Housing the homeless only a partial solution

Progress, yes — but there’s still much to do

There is no shortage of reasons to be cynical about Winnipeg’s homelessness crisis — not the least of which is the fact that Winnipeg’s homeless crisis is also Manitoba’s homeless crisis.

But let’s stick to Winnipeg for a moment.

The numbers are daunting. End Homelessness Winnipeg estimated that 8,248 people were homeless in March, including 4,463 who were chronically homeless.

Encampments remain visible across the city.

The drug toxicity crisis continues to claim lives.

Governments argue over who is responsible. Residents demand action. And people living on the streets remain caught in a cycle of poverty, addiction, trauma and inadequate housing.

Against that backdrop, it is important not to dismiss genuine progress.

Nearly 250 people have now moved from Winnipeg encampments into housing through the Manitoba government’s Your Way Home strategy. Of the 249 people housed since the program began in early 2025, 85 per cent — 211 people — remain housed.

The NDP government set a target of moving 350 people from encampments into housing during its first term, which ends in October 2027.

It has already surpassed 70 per cent of that goal.

If the government is re-elected, it hopes to house 700 people by the end of a second term.

This is good news, and should be seen as a significant step forward. Nevertheless, Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith is right to emphasize that housing is the starting point, not the finish line.

Many of the people being housed have been homeless for years.

Some have never had consistent access to primary health care. Others are struggling with addiction, mental-health challenges or trauma.

Putting someone into an apartment without providing the supports necessary to help them remain there is not a housing strategy. It is simply a temporary change of address.

Yet the early results are encouraging. In one group of 26 people moved into the same building, 16 have chosen treatment and recovery. Others are working toward employment, reconnecting with their children or trying to stabilize their mental health.

That is what a serious response looks like: housing first, followed by the supports necessary to help people build a life.

But the government must also be candid about the enormous gap between the progress being made and the work that remains.

More than 100 people are reportedly waiting for housing units with appropriate supports.

There are simply not enough of them. And the province’s focus on encampments, while necessary, cannot obscure the broader reality of chronic homelessness affecting thousands of people.

The government’s critics are right about one thing: ending encampments is not the same as ending chronic homelessness. Nor does placing someone in a unit automatically resolve the circumstances that led them there.

Governments also need to stop treating housing, addictions, mental health and public safety as separate problems. They are deeply connected. The province’s planned supervised consumption site, expanded outreach, overdose response and treatment options are all pieces of the same puzzle.

So, too, is law enforcement. There should be no tolerance for criminal behaviour, as Smith says. But neither should people be criminalized simply for being poor, traumatized or addicted.

The government deserves credit for moving hundreds of people from encampments into housing and for ensuring most have remained there.

That is a sign that progress is possible.

But 249 people housed is not a reason to declare victory. It is a reason to keep going.

It’s also reason enough to expand the parameters of the program beyond Winnipeg’s confines. The cities of Brandon, Thompson, Steinbach and Portage la Prairie all have been experiencing increases in local unhoused populations.

In 2025, numbers released in a Brandon point-in-time homelessness count that took place over 24 hours in October of 2024 identified 229 people without a place of residence. While it may seem small by Winnipeg numbers, for a city of 60,000 that was nearly an 80 per cent increase from 2021.

The most recent count in Thompson recorded a minimum of 215 individuals experiencing homelessness, including 193 people in shelters or transitional housing and 22 estimated unsheltered individuals.

We are glad to see the province’s programs are showing progress. Winnipeg’s homelessness crisis was years in the making, and it will not be solved in a single mandate, or by one government acting alone.

But the province needs more partners in other communities to attend to the needs outside the Perimeter Highway too.

After all, the best measure of success is not whether governments can claim to have solved homelessness. It is whether they continue to move people from the streets into safe housing and whether they keep providing the support needed to ensure that housing becomes a home.

For all Manitobans.

» Winnipeg Free Press & The Brandon Sun