On International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and nine days before Toronto votes: what the data says, and what to ask the people who want your vote.
Every October 17, the world marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This year the United Nations has given the day a focus that hits close to home: Safe Homes for All. The idea is simple. Without a safe, stable home, everything else (health care, school, a job, a place in your community) gets harder to reach.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it plainly: “Poverty is not a personal failure; it is a systemic failure.”
Toronto is living that truth right now. According to a new analysis from Maytree, Toronto’s poverty rate reached 15.4 per cent in 2024, the highest of any major city in Canada. Nearly one in four people living in poverty in this country lives here.
And on October 26, Toronto votes. Affordability, and housing above all, is the issue voters keep raising. A September Ipsos survey found 85 per cent of GTA residents are worried about housing affordability, and 69 per cent say it will shape how they vote.
The longer poverty lasts, the harder it is to escape. Toronto can change that.
In Ontario, a neighbour who has been in low income for one year has about a 46 per cent chance of getting out the following year. For someone who has been in low income for six years, that chance drops to about 13 per cent.
Read that again. The longer neighbour lives in poverty, the narrower the way out becomes.
That’s why YSM offers a wrap-around model of care, walking alongside community members while connecting them with the unique array of supports they need to rise out of poverty.
This is a moment to talk honestly about what poverty in this city actually looks like, and what it takes to end it.
What to ask on October 26
Yonge Street Mission does not endorse candidates or parties. But we would ask every Torontonian to make poverty a ballot question. Do your own research or use tools like The Local’s candidate tracker for fact-checked biographies and platform summaries for every candidate running in the 2026 Toronto municipal election. When candidates knock on your door or show up at a debate, ask them:
- How will you get affordable homes built, not just approved?
- How will you involve people living in poverty in designing the policies that affect them?
- How will you protect the community services people rely on while they work their way out?
- How will you measure whether poverty in Toronto is actually going down?
Advance voting runs through mid-October, and Election Day is Monday, October 26. Find your polling location at toronto.ca/elections.
One more question, for yourself
Affordability looks different depending on whose kitchen table you’re sitting at. For a household that’s financially stable, a campaign promise might mean a few hundred dollars a year. It’s welcome, but not life-changing. But for a different family who’s one missed paycheque away from losing their home, a different set of choices at City Hall could be worth thousands, or be the difference between staying housed and not.
So before you vote, ask yourself: Who does my ballot need to work for? If affordability is just an inconvenience for you rather than a crisis, consider voting with the neighbours for whom it is. How meaningful is the benefit you receive from your vote to your everyday life? A city is only as strong as the ground under its most precarious residents.
A city where people, not poverty, thrive
Toronto is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. By the numbers, it is also the poverty capital of Canada. Both things are true, and neither is permanent.
On October 17, take a moment to learn what long-term poverty looks like in your own city. On October 26, vote with it in mind. And every day in between, know that the way out is real, and that no one should have to find it alone.
Learn more about our work at ysm.ca