This 2026 report updates Municipalities Under Pressure: The Human and Financial Cost of Ontario’s Homelessness Crisis, published in January, 2025. The 2025 report established a province-wide baseline of known homelessness from 2016 onward and examined regional patterns, impacts on key populations, housing and homelessness investments across governments, and projected homelessness under different socioeconomic conditions. The update report provides updated estimates of homelessness and chronic homelessness, community housing waitlists, housing and homelessness funding and expenditures, and encampments. Key findings include:
– Homelessness increased in 2025: 84,973 Ontarians experienced known homelessness, a 7.8% increase from 2024.
– Homelessness growth accelerated sharply after 2021 and has not been reversed.
– Homelessness is growing fastest in northern communities.
– Homelessness is also increasing rapidly in mostly rural communities.
– Indigenous people are significantly overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness.
– Encampments exist in most areas of Ontario in 2025.
– Lack of housing is increasing the duration and chronicity of homelessness.
– Housing and homelessness funding has increased, but homelessness grows faster.
– Homelessness is projected to more than double by 2035.
– Post-pandemic homelessness appears increasingly difficult to reverse.
Publication Date: January, 2026
Published by: Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), in partnership with the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA) and the Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association (NOSDA)
Click here to access Municipalities Under Pressure One Year Later: An Update on the Human
and Financial Cost of Ontario’s Homelessness Crisis
