Clancy: Ford government wants to criminalize homelessness instead of actually building homes

May 1, 2025

QUEEN'S PARK — Ontario Greens Deputy Leader and Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy released the following statement in response to the Ford government’s re-introduction of The Safer Municipalities Act, which further criminalizes homelessness and public drug use.

“Instead of addressing the root causes of homelessness and addiction, the Ford government is choosing to criminalize poverty and push vulnerable people further into crisis.

Reintroducing legislation that imposes $10,000 fines and jail time on people without homes won’t fix the housing shortage or improve mental health and addiction support. Ontario’s encampments exist because people have no homes to go to. Criminalizing them doesn’t change that – it just makes their lives harder and more dangerous.

Across the province, we need to build homes and provide care to residents – not mass clear encampments. People, like those at 100 Victoria Street in Kitchener need housing now, they need somewhere to live.

This government refuses to invest in real solutions like deeply affordable housing, mental health care, and addiction services. Instead, it wants to make homelessness less visible by sweeping people out of sight and into the justice system. Only to get pushed back onto the streets without support once that jail term ends – back into homelessness. People have lost hope.

Wasting public resources on policing and incarceration is more expensive – and far less effective – than building the homes and supports Ontarians desperately need.

Everyone deserves a safe, stable place to live. The Ford government is failing that basic obligation.”

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