The report presents updated information, gathered as part of the work of City staff who provide housing relocation assistance to those with difficulties finding housing.

The report describes the findings from night-time walkabouts of Vancouver streets, carried out between 2001 and 2003, to find, count, wake, interview, and offer services to those who are sleeping outside, in garages, doorways, alleys, parks and beaches, under bridges and overpasses.

In recent years there has been increased public concern about homelessness - those who are without homes, living on the streets or in temporary shelters, and those who are at risk of homelessness because they live in unaffordable or inadequate housing. This report is an up-date of a similar report done in 2001. Trying to establish the number of shelterless people is difficult. They do not stay in easily recognizable locations and they change locations.

A person may sleep outside one night and bunk in with an acquaintance/friend the next night. Some feel safer sleeping during
the day and walking at night - most, even at night, rarely sleep longer than three or four hours at a time. And a number of panhandlers and binners, who are often presumed to be homeless, are very poor, but do have rooms to return to at night.

The report describes the findings from over 25 night-time walkabouts of Vancouver streets, carried out between 2001 and 2003, to find, count, wake, interview, and offer services to the people living rough- those who are sleeping outside, in garages, doorways, alleys, parks and beaches, under bridges and overpasses.

Most areas were searched more than once. Most areas were searched several times to establish variations over different nights and seasons. Walks were done in areas where agencies, police, staff or the public knew that people were sometimes living outside. In addition, each season, daytime searches were done of Stanley Park, with the assistance of the VPD Mounted Squad, and the Sanitation foreman, and supplemented by information from the Park Board Forestry crews. This count includes the individuals who regularly or temporarily make their home in Stanley Park.

On the basis of this information, it is estimated that about 500 to 1,200 sleep out of doors in the city of Vancouver on any given night, roughly double the number we reported in 2001. The number varies depending on the season, and other factors.

This number is in addition to the approximately six hundred to seven hundred people staying in Vancouver’s shelters each night. The number of shelter spaces in Vancouver has increased by about 150 beds since 2001. At the same time the number of turnaways at some shelters has more than doubled since 2001.

In terms of location, the shelterless do not distribute themselves evenly across the city. Since 2001 there have been some changes in the places we are finding people living outside. The shelterless are now appearing in single-family neighbourhoods far from the downtown core, where there has rarely before been a report of someone living in the streets. Agencies in these neighbourhoods are now struggling to find ways to support and resource small but growing numbers of shelterless.

Vancouver Housing Centre
housing.centre@vancouver.ca

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24/02/2004

J. Graves

research

Urban Policy > Housing > Housing policy

Homelessness