Toronto Could Face Higher Property Taxes As Feds Cut Refugee Support

Despite the fact that Toronto’s unhoused population has more than doubled since 2021, the City is set to receive a fraction of the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) funding in its sixth year that it did in both its fourth- and fifth-year allocations.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow wrote in a letter that went to the Executive Committee on Monday that the Province allocated $38 million to Toronto from the COHB between April 2024 and March 2025, and $19.75 million from April 2025 to March 2026 — but between April 2026 and March 2027, the City will receive only $7.95 million, representing an almost 60% decrease year over year.

Launched in April 2020, the COHB pays the difference between 30% of eligible households’ income and the average market rent in the area, and is supported by provincial and federal funding. Chow said in her letter that the program “is the single most effective tool we have for freeing up beds in our shelter system so that more people can come indoors from streets and parks.”

She also describes “provincial delays and uncertainty” that led to the City fronting $4.815 million of the COHB funding earlier this year — a move that helped 570 households move from the streets and shelters into housing.

“Now, the Province has said we can only allow for 40 more households to move into housing between now and March 2026 within the funding they’ve provided,” said Chow. “That means all funds will be spent by the end of October, just when the weather turns cold and we need to bring homeless people on the street into shelters or homes.”

Chow’s letter also speaks to a pullback in funding for the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP), which is a federal grant program created to help provincial and municipal governments manage the cost burden of housing asylum claimants. Toronto is set to receive funding for only 26% of what it’s projected to spend on shelter refugees and asylum seekers this year.

“We've been providing shelter to people who arrived to Toronto fleeing violence, war and persecution, but now the federal government won't pay their bills for the service, and the City is short by $107 million,” Chow said to media on Monday. “We can either stop sheltering refugee claimers, leave them on the street, which will make homelessness worse, reversing the progress we made on reducing the number of encampments — or Torontonians will have to pay for it through their property taxes. Neither is fair.”

Chow is calling on the the federal government to provide transitional funding of $107 million for refugee claimants and asylum seekers in the City’s emergency shelter system, and in addition, is requesting Toronto’s COHB allocation be increased to $54 million for the program’s fifth year “to allow 300 households to continue to secure permanent housing each month.” Her requests will be discussed at Toronto City Council’s October session, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, October 8.