By Anne-Rachelle Boulanger, Margaret Flynn, Douglas Kwan
As we begin 2026, the scale of Ontario’s housing and health crises is undeniable. Newly released provincial data estimates that nearly 85,00 people experienced homelessness in Ontario last year, an increase of over eight percent from the year before and more than doubled the number recorded in 2021. At the same time, Toronto Public Health reported a sharp spike in suspected overdoses in late December, with emergency responses rising dramatically over a matter of weeks. Accidental poisoning, including by drug toxicity, is now the leading cause of death among people aged 20 to 44. Rather than responding to these crises, the provincial government spent last year introducing laws that undermine safety. Bill 60, the most recent example, weakens tenant protections, limits renters’ ability to challenge unsafe conditions, and pushes more people in Ontario toward homelessness.
Bill 60 is part of a broader pattern of policies that target the province’s most marginalized – including people who are precariously housed, unhoused, or who use drugs. The signs of Ontario’s overlapping crises are visible in every community, from growing encampments and overcrowded shelters to rising toxic-drug deaths. The government’s response has been punitive, treating the visibility of poverty and drug use as the problem rather than addressing the root causes. Perversely, the province’s “solutions” will only deepen the crises, forcing people further from stable housing and consistent healthcare.
In December 2024, the Community Care and Recovery Act was passed, banning supervised consumption services within 200 metres of schools or child-care centres, and requiring provincial approval to open or maintain sites – approval the province has made clear it will never grant. In March 2025, the Ontario Superior Court suspended enforcement of the 200-metre rule while a Charter challenge proceeds, recognizing that closures could cause “irreparable harm.” Yet, with funding frozen, most sites have been forced to close, pushing people to use drugs in public spaces and in far riskier conditions.
In June 2025, the province also passed the Safer Municipalities Act, expanding police powers to punish people who use drugs in public spaces. Although drug possession is already a federal crime, federal authorities have increasingly moved away from criminalizing personal use, recognizing it does not promote public safety. Yet, Ontario’s law empowers police to order anyone suspected of drug use to leave public places or face fines of up to $10,000 or six months in jail. In practice, the law targets unhoused people, enabling encampment clearings and displacement, without offering supportive alternatives.
Another bill would extend this punitive logic into housing, by holding landlords – including supportive and non-profit housing providers – responsible for drug activity on their properties. Since drug use is already a lawful ground for eviction in Ontario, this measure adds little beyond fear and confusion. It will also undoubtedly discourage landlords from renting to people who use drugs, or those they merely perceive as doing so, making it even harder for people to find or maintain stable housing.
These policies are being layered onto crises decades in the making. Successive provincial governments have defunded social and health services, failed to invest in affordable and supportive housing, and downloaded housing responsibility to municipalities – making Ontario the only province to do so. Rent controls were weakened in the 1990s, and vacancy decontrol allows landlords to hike rents whenever a tenant moves out. In 2018, Ontario eliminated any restrictions on rent increases for new units, encouraging evictions of long-term and lower-income renters. The result: evictions and homelessness soared, with Black and Indigenous people disproportionately affected. At the same time, toxic-drug deaths have reached catastrophic levels, with more than 26,000 people in Ontario lost since 2016 – roughly two-thirds the population of Orillia or half that of Belleville.
Together, these laws create a self-defeating cycle of punishment that deepens the crises they claim to address. Cutting off access to supervised consumption services forces people to use drugs in public, risking their health and safety. Expanding police powers to displace, fine, or detain people suspected of using drugs disconnects them from community and support. Punishing landlords who provide safety and shelter promotes evictions, leaving more people without homes.
The evidence is clear: People do not stop using drugs when they are stripped of safety, and they do not stop being homeless when housing does not exist. What is needed is investment in affordable and supportive housing, healthcare, lifesaving harm reduction, and other supports that prevent homelessness and provide security to enable well-being.
We must start from a simple truth: if we want safe communities, we must support those most at risk. Leadership means addressing the conditions that create crisis, not trying to legislate them out of sight.
Anne-Rachelle Boulanger is a lawyer and policy analyst at the HIV Legal Network.
Margaret Flynn is the Director of Policy and Law Reform at the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.
Douglas Kwan is the Director of Advocacy and Legal Services at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.