Redirecting half the funds for a revamped Ontario Place would have a big impact on housing, health care and public safety, Mark Chamberlain writes. Richard Lautens/Toronto Star file photo By Mark Chamberlain “If Ontario housed the roughly 8,000 people living in encampments, the province could save $300 million to $600 million every year in health care, police, and emergency services. Those savings would be felt immediately in communities like Hamilton, where hospitals operate under chronic pressure and municipalities struggle to fund front line services. At the same time, public reporting has put Ontario's exposure in the current Ontario Place plan at roughly $2.2 billion. Even redirecting half of that would free up $1.1 billion - enough to fund more than 3,000 permanent supportive homes and cut encampments by a third in one decisive move. Mark Chamberlain is the former chair of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.”
“Hamilton knows better than most what happens when housing shortages, mental-health gaps and strained emergency services collide. We see it in overcrowded emergency rooms, in paramedics stretched thin, and in police increasingly asked to manage social crises. We also see it in encampments — not as a failure of individuals, but as a failure of systems that respond to crisis instead of preventing it. That is why Ontario's plan to spend more than $2 billion relocating the Science Centre and subsidizing a private spa and massive parking garage at Ontario Place deserves a serious second look.” Because those same dollars could do something far more powerful.
“People living in encampments cost public systems an estimated $60,000 to $100,000 per person every year through emergency health care, policing, courts, shelters, and crisis response. Permanent supportive housing costs about $25,000 a year - and dramatically reduces emergency service use. Providing permanent supportive housing is not just compassionate policy. It is smart public finance. If Ontario housed the roughly 8,000 people living in encampments, the province could save $300 million to $600 million every year in health care, police, and emergency services. Those savings would be felt immediately in communities like Hamilton, where hospitals operate under chronic pressure and municipalities struggle to fund front line services.”
“If Ontario housed the roughly 8,000 people living in encampments, the province could save $300 million to $600 million every year in health care, police, and emergency services. Those savings would be felt immediately in communities like Hamilton, where hospitals operate under chronic pressure and municipalities struggle to fund front line services. At the same time, public reporting has put Ontario's exposure in the current Ontario Place plan at roughly $2.2 billion. Even redirecting half of that would free up $1.1 billion - enough to fund more than 3,000 permanent supportive homes and cut encampments by a third in one decisive move.”
Mark Chamberlain, Hamilton Spectator:
Ontario Place a $2-billion test of priorities! Private offshore or public interest? Housing vulnerable homeless people the province could save $3-5mil in public services!
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