A national group has held up St. Thomas-Elgin as proof that homelessness can be brought down. In a release dated October 29th and posted November 2nd, the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness says chronic, or long-term, homelessness here is down 37 percent since October 2025, and youth homelessness is down 50 percent since February 2026.
St. Thomas-Elgin is one of five communities on the list, all chosen from places with projects paid for by the group’s $45-million Homelessness Reduction Innovation Fund, which runs on federal money from Reaching Home, Canada’s homelessness strategy. More than a dozen other communities in the fund have improved in other ways, such as fewer people becoming homeless. The alliance’s write-ups on St. Thomas-Elgin, and the City’s 10-year housing plan, describe several pieces working at once here.
Since 2021, St. Thomas-Elgin Social Services, which handles housing and homelessness for the city and Elgin County, has kept a By-Name list of every person known to be homeless here, updated each month. Workers use it to match people to housing and to track progress. In that time, 745 people have been housed, more than 65 percent of everyone referred.
Chronic homelessness fell 25 percent by August 2022, then rose, partly because of better data and more outreach to people sleeping outside. After resetting its starting count to 120 people in July 2023, the community cut chronic homelessness by 30 percent by January 2024.
The alliance named new homes with support built in as a major factor. Indwell, a charity that builds affordable and supportive housing, runs Railway City Lofts, which has 15 units for people with the highest needs, and The Station, a 45-unit building that opened in September 2023. Between July 2023 and January 2024, 126 people here found homes. The INN, the local shelter, also worked to become easier to get into and focused on housing. More homes followed in October 2025, when the first residents moved into the YWCA’s Project Tiny Hope on Kains Street, now called Hope Crossing, which has 40 homes.
By April 2025, more than 80 percent of people on the list had ID and income in place, making them “paper-ready” for a move. Two programs outside housing also get credit: a low-barrier harm reduction program at the Central Community Health Centre, which had reached more than 150 people, and the St. Thomas Police Community Resource Unit, started downtown in 2022 to help vulnerable people stay connected to housing and health care. The health centre’s program used regular meetings and monthly injections instead of daily doses, and did not require people to stop using street drugs first.
The community had been good at moving people into homes, John D’Oria, the supervisor of housing stability services at St. Thomas-Elgin Social Services, told the alliance in July. But when staff looked at the data with the group’s advisor, they saw a relatively high number of people losing their housing. Before October 2025, an average of 3.6 people a month lost their homes and went back to chronic homelessness.
On October 1st, 2025, Social Services started a one-year pilot called Prevention in Action, paid for with up to $448,000 from the same fund. It added two housing caseworkers who stay with people after they move in. They look for affordable rentals, go along to viewings, get to know landlords and help settle disputes before they become evictions.
The caseworkers’ flexible fund has paid for things like a bit of missing rent, a hoarding specialist, and a dresser for a man whose mental health slipped as his unit got more disorganized. “The dresser was a $120 solution that the healthcare system doesn’t have,” D’Oria said.
By July, the two caseworkers were supporting 40 households, and all of them were keeping their housing. However, about a quarter had needed to be rehoused in some way. Returns to chronic homelessness had dropped to about one person a month.
A second pilot, Zero in Sight, started February 1st, 2026, with up to $362,116 from the same fund. It added two full-time youth housing case managers at the YWCA St. Thomas-Elgin, working mostly out of The INN and in outreach. The agreement council saw in January set a goal of helping 18 more young people move into housing by the end of January 2027. It is the project behind the release’s 50 percent youth figure.
October 2025 is the month the prevention team started, the month Hope Crossing’s first residents moved in, and the month the alliance counts its 37 percent from. No published source says how much of the drop came from each.
The release gives percentages, not head counts. The City’s plan counted 104 people in chronic homelessness that October, so a 37 percent drop would be roughly 38 people. That is LocVox’s own estimate, since the release does not give the count it started from.
As of November 3rd, nothing published says whether the prevention team is still working. The City’s reports set its two jobs to end September 30th, 2026.
The City’s own figures, published in August, show that between January 1st and June 30th, 2026, 79 people here moved from homelessness into housing, while 69 people became homeless. The City called it the first time more people were moving into housing than becoming homeless, though its list only began in 2021. In September, council approved On the Right Track, a 10-year housing and homelessness plan for the city and county.
“Chronic homelessness is solvable, and it’s solvable one person at a time, one housing placement at a time,” D’Oria said.
If you are homeless or about to lose your housing, LocVox’s Get Help page lists places to start, including The INN and St. Thomas-Elgin Social Services.
Earlier coverage: St. Thomas-Elgin Turned a Corner on Homelessness. Now Comes the Hard Part.
Sources: Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness: St. Thomas-Elgin reduces chronic homelessness by 36% (July 2026) · Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness: Bright Spot, St. Thomas-Elgin (April 2024) · Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness: Community successes proving Canada can solve homelessness
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
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