This spring’s budget will commit the Liberals to spending $587 million over the next two years to combat homelessness, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Ted McMeekin says.

In what was the first of many expected so-called good news budget leaks, McMeekin told reporters Monday that Toronto will receive $223 million of that from the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative (CHPI).

“Homelessness is one of the greatest challenges facing Ontario,” McMeekin said, noting that the $587 million will go a long way to ending it.

“We are committed to ending homelessness. . . because having a home is a very important first step to leaving poverty behind,” said Treasury Board president Deb Matthews.

The homelessness initiative is part of the Liberals’ five-year poverty reduction strategy.

Matthews is responsible for the poverty file as well as heading the Treasury Board, which is grappling with the government’s promise to eliminate Ontario’s $12.5-billion deficit.

‎The CHPI was launched in 2013, consolidating five homelessness-related programs administered by various ministries into one program under the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the Liberals are actually only “holding the line” on what is being set aside for homelessness.

“All they said is that they are freezing homelessness programs. That doesn’t seem to me that’s any kind of announcement whatsoever,” Horwath told reporters later.

Matthews explained that the funding, as opposed to earlier programs, gives municipalities far greater flexibility in how they spend the money.

“(Before) if a municipality didn’t use the money allocated on, for example, shelters they would lose that funding. Now . . . municipalities have far more ability to address the need of their community without losing that much-needed funding,” she said.

Municipalities can use the money for setting up emergency shelters, offering homelessness prevention programs, providing a mix of long-term and traditional housing and other services such at street outreach, food banks and transportation.

Homelessness

The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness estimates 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness every year and there are about 35,000 homeless people on any given night.

About 16,000 people last year used the Toronto emergency shelter system, which has 4,500 beds.

More than $4 billion has been spent on affordable housing programs in Ontario since 2003, the Liberals government says.

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More than $800 million in total has been earmarked by the federal and provincial governments for affordable housing over the next five years.