Toronto's social housing waitlist: sustained growth and a low exit rate
Toronto's centralized social housing waitlist grew by nearly a third in five years, while the rate at which people actually move from the waitlist into housing remains low enough that a 2026 reporting methodology change is worth flagging before citing any single-year figure as directly comparable to prior years.
The finding
The waitlist grew steadily from 81,664 (2020) to 78,879 (2021) to 84,282 (2022) to 85,097 (2023) to
100,361 (2024) to 105,115 at year-end 2025 CSRL2-767. In the same recent period, 21,538 new applications
were received against only 2,838 households actually housed — an inflow-to-housed ratio of roughly 7.6
to 1, and a 2.7% annual exit-to-housing rate against the year-end list of 105,115 CSRL2-768.
A genuine methodology change accompanies the most recent reporting, worth stating before citing the
newest figure: as of 2026 reporting, reactivated applications (previously counted alongside new
applications) are now counted as part of the Total Active Waiting List, and "Cancelled Applications" has
been renamed "Removed from Waiting List," specifically defined as removal due to the Single Offer Rule,
no longer being RGI-eligible, or a self-requested removal. Under this revised methodology, the Q1 2026
total active waiting list stands at 104,851 [CL-90659].
Why it matters
A waitlist growing from roughly 82,000 to over 105,000 in five years, against an exit rate under 3% per year, describes a system where demand is growing meaningfully faster than throughput — the 7.6-to-1 inflow-to-housed ratio makes that gap concrete rather than abstract. The methodology change matters because it changes what counts as "on the list" in a way that could shift the reported total even without any real change in underlying need — a reader comparing the Q1 2026 figure against the 2020-2025 trend line should know the counting rules moved partway through, not assume a clean apples-to-apples series.
What this page does not cover
This page does not adjust the 2020-2025 trend figures to match the 2026 methodology retroactively, since the source itself does not provide a restated series. It does not investigate why the exit-to-housing rate is as low as it is (funding, unit supply, eligibility processing capacity, or some combination) — that is a separate policy question this page's own sources do not address directly. It does not carry a "case against" the City's waiting list administration, since the source reviewed is the City's own reporting on its own waitlist, not a documented opposing position.
Sources
- City of Toronto, Social Housing Waiting List Reports (
RES-0629).