From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

The city’s homelessness operating budget alone works out to about $51,000 per homeless person per year. For reference, the median after-tax income among Canadians in 2023 was $39,900. In other words, if you took the City of Toronto’s homelessness services operating budget in 2024 and divided the cash among the city’s homeless population, each homeless person would have 28 per cent higher income than the typical Canadian.

According to a recent City of Toronto report, in October 2024 there were an estimated 15,400 people experiencing homelessness in the city—more than double the approximately 7,300 homeless in April 2021. Of the homeless population, about 80 per cent stay in city-administered sites, 10 per cent in provincially-administered sites, and 10 per cent outdoors.

Clearly, homelessness and poverty are significant problems in Toronto, and governments should undertake some efforts to tackle these problems and mitigate their effects. However, whether politicians are using taxpayer money effectively in trying to do so is another matter, and in the case of Toronto’s spending on homelessness services, the numbers suggest there’s significant room for improvement.

In 2024, the gross expenditures operating budget for Toronto Shelter and Support Services, which is responsible for managing homelessness services, was $787.5 million. The capital budget was another $78.2 million. With a homeless population of 15,400, the city’s homelessness operating budget alone works out to about $51,000 per homeless person per year. For reference, the median after-tax income among Canadians in 2023 was $39,900.

In other words, if you took the City of Toronto’s homelessness services operating budget in 2024 and divided the cash among the city’s homeless population, each homeless person would have 28 per cent higher income than the typical Canadian.

Another data point in the report: the average market rent for a bachelor unit in Toronto in 2024 was $1,456 per month, which works out to $17,472 per year. This is one-third of that $51,000 per-homeless person to put a roof over the head of each of the 15,400 homeless people, even at a level of quality such that the amenities and comfort is comparable to that of an average resident of a bachelor unit in the city. Homelessness services include more than just providing shelter, but again, the wide gap between $17,472 and $51,000 suggests taxpayer money is not efficiently spent.

I am reminded of a 1978 speech by famed American economist Milton Friedman on the welfare state. If you took the total annual welfare expenditures made by federal, state and local governments in the name of helping the poor, according to Friedman, and divided it among the entire population that the government defined as being in poverty, it would work out to $9,000 per person. For comparison, the average after-tax income per person in the United States in those days was $6,500 per year.

“If that $9,000 per person were really going to the poor,” Friedman exclaimed, “they’d be among the rich! That income given to them would put them in the top 20 per cent of the income distribution.” The obvious explanation for what was going on: money the government spent, supposedly on helping the poor, wasn’t actually going to the poor.

The same appears to be true with Toronto’s homelessness services spending. Divide the city’s homelessness services spending among the homeless, and the homeless could well be considered richer than the average Canadian.

Toronto residents aren’t alone in having their money spent ineffectively. There’s plenty of evidence that governments elsewhere are ineffective in anti-poverty spending. See for example a California state auditor report last year detailing the state’s significant rise in homelessness even as nine state agencies spent US$24 billion on at least 30 programs over five years to prevent homelessness. Taxpayers—in Toronto, California and everywhere else—should demand better.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

The Trump administration extradited dozens of fugitives from Mexico as the White House tightens a noose around criminal syndicates south of the border.

Federal law enforcement took custody of 26 individuals, many of them leaders of dangerous drug cartels and human smuggling organizations that the Trump administration has deemed to be foreign terrorist organizations, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Tuesday announcement came in the aftermath of President Donald Trump reportedly authorizing the use of military force against drug cartels.

Among those handed over to U.S. authorities were top leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generation and Los Zetas cartels, according to the DOJ. Nearly every individual faces up to life in prison on various charges ranging from hostage-taking, drug-trafficking, kidnapping, human smuggling and a slate of other crimes.

“Today is the latest example of the Trump administration’s historic efforts to dismantle cartels and foreign terrorist organizations,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a public statement. “These 26 men have all played a role in bringing violence and drugs to American shores — under this Department of Justice, they will face severe consequences for their crimes against this country.”

“We are grateful to Mexico’s National Security team for their collaboration in this matter,” Bondi continued.

Those extradited to the U.S. included Martin Zazueta Perez and Kevin Gil Acosta, leaders of a powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel that have led hired gunmen armed with grenade launchers and assault rifles in attacks against Mexican military officials, according to the DOJ. Both men were involved in prolific fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.

Also taken into American custody were Leobardo Garcia Corrales, a close friend of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman who has allegedly trafficked fentanyl into the U.S. in exchange for AK-47s, grenades and submachine guns, and Luis Raul Castro Valenzuela, a Sinaloa Cartel gangbanger accused of kidnapping and holding hostage an American citizen, according to the DOJ.

Collectively, the 26 individuals have imported “tonnage quantities” of cocaine, meth, fentanyl heroin and other illicit drugs through the Mexico border, according to the Trump administration.

Just days before the extradition, Trump reportedly authorized the use of military strikes against Mexican drug cartels, a move that would mark a monumental escalation in the White House’s war against criminal syndicates. Immediately upon re-entering office, the president officially designated a number of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, allowing U.S. authorization to freeze their financial assets, prohibit their entry into the country and the prosecution of members for supporting terrorism.

While the Mexican government has shown a willingness to help take on drug cartels and illegal immigration, their government appears adamantly opposed to U.S. military strikes against criminal syndicates within their territory, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Friday “absolutely” ruling out the possibility of U.S. military operations on Mexican land.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration across the southern border has wielded unprecedented success, with Border Patrol agents releasing zero migrants into the interior of the country in July, marking the third consecutive month of zero releases.