Dufferin County is highlighting new data released by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) on homelessness in Ontario. As predicted in AMO’s work in 2025, without meaningful and collective intervention, the crisis continues to grow.

Nearly 85,000 Ontarians experienced homelessness in 2025, up eight per cent from 2024. The figure also represents a 50 per cent increase since 2021. Without significant intervention, homelessness in Ontario could double by 2035, and reach nearly 300,000 people in an economic downturn.

Homelessness continues to grow fastest in rural and northern communities. Rural homelessness was up by more than 30 per cent last year. In Northern Ontario, it grew by more than 37 per cent over the last year.

While dedicated investments and actions have dealt with some large urban encampments, there are small and dispersed encampments across Ontario – nearly 2,000 were reported in 2025 compared to 1,400 in 2024.

The update was conducted by HelpSeeker Technologies, in partnership with AMO, the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association and the Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association.

In Dufferin, the trend identified in the report is in line with what is being experienced at the local level. In 2024, the community level data had a total of 160 individuals and families experiencing homelessness at some point during that year. In 2025, that number increased to 272. Similarly, the number of chronic homelessness increased from 47 in 2024 to 60 in 2025.

Dufferin County has made progress supporting its community but cannot solve the problem alone.

The crisis stems from decades of underinvestment in deeply affordable housing, income support and mental health and addictions treatment, combined with escalating economic pressures on communities.

Ontario is the only province where responsibility for social housing has been downloaded to municipalities. Municipal investment in housing and homelessness programs has grown significantly in recent years, totalling $2 billion in 2025.

Dufferin County joins AMO in urging provincial and federal governments to take significant, long-term action on affordable housing, mental health and addictions services and income supports to fix homelessness and improve local economies and quality of life for all Ontarians.

AMO’s recommendations

As per AMO’s 2025 report, Ontario needs a fundamentally new approach that focuses on long-term housing solutions over temporary emergency measures and enforcement:

• To address chronic homelessness, an additional $11 billion over 10 years would focus on capital investments to develop more than 75,000 new affordable and supportive housing units, as well as increased funding on prevention efforts.
• To ensure that current encampment residents are quickly and appropriately housed, Ontario needs to invest an additional $2 billion over eight years.

AMO further recommends:

• Continued federal funding through the National Housing Strategy to maintain critical programs like the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit
• Collaboration amongst all orders of government to ensure homelessness and housing dollars are having the biggest impact, including coordinating data and outcomes across programs, connecting services, and tracking every dollar from investment to impact

The full report and backgrounder provide a detailed analysis and actionable solutions for governments and stakeholders.

“Dufferin County continues to support our most vulnerable community members and tackle the homelessness and housing crisis through our programs, services and advocacy, but we cannot do it alone. In Dufferin County and across Ontario, homelessness continues to rise. As stated by AMO, we must take a whole-of-government approach to ensure that each person in our community and our province has a safe, warm place to call home. Dufferin County Council joins AMO in calling on the federal and provincial governments for increased investment in housing and homelessness solutions. Together, municipalities can increase affordable and attainable housing options and advance community health and safety for communities across Ontario.”

-Lisa Post, Warden, Dufferin County

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MEDIA CONTACT:
Megan Ball, Manager of Communications
mball@dufferincounty.ca