Homelessness is on the rise throughout Canada. Some estimates put the number of homeless people at about 200,000 annually. Homeless shelters in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Kitchener, Ottawa, Peel, Barrie, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Charlottetown all report significant increases in recent years. Since the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee started circulating its Homelessness Declaration in 1998, dozens of municipalities and scores of national and regional organizations have adopted the declaration that homelessness is a National Disaster. Far too many homeless people are dying on the streets of Canada. The root cause of homelessness is a housing crisis that has seen a growing number of tenant households caught in the double-bind of rising rents set against dwindling incomes, along with growing need for new housing set against little or no new affordable housing. More than 833,000 tenant households are at risk of homelessness across Canada – a total of more than 2.25 million people.