Maytree

30,000+ people on social assistance in Ontario are now homeless – a 72% increase since 2019. This is the predictable result of a system designed to fail.   Our new report reveals how inadequate benefits and punitive shelter rules are fuelling Ontario's homelessness crisis – and what we must do to fix it. Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/eh745QqG 

Social assistance is effectively Ontario's largest housing program, but the data tells us it's making our housing crisis worse.    In July 2025, more than 30,000 people were homeless while receiving social assistance benefits – a 72% increase since July 2019.   These numbers come from the government's own records.    For a person on social assistance, the math simply doesn't work. Rents have risen much faster than benefits. The cost to rent a room now exceeds the maximum Ontario Works amount available to a single adult.    Worse still: if you don’t have any housing costs, you don't receive the shelter portion of your allowance. A vicious cycle emerges – people lose their homes because benefits are too low, then they lose their shelter income, making it nearly impossible to find a new home.    These system failures fall unevenly across the population, deepening inequities for people who already face structural barriers. Indigenous people, racialized groups, and people with disabilities remain overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness.    Despite the evidence, the government continues to focus on short-term responses without addressing the upstream causes rooted in a failing social assistance system.    The province must reform social assistance to prevent homelessness in the first place – by raising rates and ensuring every recipient receives the full shelter benefit. Read the full opinion: https://lnkd.in/gUE52dUD

Meet the 2026 Maytree Policy School cohort Maytree Policy School started today. We’re excited to welcome 20 social policy leaders working on issues from housing and workforce development to literacy and health equity. Read their bios: https://lnkd.in/g2aQW2Ui

When someone can’t file taxes, they can’t access the benefits they are entitled to. That’s why $1.7–$1.9B goes unclaimed every year.   A few days left to urge the government to move forward with deemed tax filing for eligible people with low incomes – so benefits aren’t trapped behind paperwork.   Add your voice!

City of Toronto’s Housing Rights Advisory Committee urges Ontario to invest more in the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit On behalf of the Housing Rights Advisory Committee (HRAC), chair Elizabeth McIsaac has written a letter to Ontario’s Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Rob Flack calling for increased investment in the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) in the 2026 provincial budget. The housing crisis in Ontario is dire: Nearly 85,000 people experienced homelessness in 2025, including more than 30,000 people accessing social assistance who are unhoused – a 72% increase since 2019. Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which all provinces in Canada have agreed to abide by, addressing homelessness is a legal responsibility. It requires governments to devote maximum available resources to progressively realize the right to housing. Ontario has the fiscal capacity to do more. While the long-term solution requires expanding permanent, deeply affordable, and supportive housing, people need urgent support today. COHB has become the leading pathway out of homelessness in Toronto, helping thousands find rental housing. Yet funding is dropping significantly this year, limiting access for new renters. HRAC urges the province to increase COHB funding in the 2026 budget and work with the federal government to ensure this critical program continues helping people move from homelessness to permanent housing. Read the full letter below.

Maytree is supporting Prosper Canada and Momentum Calgary in this call to action to help eliminate barriers to tax filing and ensure hundreds of thousands of low-income people access the income-boosting benefits to which they are entitled.

Registration is open for Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations (FMTA)'s February Scarborough Tenant School. Learn about your rights under the law, meet other tenant leaders, and strategize to take action against bad landlords! This is an intensive training with classes taught by lawyers and community advocates. The school is hybrid: there are both zoom and in person workshops. RSVP today: https://lnkd.in/e_iQS4xp

Join Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa for a discussion with leaders who are proving that reducing homelessness is possible in Canada, but it requires a change in approach. Hear from Sandra Clarkson, CEO of the Calgary Drop In & Rehab Centre Society, and Michael Lethby, the Executive Director of The Raft Shelter in Niagara, Ontario. Sandra has seen an 85% decrease in chronic stays at her shelter since 2018, and emergency shelter use at the Raft has declined by 75% since 2008. They will be joined by Jennifer McKelvie, MP for Ajax, and Parliamentary Secretary, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure. Catherine Cullen, host of CBC/Radio-Canada's The House, will moderate. ✅ "Ending Homelessness is Possible: Lessons in Emergency Shelter Transformation" 📅 January 28, 7pm ET 👉 Learn more and get the link for the livestream: https://lnkd.in/emFaxGb7

Ontario’s social assistance system is fuelling our homelessness crisis.   New data obtained through a Freedom of Information request reveals more than 30,000 people on social assistance were homeless in July 2025 – up 72% since 2019.   Our latest policy brief, “Designed to fail: How Ontario’s income security policies create and perpetuate homelessness,” written by Lena Balata, examines how inadequate social assistance rates and punitive shelter benefit rules are driving people onto the streets.    Ontario’s own records show this a reversible policy failure.   The Ontario government can and must: • Protect human rights by progressively realizing the right to an adequate standard of living. • Address the systemic causes of poverty. • Ensure income supports are adequate to afford housing. • End shelter benefit clawbacks. • Expand deeply affordable and supportive housing. • Confront systemic discrimination in housing and employment.   Read the full policy brief and download the FOI data: https://lnkd.in/eh745QqG

Ingrid Palmer had first hand experience of a school board and a Black community working together to establish the Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement - the first of its kind in Canada. In the second article in her series, Ingrid discusses some of the practical things that made it work.   An excellent example of what we can achieve when institutions and first-voice (lived) experts share knowledge, power, risk, and credit: https://lnkd.in/eKzegduN