Designed to fail: How Ontario’s income security policies create and perpetuate homelessness 

Ontario’s social assistance system, effectively the province’s largest housing program, is increasingly a homelessness sentence. New data received through a Freedom of Information request reveals that the very programs designed to provide a safety net are instead forcing thousands of people onto the street.

Key findings

• As of July 2025, more than 30,000 people on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) were experiencing homelessness – an increase of 72 per cent since July 2019.
• Homelessness among those who have relied on OW for more than one year surged by 136 per cent.
• Seventy per cent of unhoused recipients are single adults – the group receiving the lowest benefits.

A system designed to fail

The policy brief highlights how current provincial rules act as a “preventable policy failure”:

• Paltry rates vs. rising rents: OW rates for a single adult have been frozen at $733/month, even as the average cost to rent a single room in Ontario climbed to $756/month between 2019 and 2025 – making even the cheapest housing option out of reach.
• Punitive shelter benefit rules: The system is split into basic needs and shelter benefits; however, if a person cannot prove housing costs, they receive zero dollars for shelter, pushing the unhoused even deeper into poverty.
• Rules that force couples apart: Social assistance rules penalize family formation by reducing benefits when couples move in together. Reforming this could free up an estimated 10,000 low-income rental units.

Entrenching inequality

This crisis does not fall evenly across the population. Systemic barriers mean that Indigenous peoples, racialized communities, and people with disabilities are more likely to rely on social assistance and face a far greater risk of homelessness. In 2024, Indigenous people represented nearly one-third of those surveyed in homelessness counts, despite being only 5 per cent of the population

A failed strategy

The government’s 2020-25 Poverty Reduction Strategy has focused on employment as the only path out of poverty, yet poverty rates have risen every year since its inception.

A second Freedom of Information request reveals that the Ministry has “no records” exploring the relationship between social assistance rates and rising homelessness, suggesting a lack of government interest in this critical link.

Recommendations for reform

We urge the Ontario government to:

• Protect human rights by progressively realizing the right to an adequate standard of living.
• Address systemic causes of poverty for marginalized communities.
• Ensure income supports are adequate to afford housing.
• End shelter benefit clawbacks for unhoused recipients.
• Expand deeply affordable housing supply to match the scale of need.
• Confront systemic discrimination in housing and employment.