City's $1.5M for the Downtown Mission: tax-levy share still Unclear

The City cites about $1.5 million, close to the $1.48 million in Ontario and federal grants in the Mission's audit. A freedom-of-information request is pending.

Ward 3 Coun. Renaldo Agostino wrote in a Sept. 16 email that City taxpayers fund the Downtown Mission over a million dollars a year.

On Sept. 17, the City's Human and Health Services office wrote that about $1.5 million has been allocated for the current funding period, through existing service agreements, for Mission emergency shelter beds, daytime programming and security.

That is close to the $1,481,600 the Mission's 2025 audited statements record as government homelessness grants administered by City Housing and Children's Services: $1,308,246 from Ontario's Homelessness Prevention Program and $173,354 from federal Reaching Home.

Asked how much of the $1.5 million is City tax levy and how much is provincial or federal money, the office replied on Sept. 18 that the information is in public Council reports, without giving a split. On Sept. 22 it wrote that it had not compiled the funding sources behind the figure, and on Sept. 24 that it would respond further only through a freedom-of-information request. That request was filed Sept. 21 and is pending.

Agostino, copied on the follow-up questions, has not replied in writing since Sept. 16. The City's 2026 approved operating budget has no Mission-specific line. The City funds $3.2 million of its April 2026 to March 2027 homelessness budget, spread across several shelters and programs. City tax-levy dollars to the Mission, if any: Unclear.