THUNDER BAY — The city is seeing increasing levels of poverty due to a lack of affordable and supportive housing, barriers to employment for marginalized populations and growing reliance on emergency shelters and community services, according to a new report.
The Lakehead Social Planning Council provided the city’s quality of life standing committee with an overview of its 2024 to 2025 poverty reduction strategy annual report on Tuesday evening.
“Thunder Bay is facing compounding structural pressures, and let me give you the numbers: As of March 2026, average rents in Thunder Bay sit at approximately $2,054 per month. A one bedroom unit averages $1,580 per month,” Bonnie Krysowaty, director of community projects and initiatives, said.
“A nutritious diet for a family of four costs more than $14,000 a year, while a single person on Ontario Works receives $733 a month, she added.
“I just want you to sit with that; $733 a month against $1,580 a month for a one bedroom apartment,” Krysowaty said.
She said Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program are “deplorable for people,” when Coun. Andrew Foulds asked Krysowaty what the Planning Council has been advocating for the province to change.
“People can’t crawl out of that web of poverty when you’re earning $733 a month. It’s just impossible to be able to meet the social determinants of health, and that exacerbates the numbers, of course, people living in poverty, but the numbers of people experiencing homelessness, food insecurity and lack of education that could be available to them,” she said.
Lakehead Social Planning Council’s most successful poverty reduction program, according to Krysowaty, is its free income tax clinic.
“In the 2024 tax year alone, the tax clinic users in Thunder Bay received $16,479,980 in refunds and benefits. That money went directly back into this community, into rent, groceries, utility bills,” she said.
Krysowaty added that 44 per cent of the clients are Indigenous and 66 per cent are single. The average annual income of clients ranges from $7,400 for employment insurance recipients annually to $11,400 for those collecting ODSP.
The report has several recommendations for the city’s consideration.
One is a continued $52,000 annual investment into the strategy itself because it is the foundation of the work, according to Krysowaty.
Other recommendations include engaging Indigenous partners and people with lived experience to help design programs and initiatives, as well as making use of surplus or underutilized municipal land for affordable and supportive housing.
Krysowaty also asked for the corporation of Thunder Bay to join the Thunder Bay Living Wage campaign because it would send “a message to every employer in this city.”
The Thunder Bay Living Wage campaign is an advocacy campaign that aims to show people the minimum wage is not reflective of the actual cost of living and meeting the social determinants of health.
“So that would mean being able to live in secure, safe housing, afford nutritious food, maybe be able to take a course at a university or college and afford some type of transportation,” Krysowaty said.
Currently, the Thunder Bay living wage is $21.10 per hour based on a 35-hour full-time work week, she said.
