Number of homeless OW, ODSP recipients has almost doubled in two years: government data

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.

Just over two years ago, fewer than 14,500 people on either of Ontario's main social assistance programs were experiencing homelessness.

That number had almost doubled — to more than 26,500 — as of a couple of months ago, provincial data obtained by The Trillium shows.

As cities and towns have pleaded in recent years for help from the province to deal with rising homelessness, Premier Doug Ford has preached the importance of hard work. 

"You need to start working if you're healthy,” Ford said on Monday, referring to people living in encampments. “Bottom line, if you're unhealthy, I'll take care of you the rest of my life — your life — we'll take care of you. But if you're healthy, get off your A-S-S and start working like everyone else does. Very simple."

Advocates pointed to the high cost of housing and inflation, without a commensurate increase in social services rates, as a key reason for the staggering increase. 

It’s especially difficult to find housing because once someone is homeless, they lose their shelter allowance — $390 of the $733 monthly amount for Ontario Works (OW), and $582 of the $1,368 monthly total for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

That makes it even harder to come up with first and last months’ rent, said Diana Chan McNally, a community and crisis worker in Toronto.

The average rent for a studio apartment in Ontario is $1,837/month, according to Rentals.ca.

“You can't afford nutritious food. You're just trying to do your best to stay housed and clean and fed. And you're lucky to be living in a rooming house, in a shared room at that amount,” said Trevor Manson, co-chair of the ODSP Action Coalition. “It's not a bunch of healthy people sitting at home, playing Nintendo, drinking beer all day.”

In July, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services recorded that 26,553 ODSP and OW “cases” experienced homelessness. A larger number of “beneficiaries” — 31,957 — on ODSP or OW were homeless, according to the ministry’s tally.

The document containing the ministry’s data, retrieved through the freedom-of-information system, explains that a “case” refers to an individual or an entire family on social assistance. A “beneficiary” is described as individuals and their dependents, such as their spouse and children, receiving financial aid.

The ministry’s counts include people “who are recorded as homeless or living in emergency hostels,” its document says.

OW and ODSP are the two main social assistance programs through which the provincial government provides Ontarians with direct financial assistance.

Each is meant to help pay for basic needs and shelter. Someone isn’t allowed to receive both simultaneously; they can only receive one at a time.

OW is meant to provide short-term financial support for people looking for work. The amount a recipient receives can be based on their family size and the age of their dependents. In July, there were 276,753 total recipients of OW, including individuals and families receiving the benefit, according to the government’s website.

ODSP is for people with disabilities who can’t work very much, or at all. In July, 372,858 individuals and families received ODSP, according to data posted online by the provincial government.

Just over two years ago, in June 2022, there were 14,436 cases of ODSP and OW recipients who were homeless and 17,635 beneficiaries. The number has increased in almost every month since.

The homelessness data does not include cases on First Nations reserves, which the federal government is largely responsible for.

Of the social support payment recipients who are homeless, 85 per cent are receiving OW. The remaining 15 per cent are on ODSP.

Compared to two years ago, tens of thousands more people now receive OW. The total number of ODSP recipients has remained almost the same. The prevalence of both support payment program recipients who are homeless has increased for both.

As of July 2024, 1.1 per cent of the 372,858 ODSP cases in the province were considered homeless. Of the 276,753 OW cases, 8.1 per cent were homeless.

In June 2022, 0.9 per cent of the 369,458 ODSP cases were homeless. Of the 212,361 OW cases that month, 5.2 per cent were homeless. 

The problem of homelessness in Ontario has been getting worse for some time.

Decades of downloading have seen successive provincial and federal governments shift housing and social costs onto municipalities. Many are straining under the weight of homelessness and addiction issues — municipalities counted more than 1,400 encampments in their communities last year — and are begging the province and Ottawa to shoulder more of the burden.

Social assistance rates were a hot topic in the campaign ahead of Ontario’s June 2022 election, the month data received by The Trillium starts. 

The Green and NDP parties promised to double ODSP rates, if elected. The Liberals pledged to raise them by 20 per cent. Later, facing pressure during the campaign, the Progressive Conservatives promised to raise ODSP rates by five per cent — about $58 more per month for an individual — and tie them to inflation. They later did, after being re-elected.

No party pledged an increase in OW rates.

Monday was not the first time Ford has taken social assistance recipients to task. Reiterating that those on ODSP should be supported “for life,” the premier said last summer that healthy people receiving Ontario Works “drives me crazy.”

"It really bothers me that we have healthy people sitting at home, collecting your hard-earned dollars. We need to encourage them to contribute back to the province and find gainful employment," he told a crowd at the Empire Club of Canada in Toronto.

Many on OW are looking to move to ODSP, but have been denied — often because they can’t find a doctor to sign off on their ODSP forms, McNally and Manson said. 

“You can't walk into a walk-in clinic with a bunch of stacks of forms,” Manson said. “They don't have time for that.”

Others are disincentivized from working due to government clawbacks, “trapping” people on social assistance, McNally added. 

“You have to be showing that you’re demonstrably going out there and looking for work in order to actually maintain (OW payments),” she said. “Which is to say that a lot of people who may be on OW, who are homeless, may be actually going to look for jobs, but aren't finding them.”

One former caseworker, and two people who have been through the program, previously described it as an "incredibly invasive" ordeal that watches your every move — financially, professionally, and even romantically.

“People want to be able to work,” Krista Carr, the executive vice president of Inclusion Canada, said.

Inclusion Canada is a national organization that advocates for and supports people with intellectual disabilities.

“When you are homeless, when you’re unsafely or unsecurely housed, when you don’t have access to transportation … when you don’t know where your next meal is going to come from, you are not in a position to go to work,” Carr said. “People need to be able to have their basic needs met.” 

Manson said his organization, the ODSP Action Coalition, receives plenty of emails from working people who sleep in their cars because they can’t afford a home. 

“It's easy to say, ‘Oh, these people are spending your hard-earned tax dollars and they're lazy and there's something wrong with them because they can't find a job,” he said. “And it places the blame squarely on the shoulders of somebody who might be down on their luck.”

Children, Community and Social Services Minister Michael Parsa’s office did not respond to a request for comment by the time this story was published.

—With files from Sneh Duggal