Mayor Andrea Horwath held her regular in-person post-meeting media availabilty today (Thursday July 10) following yesterday’s lengthy Council General Issues Committee meeting.
The meeting was covered by myself, The Hamilton Spectator, and CHCH-TV.
Topics covered today include: homeless encampments and the City’s response to them, online voting for municipal elections, the 2026 budget process, and Mayor Horwath confirmed she will seek re-election in 2026.
An edited transcript, with audio clips, is below.
Date: July 10, 2025
Event: Interview/Media Scrum
Location: Hamilton City Hall
Full Audio:
City Hall Encampment
Teviah Moro, Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton Community Foundation funded Housing/Homelessness Reporter):
You know what’s going on here, right? And it’s been about 45 days outside. Sorry, the protests can’t – I think it’s going to be 50 days, they say by this weekend.
One of the things that I’ve – I’ve been there a few times and they keep on mentioning you and they’re saying, you know, ‘we want the Mayor to come out and talk to us’ or ‘we want to talk to the Mayor’.
‘We want to discuss sort of the nuances of our situation about being outside.’
Can you explain why you haven’t?
Mayor Andrea Horwath:
What I can say is that we have a situation where, and I think most people would agree, we don’t have the kinds of resources necessary to house everybody in our community.
I think the solutions are very, very clear. The solutions include more affordable housing, they include more supports for people, they include more mental health and addiction services. They include all of those things, many of which are not something that we as a city have the capacity to provide.
We are doing our best when it comes to shelter spaces. As you know, we’ve increased them by 80 per cent and there are spaces in the shelters right now. We’ve found ways to lower the barriers and we continue to work with the providers to accomplish that. We have a number of units that we’ve already put on stream in terms of affordable housing. There are more coming.
But again, we cannot do all of it alone as a city financially.
So we’re doing our very best on the solutions. We also need to look at the systemic issues that have gotten us to where we are. We have had issues around lack of rent control, lack of addressing rent evictions or illegal evictions, problems with that system. Again, not our system.
What did we do? We tried to step in where we could with things like our rent eviction bylaw, which really is a stopgap measure because the provincial government’s legislation doesn’t – it doesn’t meet the requirements of keeping people housed, right? It’s a profit-driven system. It’s not about housing anymore.
And my last point, you know, I can go on forever on this stuff, but the other big piece is the social assistance piece. I mean, people simply, when they’re on ODSP or OW, simply do not have enough resources to keep a roof over their head and meet all of their other needs.
So this is a multi-pronged crisis and I really believe the city is doing everything we can to support people and try to provide options for people with our outreach workers and all of the things that we’re doing.
What I would like to see, and I’ve said it over and over again, is the other orders of government to step up. But I’d also like the surrounding communities to step up too. We cannot be the only community in the geographic area that’s providing more supports as this crisis continues to grow. And it is growing.
And we cannot continue – we don’t have the capacity to continue to address it ourselves. So I would ask that other communities around Hamilton also begin to do their fair share in terms of providing services and housing for people in their communities.
Teviah Moro:
So some people out there are telling me – ‘look, we don’t expect affordable housing to materialize overnight, right?’
But one of the things they’ll say is, you know, provide us a space to be outside. And you’ve heard this before. Some people use that word, sanctioned encampment, because there are not enough shelter spaces, which your own staff have said, right?
Mayor Horwath:
Well, in fact, right now – and I called staff right before I had this opportunity to have a conversation with you – our shelter system is in flux and they have been offering people shelter spaces, and they’ve been declined.
So what we don’t want to see is what we’ve seen in the past, which is spaces where people come that end up being unsafe, where there are assaults and sexual assaults, where there are weapons, where there is illegal activity. This has happened every single time. That is not something that we can abide as a city, and again, our desire is to find safe shelter for people. That’s what people deserve.
Teviah Moro:
When this Council made the decision, they said, “Look, we’re not going to be chasing people around parks anymore. We’re not doing that. We’re going to have a protocol that is going to allow people to stay in place because that’s better because the service providers can find the people and work on housing plans.”
This Council changed that decision and reverted to law enforcement, which essentially put…
Mayor Horwath:
Do you recall that there were tunnels in Gage Park? That there have been all kinds of challenges when it comes to how the parks have ended up? That there was all kinds – there have been fires, there have been tents on fire, there have been people injured, there’s been assaults and that kind of activity.
