On May 21, Deputy Mayor Paul Ainslie introduced a motion urging the Province to amend Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) so that people without a fixed address can retain and save their shelter allowance to help secure housing.
The motion was adopted with near-unanimous support.
Daily Bread Food Bank has long advocated for this practical reform, alongside broader changes to improve the adequacy of social assistance. You can read our recent op-ed here.
We submitted a joint letter of support from Daily Bread and nearly 60 member agencies across our network, sending a strong and unified message to City Council in support of a practical, cost-effective policy solution that could help thousands of people experiencing homelessness while on social assistance regain housing and live with dignity.
Additionally, key community partners, including the Canadian Mental Health Association, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and Feed Ontario, have also submitted their letters of support.
We are deeply encouraged to see this policy solution advance, with support from the Province’s largest city. As this policy solution builds support, Daily Bread will continue to advocate with the Province to support its implementation.
The motion and letters of support from Daily Bread and our valued community partners can be found here.
Background
Under Ontario’s current social assistance rules, when recipients lose housing, their shelter allowance ($390 for OW and $599 for ODSP) is suspended—reducing benefits at the very moment people need resources to regain housing. Without the ability to retain these funds, saving for first and last month’s rent becomes nearly impossible, making it harder for people to exit homelessness.
As the homelessness crisis worsens across Ontario—with over 30,000 people experiencing homelessness as of July 2025, a 72% increase since 2019—a small but meaningful change in policy design could help reverse this trend while reducing long-term shelter and healthcare costs that are increasingly difficult for municipalities to sustain.
We are recommending that when a recipient on social assistance loses their housing, the shelter portion of their benefit is placed into a reserve fund each month and held in escrow for up to 12 months. The reserve fund could then be used for first and last month’s rent and other housing-related costs necessary to stabilize housing (such as renter’s insurance, key deposits, and essential move-in expenses), once housing is secured.
