Housing is healthcare

When housing falters, health falters with it.

One in five Canadians will experience a mental illness this year. More than 20% will meet the criteria for addiction. For too many, the path runs through an emergency room bed or a jail cell — not because care doesn't exist, but because a stable home didn't.

At the Mental Health + Addictions Alliance, we work every day to de-silo care and build clear pathways for the people of Halton. But a pathway only holds if it starts somewhere safe. That is why we are paying close attention to a new piece of research with implications well beyond the housing sector.

In The Public Housing Dividend, the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis modelled public housing investment across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area through 2050. The findings are striking, and they speak directly to our work. A combined pathway of renewal and new construction is projected to avoid more than 520,000 hospitalization days relative to expected funding, alongside major gains in resident well-being. Over the same period, that pathway is associated with roughly 524,100 fewer inpatient days, about 156,500 fewer emergency department visits, and about 44,200 fewer justice events.

These are not abstract numbers to us. They are the crises our partner agencies — CMHA Halton, STRIDE, ADAPT, Summit Housing & Outreach Programs, HOPE Place Centres, and Support House — work to prevent. The research confirms what we see on the ground: housing improvements have been consistently associated with improvements in general health, respiratory health, and mental health. When housing falters, health falters with it. Public housing residents have been found to have significantly elevated rates of chronic disease, mental health conditions, and acute healthcare utilization compared with the general population, and housing affordability stress has been independently associated with poorer mental health outcomes.

The evidence on stability is just as clear. Canada's At Home/Chez Soi trial demonstrated that stable housing with supports significantly reduced emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and justice-system contacts among people experiencing homelessness and mental illness. Supportive housing is mental health care. Treating it that way is how we move from crisis response to upstream solutions.

There is a fiscal case here too. The study projects that the combined scenario reduces total utilization costs by approximately $1.8 billion relative to expected funding, whereas the reduced funding scenario increases costs by about $1.2 billion. Underinvestment doesn't save money — it shifts the bill onto health, justice, and social systems already under strain.

We add our voice to this conversation because integrated care cannot stop at the clinic door. We invite housing providers, health system partners, and funders across Halton and the GTHA to plan with us — and to fund housing as the foundation of health that it is.