11/10/2026
If we, as communities, truly believe that every person deserves dignity, safety, belonging and an opportunity to live a meaningful life, then those values need to show up in more than speeches, strategies, campaign promises and council meetings.
They need to show up in our actions.
Ending homelessness cannot simply be something we say is important. It must become something we are willing to organize around, invest in, collaborate on and be held accountable for.
What if every municipality started asking not how to move people from one location to another, but how to create pathways from the street to safety, housing, treatment, recovery, mental health supports, employment and community?
What if we measured our success not by how many encampments were cleared, how many complaints were addressed or how many people were moved along, but by how many people found a place to call home and the support needed to stay there?
What if municipalities, governments, service providers, businesses, community organizations and residents stopped working in isolation and started working toward a shared outcome?
I recognize that homelessness is complicated. There is no single solution, no single organization responsible and no one approach that will work for everyone. Our neighbourhoods deserve to be clean, safe and supported.
People experiencing homelessness deserve those same things. Safety, dignity and the opportunity to move forward.
These goals are not in conflict.
But we have to be willing to do things differently.
We cannot keep expecting different outcomes while continuing to invest in the same fragmented responses.
We cannot talk about compassion while leaving people without meaningful pathways forward. And we cannot expect our communities to feel safe and supported when the underlying problems remain unresolved.
To our municipal leaders and civic officials, I would offer this challenge.
Don't just manage homelessness. Lead the effort to end it.
Set measurable goals. Bring the right people to the table. Invest in solutions that work. Build partnerships that cross municipal boundaries. Listen to people with lived experience. And have the courage to measure progress by the lives that are changed, not simply the activity that is reported.
Being the change means moving beyond what is comfortable, familiar or politically convenient.
It means deciding what kind of community we want to be and then making the decisions every day that bring that picture closer to reality.
I believe we can do better. I believe our communities deserve better. And I believe the people living on our streets deserve more than another winter of promises.
They deserve a pathway forward.
The question isn't whether we can afford to make ending homelessness a priority.
The question is whether we can afford to keep treating it as anything less.
Let's be the change.
Let's build communities where homelessness is not accepted as inevitable, but addressed as something we have the courage, commitment and collective responsibility to end.
