GUELPH – Elected officials and community members from across Ontario have formed a coalition to advocate for homeless people and campaigned to 2025 provincial election candidates to do the same.
The Ontario Coalition for Rights of Homeless People is pushing back against using the notwithstanding clause to clear encampments and instead encouraging a housing-first approach.
The coalition chair is Burlington deputy mayor Rory Nisan and steering committee members include Guelph councillors Erin Caton and Leanne Caron, Grey Highlands councillor Nadia Dubyk and frontline worker Diana Chan McNally, along with six other municipal councillors.
The coalition officially launched on Feb. 14.
During a virtual press conference that day, Chan McNally said hundreds of people she has worked with over the last decade have died due to homelessness.
According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, there were more than 80,000 homeless people in Ontario in 2024.
That’s “80,000 lives at imminent risk of death, all because Ontario lacks a political will to do what’s required, which is to build safe, affordable housing for everyone who needs it,” Chan McNally said.
“Everyone that I have worked with, everyone that I have lost, and the 80,000 people who are homeless right now are worthy of the right to housing and the right to life. And we have violated those rights,” she said.
Caton said the coalition wants “a firm commitment from all parties that they will not strip away the rights of our most vulnerable residents, and instead fund and build supportive, accessible housing that meets the needs of every community member.”
“Especially in these times of economic upheaval, with tariffs being threatened for the United States, we need a provincial government focussed on protecting all Ontarians and our rights and we hope that all of the parties can meet that challenge.”
Nisan said they’re asking the provincial government to “reject the use of the notwithstanding clause against encampments, embrace the housing first approach, and respect the human rights of homeless Ontarians.”
The notwithstanding clause is a legislative tool that overrides the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that Premier Doug Ford said the provincial government is “fully prepared to use” if courts interfere with governments “addressing and clearing out encampments.”
The City of Guelph passed a motion in December in official opposition of using the notwithstanding clause to evict homeless encampments, less than a month after the city cleared a homeless encampment from its downtown core due to it violating a new Guelph bylaw.
The housing-first approach is a strategy to address the homelessness crisis that involves quickly moving people into stable, long-term supportive housing.
Nisan said there are two options for ending encampments in Ontario: using the notwithstanding clause to clear them out, or adopting a housing-first approach.
He said the first option “violates the human rights of homeless Ontarians, removes the only shelter they have, leaves them to move on to bus shelters or on to the streets where some will undoubtedly freeze to death this winter.”
According to Toronto Public Health, the average life expectancy for a homeless woman in Toronto is 36.
“That’s lower than the life expectancy of a woman in any country in the world,” Nisan said. “And if we go this route, we are going to find out how much lower that can go.”
The housing-first approach, on the other hand, “means building small apartments, tiny homes, purchasing housing on the market,” the deputy mayor said.
“Which sounds expensive, right? But it’s actually a lot less expensive than managing the homelessness crisis.
“Research consistently shows that the cost of homelessness, driven by emergency shelters, hospital visits and justice system interactions ranges from $50,000 to $60,000 per person annually,” Nisan said.
“In contrast, the costs of providing permanent supportive housing with wrap-around services is much lower – $26,000 per person, per year.”
The Ontario Coalition for Rights of Homeless People is also asking MPP candidates “to commit to building housing, to uphold homeless people’s human rights, and to have a clear, compassionate plan to reduce homelessness,” according to a press release about the coalition’s launch.
“We believe that homelessness is a non-partisan issue, and that every party should have a comprehensive platform with individual commitments from their candidates to address the issue in their communities.”
Caton said the coalition wants “a firm commitment from all parties that they will not strip away the rights of our most vulnerable residents, and instead fund and build supportive, accessible housing that meets the needs of every community member.”
“Especially in these times of economic upheaval, with tariffs being threatened for the United States, we need a provincial government focussed on protecting all Ontarians and our rights and we hope that all of the parties can meet that challenge.”
For more information about the coalition, visit homelessrights.ca.
