A new survey says homelessness in Vancouver has risen 12 per cent over the past two years.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Homelessness rises

Homelessness in Vancouver has risen 12 per cent over the last two years, according to the preliminary results of the City of Vancouver’s 2010 homeless count, released last week.

According to the City’s numbers, 1,762 people are homeless in Vancouver, which is 186 more than were tallied in the last count in 2008. As of this year’s count, 1,334 people are living in shelters, while 428 live on the street. When the City’s first homeless count took place in 2002, the City identified 670 homeless individuals. That number went up to 1,364 by 2005.

In a report to City of Vancouver staff and council, city manager Penny Ballem noted the effectiveness of shelters in reducing street homelessness. “While solving all homelessness is a large goal to attain, other cities are demonstrating real progress by targeting efforts on getting people off the street as the first step,” Ballem wrote. “Our review of best practice has shown that street homelessness is the most expensive and socially erosive part of the homelessness problem.”

For Ballem and Vancouver city councillors, the numbers from the latest homeless count provide evidence to support their interest in keeping the emergency shelters opened by Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT) operating past their scheduled April 30 closing date, when operational funding from the Province runs out. While, as yet, senior housing officials from the Province say no final decision has been made about the future of the shelters, city councillors like Kerry Jang have been clear in stating their belief that pitching in for operational funding is not the City’s mandate. “Operations is provincial responsibility,” he says, “and now they’re saying, ‘Oh, no, we want the city to pay for half....’ It boggles my mind that they would actually want to pass off their responsibilities onto a city that doesn’t have the money or capacity to actually operate shelters or interim housing. What we’re able to do, and have done, is provide the land and capital costs.”

The B.C. government has invested $7.25 million into three HEAT shelters and four winter shelters since 2008, in addition to an annual $17 million budget to operate 700 year-round emergency shelter beds. Provincial officials note they are also investing $172 million to build six of 14 City-owned sites for long-term social housing.

Meanwhile, opposition critic and Vancouver-West End MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert is worried about what will happen in the immediate future if the HEAT shelters close. “What do you do if the hundreds of people that have been staying inside are now going to be forced out onto the street?” he says. “What the province is doing here is saying [to] all those folks who have been assisted, ‘Go out and find somebody’s doorstep [or] some park or some back alley to sleep in,’ because without a shelter, there’s no other place to go. In fact, I’ve had people come into my office looking for shelter space so they can get off the street, but I have to tell them, ‘Well, all the shelters are full.’”