The Ottawa Mission warns homelessness worsening, calls on all levels of government for support

The Ottawa Mission is calling on all levels of government to take specific action to tackle growing homelessness in the capital. CTV’s Peter Szperling reports.

The Ottawa Mission is sounding the alarm over rising rates of homelessness in Ottawa and across Canada in a new report.

The report, titled “Still Waiting: Enough is Enough” shows levels of homelessness and food insecurity have been on the rise since before the COVID-19 pandemic and have not been improving.

“Homelessness in Canada has increased by 20 per cent since 2018. Over 80,000 Ontarians are homeless and could triple to almost 300,000 by 2035,” said Ottawa Mission CEO Peter Tilley in a news release on Wednesday. “Almost 23 per cent of Canadians across 10 provinces are food insecure, including 2.1 million children. Across Ontario, Toronto, Mississauga and Kingston have declared food insecurity emergencies.”

In Ottawa, Tilley says homelessness has grown to almost 3,000 people, including more than 500 who are living on the street. He also says food insecurity has risen from one-in-seven to one-in-four households.

Last fall, the City of Ottawa conducted a point-in-time count of the homeless population in the city, and found 2,952 people, up from 1,654 in 2018.

The Mission says that despite the city’s claim that the number of asylum seekers and refugees coming to the city is on the decline, a significant percentage of its clientele continues to be new arrivals to Canada.

“While the number of refugees seeking shelter is starting to decrease in Ottawa, our numbers show that need for shelter beds exceeds availability in this city. In fact, over one in five people who turn to us for help is an asylum seeker. And we know because clients have told us that they are directed to our shelter by federal officials at the airport,” said frontline services manager Ashley Potter.

Last month, city officials said they would not proceed with building newcomer reception centres in Nepean and Kanata because the demand for them was on the decline following federal immigration changes and because the timeline for construction would not ensure they’d be available in time for the next winter. The structures also received significant community pushback.

The City of Ottawa said it was continuing negotiations with the federal government over the use of some federal buildings to serve as shelter spaces, and that it is also expanding its supply of transitional housing units.

Potter says The Mission has two key questions: “1) why are negotiations for the refugee centre taking so long; and 2) while they continue, why are federal officials directing people fleeing war, violence and persecution to our shelter, where they have to sleep in our chapel or lounge?”

He called the current state of affairs disheartening.

“We know the answer is out there and we feel like we could be a cog in the wheel in helping getting people into housing,” he said. “But it’s disheartening to know that that’s the best option on a given night, especially when it’s cold out, that people have to come in. We don’t have a bed for you. We don’t have a mat for you. Instead, you have a plastic chair in a lounge.”

Mission serving millions of meals

Since 2018, the Ottawa Mission says it has seen a dramatic increase in the number of meals it serves to people experiencing food insecurity.

“Before the pandemic, our annual meal total was just over 495,000 meals. In 2020, we introduced our food truck program as a response to skyrocketing rates of food insecurity during the pandemic with one truck, five stops and 500 meals per week,” said chef Ric Allen-Watson. “In 2025, that program has grown to two trucks, 39 stops, and over 10,000 meals per week. Many program stops are located close to Ottawa Community Housing buildings so that vulnerable residents have access to healthy food. As a result, in 2022–2023 and 2023–2024, our shelter served over 1 million and 1.1 million meals respectively to people who would have otherwise gone hungry.”

Allen-Watson says the Ottawa Mission expects to serve 1.3 million meals in 2025.

“To be blunt: that’s insane,” he said.

Last November, the Ottawa Food Bank said it saw a record number of visits in October and called on the city to declare a food insecurity crisis. Its eighth annual Ottawa Hunger Report said one in four households in Ottawa is food insecure.

Food insecurity is defined by the federal government as the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so.

Mission’s demands

The Ottawa Mission is demanding all levels of government work to ensure people have adequate supports for housing and food access.

“It really starts with the lack of affordable housing,” Tilley told CTV News Ottawa.

“We are calling on all levels of government to work together. We can’t carry on. We’re at overcapacity. Charities are at overcapacity. Picking up the slack where governments haven’t come to the table.”

The Mission is calling on the City of Ottawa to support the expansion of not-for-profit housing in Ottawa and to increase the budget for affordable housing, and to address food insecurity through the city’s poverty reduction strategy.

It is calling on the provincial government to reintroduce rent controls for buildings built after November 2018, prohibit bad-faith evictions, invest billions into creating affordable and supportive housing units, and increase social assistance rates.

The Mission is asking federal candidates to commit to supporting a homelessness prevention and housing benefit program, creating programs for non-profit housing providers to support the purchase of existing rental housing projects and hotels and convert unused buildings to housing, and enhancing support to municipalities to help refugees and asylum seekers.

“How many more people who never thought they would become homeless or go hungry will turn to charities like ours for help when governments are not there for them?” said Tilley. “Charities continue to step up to try to meet those needs, but our capacity is not infinite.”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Peter Szperling