Homelessness

More and more Canadians are being pushed onto the streets and into encampments. Winter conditions in particular can take a harsh toll on our most vulnerable, while producing a complex human and financial burden which falls to local governments.

As shelters continue to fill up and community resources are stretched to the limit, the cracks in an underperforming federal homelessness strategy are on full display.

We must work together with urgency to tackle this national crisis. FCM is advocating for the federal government to make the Reaching Home program permanent every year to ensure continuous wraparound support for vulnerable populations and quickly distribute the funds promised in Budget 2024 for this program and to address encampments in communities across the country.

Local leaders are on the front lines of tackling homelessness but are working with limited resources. To ensure that municipalities are better equipped to truly address the situation a new Municipal Growth Framework is required, one that will provide communities with a fairer slice of the existing tax dollar.

Local leaders are calling for tangible solutions to an unprecedented homelessness crisis.

Op-ed: We’re in a historic homelessness crisis. Winter will make it worse. Let’s act now.

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