And there has also been a lack of ability for the rest of the community to engage in those spaces that they need to engage in as well. I was at Gage Park very recently announcing the splash pad season being opened, and a couple of young moms with their kids approached me to say thank you. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to use our park again.
So the municipality has to balance the needs of all of the residents of our community, and we’re trying our best to do that within our fiscal capacity.
Because the other thing you’ll know is that City Council has been very specific – some councillors particularly have been very specific about having concerns about continuing to take on more at the municipal level that is not in our purview and shouldn’t be, and that this is what drives our budget up.
And so we also hear from our community that in the midst of an affordability crisis, our budgets are increasing, our operating budgets are increasing, and that’s causing some consternation. So again, it’s balancing all of these issues and trying to do our best to find the solutions for people.
Teviah Moro:
I just have one more question on this. So you’ve increased shelter beds by 80 per cent, right? So we all know that.
[Mayor Horwath Interjects: And we’ve reduced barriers.]
You still have roughly 150 people who are living outside.
[Mayor Horwath Interjects: And it’s going to continue to grow.]
So we have a gap, right? So we have a gap in numbers and we have a gap in the types of spaces that are offered. Where do we go from here then?
Mayor Horwath:
Well, I think what we need to do is make sure this crisis gets solved. And I’m saying quite clearly and adamantly, we cannot solve this crisis alone and we cannot solve this crisis on the resources available to a municipality like the City of Hamilton.
So I’ve already identified what those solutions are. We continue to advocate, we continue to push the other orders of government, and we are preparing for the AMO conference which is coming in August.
And we’ve talked about, is it time to start making it clear to the government that if they’re not going to be funding services in cities like Hamilton, the bigger cities, then they should be funding services in the smaller communities because people are moving around and the crisis is growing. In Hamilton, the crisis is growing. In London, you might have seen the report about what’s happening in Toronto.
So we’ll never be able to keep up if the root causes of the crisis continue to go unresolved and we do not have the capacity at the City of Hamilton to solve the root causes of the crisis.
Joey Coleman:
So I’ve got two topics, but I’ll do one [to start] …
2026 budget. I know a few other municipalities with strong Mayor powers, which is pretty much everyone now, they have started public consultations, they’ve given budget outlooks. Some directives are… what is your timeline and what should the public expect?
Mayor Horwath:
There’s a couple of things with that, and yeah, we’ve already provided the outlook as I’m sure you know. There’s some areas where we’ve already done some of that work.
Having said that, I know very well and I’m very aware of the consternation that the process created last time around, and I don’t disagree there was a lack of information and appropriate timelines. There was frustration by councillors in terms of not being able to – or feeling like they didn’t have enough lead time to put motions forward, that motions that they thought were going to be okay, in fact, were determined to be out of order.
We’re trying to clean up all of that, and a big part of that is making sure that the staff are aware that we want information earlier, so we have made that very clear. Councillors need to have information earlier. We are putting together a consultation process that engages community more.
You know, this is all fairly new, but we need to every year improve the way that we do our budget in terms of the directive. Yes, it’s on my agenda to come up with that a lot quicker. I can tell you overall, we are still facing a considerable affordability crisis here in our city and we still have important things that we want to get done.
And so those are the tensions around the budget deliberations that are going to come this time around, and what we need to do is make sure that not only our councillors but also our community is engaged and engaged earlier.
Joey Coleman:
Timelines?
Mayor Horwath:
I don’t have them right on the tip of my tongue at this moment, but I’m talking to my chief of staff almost daily on making sure that we put out that directive early.
We need information for the directive as well, though, and so we’re pushing staff as well to get us information that we need to be able to put a directive together that makes sense and that addresses the pressures as well as the needs and the financial pressures.
Simone Gavros (CHCH-TV):
We’re talking today more about online voting being discussed right now. I know there’s the upcoming by-election for Ward 8 coming up in September and then we have our municipal election next year.
Why does Hamilton think that using online voting is a good option, or why are we considering this?
Mayor Horwath:
Well, I think that the committee’s just considering it right now. Council will make a decision depending on what committee recommends.
