Addressing homelessness should be considered nation-building project: big city mayors

Mayors of Canada’s big cities say fixing homelessness should be considered a nation-building project by Ottawa, just as major infrastructure and energy ventures are.

“To be clear, these investments are critical and we need them now more than ever, but they are only part of the story,” Josh Morgan, the mayor of London, Ont., told a news conference in Edmonton on Thursday.

“A stronger Canada also depends on something closer to home: strong communities and thriving downtowns.”

Morgan, alongside Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack and Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, said they’re calling on Ottawa to spend $3.5 billion annually to reduce chronic homelessness.

The figure comes from a 2024 recommendation by former parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux, who said at the time it was the level of additional spending needed if Ottawa wanted to cut chronic homelessness in half.

Martinez Ferrada, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister, said it’s an issue in all downtowns, but listed her own city, Edmonton and Winnipeg as particularly concerning.

She said more than 3,000 people in Alberta’s capital are thought to be experiencing homelessness while Winnipeg’s total was at least 1,200.

“These numbers may come from different cities, but they tell the same story,”  Martinez Ferrada said.

“No community is immune, and no city can solve this challenge alone.”

“Ending homelessness will not be simple — it is not simple, it’s very complex — but it needs effort. And it needs efforts that are co-ordinated within our governments.”

The mayors, and municipal leaders from across Canada, were in Edmonton for the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference. 

Morgan, the chair of the Federation’s big city mayors’ caucus, said many solutions — like supportive housing with wraparound supports — already exist, but current funding levels aren’t enough to make a major difference.

“That’s what we’re asking for,” Morgan said.

“We’re asking for solutions that we know work, and we’re asking to scale them to the level that we know will be effective in tackling the challenges that we see in our cities.”

Knack said he’d like to see Ottawa invest in social housing the way it did in the 1970s and 1980s. “This is not uploading (responsibility). It’s just asking for the federal government to do what they used to do long ago,” he said.

Alongside the call for Ottawa to spend $3.5 billion each year to reduce homelessness, the big city mayors’ caucus is also calling for prevention and response measures to be featured in an updated national housing strategy.

The mayors, flanked by 16 of their colleagues at the news conference, also said they want to see broader action taken to support their communities in the next federal budget, including increased grant funding to address organized crime.

Another ask is to double the funding available to municipalities under the Build Communities Strong Fund so that cities can invest more in local infrastructure.

A spokesperson for Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson said in a statement that addressing homelessness requires co-ordination from all levels of government.

Mohammad Hussain said Ottawa wants to build off the success of existing programs, such as Reaching Home, which involves funding local governments and non-profits to address homelessness. It was one of the programs Morgan said could have more of an impact if more funding was made available.

“In its first six years, Reaching Home helped place more than 112,000 people into more stable housing and has helped provide over 203,000 people with core homelessness prevention services,” Hussain said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2026.

By Jack Farrell | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.