Editor: Canada’s constitutional framework gives provinces authority to download social services, including homelessness, onto local governments. Research suggests ultimate legal jurisdiction and the primary funding obligation for social services remains with the province.
Ontario municipalities act as service co-ordinators or managers for the homeless, social housing, shelters, etc. placing up-front obligations onto local governments, having limited resources or legislative power to cope with related legislation created by senior governments.
We’ve seen a shift from provincially run mental institutions where this burden is loaded onto local governments absent of sufficient housing and financial support from senior government, such being a contributing factor to the homelessness increase among people with mental illness.
Although the primary responsibility for our mental health system is provincial, the fallout – homelessness – is loaded directly onto local government. This is where politics overrides responsible management on all government levels, whereby, local governments are being compelled to deal with the effects (lack of funding ) from provincial downloading.
Our local governments lack sufficient funding, legislative authority and the added tax base to manage the burden of homelessness. I believe we have an unfair and imbalanced set of rules wrongfully thrown at local governments. After all, three levels of government are empowered and expected to manage our country in an open, honest, fair, accountable and responsible fashion – as if that will ever happen.
Federal and provincial governments need to re-assume 100 per cent of the funding for all core social services, emergency shelters and social programs directly related to their constitutional jurisdiction over social welfare.
Ottawa needs to introduce or further initiate a national homelessness strategy to compel uniformity in relevant services to every province. Both senior levels of government should define and implement specific funding for local mental health and addiction programs, focusing on root causes for homelessness after deinstitutionalization.
Rather than focusing on emergency sheltering, a focus on more immediate, stable and permanent housing, for the chronic homeless, as an initiative of Ottawa and the provincial governments, should be the priority.
From here, the province should be compelled to fund required supporting services as case managers, mental health workers, addiction specialists, working directly with the local homeless ensuring the homeless can maintain their tenancy.
Senior government should then change legislation to provide local governments with secured funding, generated from provincial sales taxes or specific municipality tax incomes. The province could mandate a percentage of new housing development be affordable, putting the onus on developers to address the housing shortage, thus reducing cost burden on municipalities.
As an incentive for developers, governments could reduce or significantly waive municipal development charges, planning application and permit fees, term exemptions from municipal and/or provincial taxes and/or capitol grants on affordable housing.
Expand and better define enforcement of the National Housing Strategy Act, which recognizes housing as a human right, to place a greater legal obligation on all levels of government to proactively ensure adequate living standards. Our current model of downloading of relevant issues seems to be far too open-ended that otherwise would compel proper, balanced and accountable action by all government levels.
Senior government created a significant level of this problem; they need to step up to support shifting scattered encampments to defined and monitored housing systems.
John Cryderman
Chatham
