Wellington County and Guelph, Ont.- The County of Wellington, as the Service System Manager for Housing Services is highlighting new data released by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) on homelessness in Ontario. As predicted in AMO’s groundbreaking work in 2025, without meaningful and collective intervention, the crisis continues to grow. The report indicates that:
- 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 the 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.
- The report highlights the disparities of those facing homelessness in rural communities compared to cities including shelter capacity and affordable housing shortages, specialized supports, urban inflow pressures and transportation barriers.
While dedicated investments and actions have dealt with a number of 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 (OMSSA) and the Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association (NOSDA).
Wellington-Guelph is experiencing similar trends to other communities across the province, including a 25% increase in experiences of homelessness since 2018. In 2025, Wellington-Guelph had a monthly average of 263 individuals experiencing homelessness.
A community as a whole approach and significant municipal investments has kept Guelph-Wellington a leader to ending chronic homelessness, far below the provincial 2018 – 2025 average of 65%.
100 new transitional and supportive housing units for youth and adults have opened in recent years, in addition to increased efforts on prevention, rapid rehousing initiatives, and rent support programmes.
Housing Services has also focused efforts to increase the number of shelter beds from 52 in 2018 to 149 in 2025, representing an increase of approximately 187%. A Winter Response Plan is also available so people experiencing unsheltered homelessness have a dedicated warm place to stay 24/7 during the winter.
Our community has made progress, but we can’t solve the problem alone. Without coordination across all three levels of government and increased provincial and federal investments, it will not be possible to scale up the infrastructure needed to create a system where homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring.
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 programmes has grown significantly in recent years, totalling $2 billion in 2025.
The County of Wellington 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.
“Solving the crisis of homelessness will take all levels of government and community partners working collaboratively,” said Warden Chris White. “As the System Service Manager for social services for the City of Guelph and the County of Wellington, the County remains committed to act. Public funding for housing and homelessness supports has increased, but it’s not nearly enough to tackle this incredibly complex crisis.”
AMO’s report is an eye-opener and a call to action. The crisis of homelessness is getting worse. Solving the crisis will take all levels of government, and the private and non-profit sectors, working together. Mayors and cities across Ontario remain committed to doing our part. We must all take the necessary pro-active steps, including appropriate funding for emergency, transitional and supportive housing.
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 programmes like the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit.
- Collaboration amongst all orders of Government to ensure our homelessness and housing dollars are having the biggest impact, including coordinating data and outcomes across programmes, 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.
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Media Contact:
Dave Purdy, Director of Housing Services
519.837.2600 x 4040
davep@wellington.ca