Identified as a ‘national disaster’ by Toronto City Council (1998), homelessness in Canada is one of our most visible social dilemmas, and yet at the same time is perhaps one of the least understood. This paper seeks to elucidate the scope of the problem in Ontario and particularly Toronto, examines the history of related governmental social policy to help illustrate how these policy decisions have contributed to our present situation, assesses some of the empirical data suggesting how the experience of home-lessness can significantly compromise an individual’s health and wellbeing, and examines some of the proposed strategies to ameliorate the plight of individuals experiencing homelessness in Canada.