Sileen's answers to three questions on the homelessness crisis: where things stand today, what she would do about it, and how shelter capacity, encampments, supportive housing and the other orders of government fit together. It closes with an honest look at what it costs.
As someone who has experienced homelessness and lived in a shelter for five months, my experience has taught me the importance of support: support to not only find a home, but mental health support.
Question 1
How do you see the homelessness situation in Toronto, and in your ward, today?
Toronto is facing a homelessness crisis that is both city-wide and deeply visible in our local neighbourhoods. In Ward 5, we see the same pressures affecting the rest of the city: rising rents, limited deeply affordable housing, gaps in mental-health and addiction supports, and shelter systems operating at or near capacity. Many residents are using public spaces, including transit, because they have nowhere else to go. This is not a failure of individuals. It is a failure of systems that have not kept pace with need.
Homelessness today is driven by structural factors: inadequate provincial mental-health funding, insufficient supportive housing, decades of underinvestment in affordable housing, and the erosion of social supports. The result is a growing number of people living in extreme vulnerability, and frontline workers being asked to manage crises without the resources required to do so safely.
As someone who has experienced homelessness and lived in a shelter for five months, my experience has taught me the importance of support: support to not only find a home, but mental health support.
Question 2
What specific actions would you take or support if elected?
If elected, I would support and advance actions that address both immediate needs and long-term solutions:
- Strengthening shelter capacity so people have safe indoor options, especially during extreme weather.
- Expanding supportive housing and deeply affordable housing, with a focus on long-term stability rather than short-term emergency responses.
- Improving coordination between City divisions, community agencies, and health partners to ensure people receive mental-health, addiction, and stabilization supports quickly.
- Advocating for sustained provincial and federal investment in housing, mental-health care, and harm-reduction services, areas that municipalities cannot fund alone.
- Ensuring that local planning and service delivery reflect the needs of all residents, including families, youth, seniors, and people living with complex health challenges.
My approach is grounded in evidence: homelessness declines when people have stable housing, clinical supports, and consistent outreach, not when systems rely solely on emergency shelters.
Question 3
How would you handle shelter capacity, encampments, supportive housing, and intergovernmental coordination on mental health and addiction services?
Shelter capacity, encampments, and supportive housing must be addressed through a balanced, humane, and coordinated strategy.
Shelter capacity
I support maintaining adequate shelter capacity so people are not forced into unsafe conditions. This includes improving the quality of shelters, ensuring access to wrap-around supports, and reducing reliance on temporary or overflow sites by expanding permanent supportive housing.
Encampments
Encampments are a symptom of system failure, not a solution. Encampments are not just structures; they are social mirrors. They reflect the gaps in our housing system, the strain on mental-health and addiction supports, and the reality that too many people in our city have nowhere safe or stable to go. When encampments appear in parks, ravines, and public spaces, they show us not only the hardship people are living through, but also the responsibilities we have collectively failed to meet.
They make visible what would otherwise remain hidden: the consequences of underinvestment, the human impact of unaffordable housing, and the urgency of building a system that does not leave people behind. To treat encampments solely as a nuisance is to ignore what they reveal about us, and about the work we must do.
Any approach must prioritize safety, dignity, and voluntary engagement. Clearing encampments without offering real alternatives only pushes people from one unsafe location to another. I support outreach-led approaches that connect people to housing, stabilization services, and indoor spaces that meet their needs.
Supportive housing
Supportive housing is essential for people living with mental-health and addiction challenges. I would advocate for accelerated development of supportive units, stronger partnerships with community agencies, and long-term operating funding to ensure services remain stable.
Working with the Province, the Federal Government, and community agencies
The City cannot solve homelessness alone. I would work with:
- The Province to expand mental-health and addiction treatment, fund supportive housing, and restore harm-reduction capacity.
- The Federal Government to increase investments in deeply affordable housing and ensure federal homelessness programs reflect Toronto's scale of need.
- Community agencies to strengthen outreach, harm reduction, stabilization, and culturally appropriate supports.
My commitment is to a coordinated, evidence-based approach that treats homelessness as a public-health and housing issue, not solely a policing or by-law issue.
The cost
Fiscal implications
Addressing homelessness, encampments, shelter capacity, and supportive housing has significant fiscal implications, and it is important to be honest about that. These challenges cannot be solved through goodwill alone; they require sustained, predictable investment across all orders of government.
For the City, the fiscal pressure comes from several directions: the cost of operating shelters at or near capacity, the rising need for 24-hour respite and stabilization spaces, the demand for outreach and harm-reduction services, and the long-term operating costs of supportive housing. When systems are under-resourced, the City ends up paying more through emergency responses, policing, paramedic calls, and crisis-driven interventions, all of which are more expensive than stable housing and clinical supports.
When people are living outdoors, the City faces increased pressure on parks operations, waste management, fire services, and emergency medical response. These are real costs borne by municipal budgets, and they underscore why upstream investment is more fiscally responsible than reactive approaches.
The most effective financial strategy is coordinated investment and effort. The City cannot, and should not, carry the full burden. The Province is responsible for mental-health and addiction treatment, supportive housing operations, and social assistance rates. The Federal Government plays a critical role in funding deeply affordable housing and homelessness prevention. Without their full participation, municipalities are left funding provincial responsibilities through property taxes, which is neither sustainable nor equitable.
My commitment is to advocate for a fiscally responsible approach: one that prioritizes long-term solutions over short-term emergency spending, strengthens intergovernmental partnerships, and ensures that investments reflect the scale of need in Toronto. Responsible budgeting means recognizing that the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of building a system that works.