Item - 2025.EC21.6

The Economic and Community Development Committee:

1. Directed the City Manager to work with the Deputy City Manager, Community and Emergency Services and the Deputy City Manager, Community Development and Social Services and to report back by the October 28, 2025 meeting of the Economic and Community Committee with an inventory of initiatives, programs, and services offered by City divisions, agencies, and partners to support unhoused residents; and on governance options to enable a cross-divisional, city-wide response.

People in need of shelter and support are seeking refuge in public spaces across our city: on streetcars and subways, in libraries, in parks and public squares. When people can’t get access to the services and supports they need, it impacts everyone in our city.

Without significant interventions from all three levels of government, the number of people who are unhoused in Ontario is set to triple over the next decade, as found in a recent report by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. The City of Toronto declared homelessness to be an emergency in 2023. Since then, housing has not become more affordable, incomes have not increased, and access to healthcare has not improved.

Attending with urgency to the scale and needs of unhoused residents is happening in various forms across City divisions and agencies. Mapping those interventions would support an all-of-City government approach and provide additional accountability to the public, for funding partners, and to Council.

I am requesting that the City Manager work with the Deputy City Manager, Community and Emergency Services and the Deputy City Manager, Community Development and Social Services, to report with an inventory of initiatives, programs, and services offered by City divisions and agencies to support unhoused residents; and on governance options to enable a cross-Divisional, all-of-City response.