Ajax again calls for homelessness and addiction support from Ontario

Ajax Town Council is set to throw its support behind the Solve the Crisis campaign to push the Ontario government into action to address the province-wide homelessness and addiction epidemic.

The campaign was born at this year’s meeting of Ontario’s Big City Mayors, which represents all Ontario communities with 100,000 or more residents.

The mayors found there are now 1,400 homeless encampments across the province, with the number ever rising. They also found that 234,000 people are living on the street either in these communities or on their own. Additionally, drug overdoses accounted for 3,432 deaths in Ontario last year.

Durham Region has been particularly affected by this crisis as a centre for several services and given its proximity to Toronto.

In February, Regional Chair John Henry reported a 67 per cent jump in the number to people living rough in Durham, calling it “a serious situation that requires immediate action.”

“We are doing what we can, but we can’t keep up,” he confirmed while calling for additional supports from the Federal and Ontario governments.

As the rising number of homeless people rose, it not only exhausted the Regional and municipal housing supports but taxed the already overwhelmed Lakeridge hospital network.

In 2023, Lakeridge reported 14,000 mental health related visits. So far in 2024, the Region’s paramedic service responded to 607 suspected overdoses, 33 of which were fatal.

In Ajax specifically, Mayor Shaun Collier described an “emergency situation” last summer after an influx of new residents overwhelmed the town’s support network.

“Without additional funding and aid for these individuals, the Town is facing an emergency situation on top of the current homelessness situation. More displaced individuals are arriving daily and with no remaining capacity in the system, people are being forced to sleep on the street,” Collier wrote after the town’s homeless population expanded 40 per cent in a matter of days.

Ontario has provided some support to Durham Region following last summer’s crisis, and provided funds to Belleville after a rash of downtown overdoses, the Big City Mayors feel the province has not done enough to solve the crises.

“Municipalities have been left to manage the crisis of homelessness, mental health, and addiction issues in their communities by themselves—far beyond what they are equipped to handle,” the organization wrote.

They also noted the federal government has not stepped in to help despite promising to do so.

“There is hope. A pathway to recovery—combining mental health and addiction services with supportive housing—has been proven in individual communities across the province, but only the province can scale up these solutions to meet the size of the challenge,” they continued.

Of note, the province recently forced 10 supervised consumption sites across the province to close due to zoning changes, making support more difficult to find for those with addictions.

This will be replaced by 19 new “homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs” and the province pledged funding for 345

Ajax’s motion to publicly support the Mayors’ campaign will be debated next week. If approved, it will call for the creation of a new, adequately funded, ministry and task force to address the crisis.

The full text of the motion is available here. Residents can also support the Solve the Crisis campaign online.