Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has written to Ontario Premier Doug Ford asking him to revisit the amount of funding Ottawa is receiving through provincial homelessness programs.
The 2023 budget announced an additional $202 million per year in funding for supportive housing and homelessness projects in municipalities across the province, but Sutcliffe says Ottawa's allocation is disproportionately small.
"We have recently learned that Ottawa will receive $845,100 of this funding, while Toronto will receive $48 million," Sutcliffe wrote. "That's almost 60 times as much, despite Toronto's population being approximately three times larger than Ottawa... Based on Toronto's allocation, Ottawa's share should be in the range of at least $16 to $18 million."
Sutcliffe also pointed to other municipalities that received significant increases in funding, including some that are doubling their base budget, an apparent reference to the funding announced for Leeds and Grenville. Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark announced earlier this month that the region—part of his riding—would receive more than $3 million in funding this year, up from $1.5 million last year.
Sutcliffe said the allocation leaves Ottawa with a $37 million funding gap, which he claimed would force the city to cancel 54 current supportive housing projects and would prevent the city from building 570 to 850 new affordable units per year. "This small budget allocation is devastating news for our community," Sutcliffe wrote. "I'm appealing to your sense of fairness and your concern for the most vulnerable in our city and asking you to revisit the allocation to Ottawa in the Homelessness Prevention Program.
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