According to a new report by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), homelessness has increased by 25 per cent across the province since 2022 — and local service providers are grappling with that trend in Orillia.
Released Thursday, the AMO report, titled Municipalities Under Pressure: The Growing Human and Financial Cost of Ontario’s Homelessness, estimates 81,515 people experienced “known homelessness” in 2024, referring to people the homelessness-serving system is aware of through shelter use, point-in-time counts, and more.
Going back further, the report found homelessness has increased by 50 per cent since 2016, including 150 per cent increases in homelessness in rural communities and more than 200 per cent increases in northern Ontario over that span.
Without “significant intervention,” the report warns homelessness could more than triple in the next decade, with up to 294,266 people “without stable housing under an economic downturn scenario.”
In Orillia, emergency shelters have been operating at full capacity for years.
“One of the things that we found, from 2023 to 2024, is that our shelter has been at capacity for adults and youth, so we can’t increase to what we don’t have,” said Linda Goodall, executive director of The Lighthouse.
She said the number of people accessing The Lighthouse’s bagged lunch program increased by 43 per cent in 2024, and the shelter’s outreach team has been supporting more people on the streets “than ever before.”
On the nights it’s open, the Orillia overnight warming centre has seen 15 to 20 people per night, with an additional five per night stopping in to get warm.
“A lot of the increase in homelessness is put on non-profits and the social services, and we can only do so much, and we do whatever we can,” Goodall said.
The AMO report outlines numerous investments and policies that could help with the issue, and Goodall stresses it all “goes down to no housing,” particularly in smaller municipalities like Orillia.
“There’s no affordable housing. Many people think that it’s only people from outside of town that are coming to The Lighthouse, and that is simply not true,” she said. “Twenty-five years ago, you didn’t see people in Orillia that were experiencing homelessness, and now, every day, you do, which is similar across Canada, unfortunately, and this comes down to the housing crisis that we’re in.”
Goodall pointed out the Count of Simcoe’s affordable housing hub on West Street North “filled up immediately” due to the need in the area, and she called for more support for people as they transition out of homelessness.
“What we’re doing is managing homelessness … (and) the middle term is getting people into supportive housing … where they can have support but be able to get the skills that they need to live on their own, and then there’s affordable housing,” she said.
“We do need to be able to get the funding that’s needed to build housing and have the support that goes along with it.”
According to the AMO report, supportive housing is in “critically short supply, with only one non-health-operated supportive housing space available for every 14 people experiencing known homelessness.”
AMO’s full report can be found here.
— With files from Charlie Pinkerton
