do not meet their needs or are unaffordable. In half a decade, the number of households waiting for assistance in Peel spiked from 14,997 in 2019 to 32,329, according to a 2024 staff report — a 115 percent increase in about three years. The latest numbers from the Region in October revealed a grim reality: Peel is only meeting three percent of the local supportive housing need, eight percent of the transitional housing need and 34 percent of the affordable housing need. 

With the limited number of shelter beds to house people, Peel has been forced to direct millions in funding toward a stopgap response of putting people up in hotels. In December, a staff report revealed the cost of hotels has nearly doubled since projections outlined in 2023, to $50.2 million for a one-year period. That figure is about ten times the amount that was spent on hotels a half-decade ago, illustrating how rapidly the homeless crisis in Peel has grown. 

Steve Jacques, Peel’s Commissioner of Human Services, explained to council at the time that staff are exploring hotel acquisitions, shelter site expansions and increased capacity at existing facilities as feasible solutions due to community resistance to new shelter sites. Staff are also looking at expanding capacity at Mississauga’s Surveyor shelter and exploring a new family shelter in Brampton, which is currently unfunded.

“I think a lot of municipalities are dealing with similar situations and trying to support people in some way, and so they're just taking emergency responses, which means of course, funding more shelters,” Bilek said. “We've got to start talking about more than just temporary emergency means to address the issue and instead (address) permanent solutions.”

“Building and maintaining more shelters should be only foreseen as a temporary thing. We shouldn't be building mega shelters to support people.”

Staff have repeatedly acknowledged using hotels is an expensive and unsustainable strategy. 

A report presented to council in May of last year acknowledged that, “Investing in emergency responses helps to meet basic needs and provide crisis response and supports to people experiencing homelessness,” but “to end chronic homelessness, additional and larger investments in homelessness prevention and permanent housing solutions are required…For the foreseeable future, the Region will not be able to find or provide enough suitable affordable and/or supportive housing solutions for all unhoused people in Peel.”

Previous projections from staff estimated it would take approximately $50 billion over the next ten years to fully meet the growing need for affordable housing and supports in Peel. Without sufficient funding from upper levels of government, Peel does not have the resources to address the rapidly increasing demand for affordable housing.

Getting people off the streets and into housing, Bilek said, “is going to take an all of government approach.”

For years, the Region of Peel has relied on putting people up in hotels as a temporary solution to its overcrowded shelter system, a response that is now costing at least $50 million annually.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files) 

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario reported an additional $11 billion over ten years would be needed to end chronic homelessness by boosting the supply of affordable housing, improving transitional and supportive services and enhancing prevention programs. An additional $2 billion over eight years would need to be invested to eliminate encampments. 

Doug Ford and his PC government have been criticized by advocates for “choosing to punish encampments” and “target[ing] homeless people.” An open letter from the newly formed Encampment Justice Coalition requests the Province rescind the recent legislation Ford and his government passed, the Safer Community Act, asking that they “commit to upholding people's human rights as well as evidence-based solutions to homelessness.”

Bilek says while investments from upper levels of government are the only real solution, the way the public’s money is spent needs to be scrutinized.

“In the end, we really do need additional funding to support people, but I also do think that we really do need to look at the expertise on the ground as well, and how that money is used more.” 

“I think it's probably overwhelming. I think it's exhausting. I think the councillors understand and they know that we're in a crisis, and quite possibly, they're unsure of where to go next, what to do next, to address the issue,” she said. 

“I don't think it's complacency, I don't think it's out of a lack of empathy. I think it's so heavy now and to see the numbers, despite the fact that we see it every day when we're walking down the street, seeing the numbers, it is shocking.”

Since last spring, staff have been working to develop a homeless encampment policy and protocols, though the specifics remain unclear. Staff told council in May, a year ago, the encampment policy and protocols would be brought back for council approval in the fall but a report presented in February indicated the final policy will not be presented until June now and will not be operationalized until early 2026. 

Graham said people need a place to turn to.

“We want to stop the tents. We want to get people out of the tents…for themselves.”

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock

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