Hamilton’s General Issues Committee voted 12-0 on Monday to have city staff assess whether the agencies Hamilton funds to fight homelessness are actually getting people housing, and at what cost.
The motion, moved by Ward 14 (West Mountain) Councillor Mike Spadafora, directs the General Manager of Healthy and Safe Communities to report back with a full inventory of city-funded housing and homelessness organizations.
For the first time, that report is to clearly include outcomes achieved by each program and the cost of those outcomes.
The motion still needs to be ratified at an upcoming council meeting.
The motion notes that while the city already funds and monitors programs run by community organizations, information on total funding per organization, services delivered, outcomes achieved and cost per outcome “is not consistently presented to Council in one consolidated format.”
Staff are directed to report on who gets funding, the program funded, the annual amount, number of individuals served, and where services are delivered.
Outcomes such as how many people were housed and the rate of recidivism were requested, as was a summary of crisis reports.
Value for money statistics such as cost per person served, administrative versus direct service costs, and comparisons to other municipalities will also be put in the report.
The report is also to flag programs that are, and are not, achieving their outcomes, and identify where funding could be redirected to higher-performing programs.
Staff are to compare Hamilton’s approach with similar-sized municipalities and create a public reporting tool, such as an online dashboard, showing residents how much is spent, who receives it, and what it achieves.
The motion asks staff to recommend a shift toward outcome-based funding “where appropriate,” while recognizing that some preventative and essential services may need to be funded on capacity and community need “rather than a simple pay-for-performance model.”
The motion comes months after an auditor general’s report on the city’s Barton-Tiffany tiny shelter site sharpened council’s focus on how homelessness dollars are spent.
In 2024, the General Issues Committee voted 12-4 to create a city-sanctioned tiny shelter community, with Spadafora among those opposed.
In February, Auditor General Charles Brown released a report finding a “lack of accountability, governance and control mechanisms” in the project, along with inadequate oversight of costs.
The report found the project’s cost grew from an approved budget of $2.8 million to nearly $8 million. The shelter units were single-sourced from Microshelters, a Brantford company with no previous experience supplying them, and staff conducted no organized search for vendors.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath later told business leaders at the 2026 Mayor’s Breakfast hosted by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce that the tiny shelter project was “worth the risk.”
“Were there missteps? Yes. Some errors? Absolutely. But the results are real,” she said in her 30-minute speech.
It remains to be seen when city staff will compile all of the information and report back.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
