Cities and towns across Ontario are being stretched to their limits. According to a new survey from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), more than 1,400 homeless encampments appeared in communities last year alone. That number isn’t just a statistic it’s a sobering reminder that the homelessness crisis is worsening, and that municipalities are being forced to carry the weight of a problem they did not create.
AMO’s latest policy paper makes the situation clear: local governments are trying to manage encampments without the tools, resources, or authority they need. Municipal service managers are stuck walking a tightrope on one side, the responsibility to treat unsheltered people with dignity and compassion, and on the other, the duty to maintain safe, livable public spaces for all residents. Neither responsibility is easy. Together, they are overwhelming.
The truth is that municipalities can’t and shouldn’t be left alone to solve homelessness. Housing affordability, addiction treatment, and mental health supports are provincial and federal responsibilities. Local governments can clear tents from parks, but they cannot build supportive housing overnight. They can hire outreach workers, but without enough long-term funding, those efforts become little more than temporary relief.
Ontario has reached a breaking point. Encampments are not going away on their own. They are a visible sign of policy failures at higher levels of government, and of decades of underinvestment in housing and social services. Municipalities have stepped up, but they are patching cracks in a crumbling foundation.
The AMO conference next week offers the province a chance to make real commitments. That means permanent funding for supportive housing, clear guidance for municipalities struggling to manage encampments, and recognition that homelessness is not just a municipal issue it’s an Ontario issue.
If the province continues to pass the buck, local governments will keep shouldering an impossible burden. And the 1,400 encampments of last year may be just the beginning.