Having said that, as Mayor, I want to make sure we have every available opportunity for people to cast their ballot. We need to get people more engaged in the municipal election process. The decisions made at this Council table literally affect everybody – every person’s daily lives every day.
And so we… but you understand what I’m saying? This is the order of government that has the greatest immediate impact on people in terms of their decision-making. So what we want is for people to be a bigger part of that decision-making, and any way that we can put in place opportunities for people to cast a ballot, that’s what I’m looking for.
Simone Gavros:
I know that Guelph, for example, they had this in place in 2022 and I reached out to them. They plan to do it again in 2026. Was it something that Hamilton considered for the previous municipal election?
Mayor Horwath:
I wasn’t here for – I was a candidate. Yeah, I wasn’t there, but I can’t imagine that this discussion hasn’t been ongoing. It’s a direction that a lot of municipalities are considering and/or have already implemented, and its time has come, I think, in terms of looking at how can we start to integrate that option for people.
I have, you know, I’ll never forget one election here in Hamilton, and my sister was living here at the time. And I said, “Don’t forget in the morning. Don’t forget today’s Election Day. I need your vote,” and so ha ha. Yeah, yeah. Off to the day after the races at the end of the day, I asked her, “Did you vote?” And she said, “You know, I couldn’t. I had to pick up the kids. I had to work. I couldn’t get to the polling station,” blah, blah, blah.
Now, I would have been able to call my sister and say, “Here’s the link. Here’s your ID,” or however we’re going to make it work and make sure you vote, right?
Simone Gavros:
Okay, it’s something you support then if it does move to Council?
Mayor Horwath:
Well, I don’t know what the recommendation is going to look like, but adding in every opportunity possible for people to cast their ballot is something I’m very interested in.
Joey Coleman:
So re-election, are you planning to run for re-election?
Mayor Horwath
Absolutely.
[PAUSE]
Joey Coleman:
And I mean, Winnipeg’s mayor did the same thing – he just said yes and waited a few days before saying more. Is there more that you want to add to that?
Mayor Horwath:
Absolutely. Look, this is Hamilton. I mean, this is a city I love. I think that we’ve in a very short time been able to move a lot of the major goal posts in our city, including things like the investment of almost $300 million just across the way – the airport deal, which now has Porter there providing services that continue to grow and there’s going to be more growth at that airport.
We’ve made some progress in terms of solutions on affordable housing and hopefully there’s more to come in short order in that regard. There are just big pieces that had been languishing for some time at the city that were preventing us from moving forward.
The LRT is now much, much more real in terms of some of the works that are being done and the process on that. You see the – well, the cranes aren’t as big as they were maybe two years ago, but certainly there’s been a lull in development, but if you drive down King Street, it looks a lot different than it did two years ago.
We see what’s happening in the North End in terms of development there. We see what’s happening here in the south in terms of housing and density. We’re seeing more of those towers turn to rental, which is something that we definitely need.
So you know, I’m proud of the work that’s been done so far in the city. We’re trying to change the way things get done here, and although we had a cybersecurity attack, in some ways it’s been a silver lining in terms of moving more towards a data-driven decision-making municipality and one that has changing its systems to make it more customer service oriented, whether it’s for residents, whether it’s for builders and developers, whether it’s for businesses.
We need to remember always that we’re here to serve the community and every way we can to make that interaction more smooth, more transparent, more accessible. That’s where I am as Mayor and that’s the kind of work that we’re doing.
You know, we talk about culture often – it’s systems that embed culture, and so if we’re changing the systems, it also gives us an opportunity to change culture. And I think that we’re making some progress in that regard as well.
Simone Gavros:
One last question back to – this is the final one – I know that they’re flagging in this meeting right now, they’re talking a lot about concerns when it comes to just the online factor when it comes to voting and any tech concerns or hacking or anything like that.
Is this a concern that comes up to you, especially when you just discussed the cyber attack we just had?
Mayor Horwath:
Sure. I mean, it’s always a concern and as we know, any type of technology is vulnerable to all kinds of interlopers, if you will. I don’t think that should stop us. That shouldn’t stop our progress in terms of finding ways to make voting more accessible for people.
And it’s not just at the ballot box, it’s conversations that we have leading up to the ballot box and then subsequent to elections as well.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
Production Details
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Published: July 10, 2025
Last updated: July 10, 2025
Author: Joey Coleman
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