VANCOUVER HOMELESSNESS COUNT
Total:
2005: 1,364 (Sheltered 773, Unsheltered 59)
2010: 1,715 (Sheltered 1,294, Unsheltered 421)
2015: 1,746 (Sheltered 1,258, Unsheltered 488)
2019: 2,223 (Sheltered 1,609, Unsheltered 614)
Change from 2005:
Sheltered up 208%
Unsheltered up 1,041%
Total up 163%
Demographics:
1% non-binary, 23% female, 76% male
33% self-report mental illness
39% of homeless are Indigenous (though only 2.2% of Vancouver’s population)
53% of homeless women are Indigenous
68% suffer from addiction (33% opioids, 29% meth, 14% cocaine)
86% between age 25 and 64
Place of origin:
16% (156 people) were from Metro Vancouver
31% (299 people) were from elsewhere in BC
44% (435 people) were from another part of Canada (mostly Alberta and Ontario)
9% (89 people) were from outside Canada
Unsheltered living situation:
5% in a vehicle
11% tent or makeshift structure
17% friend’s house
61% outside
Reason for not staying in a shelter:
1% stayed instead in hospital/detox/jail/transition house
3% feared pests
8% turned away
9% able to stay with friend
9% don't find shelters safe
14% just don’t like them
14% did not know why
46% other (unable to keep pets with them in shelter, prefer to be alone, concerns about shelter staff…)
Income sources:
1% none
1% Employment Insurance
4% employed full-time
7% Canadian Pension Plan
7% panhandling
10% bottle collecting
11% employed part-time
31% disability
42% income assistance
Toronto, with 2.9 million people, has a homeless population of 8,700 (or 0.3% of the city’s population). Winnipeg, with a population of 705,000, has 1,500 homeless (0.2%). Vancouver has 675,000 people and 2,200 homeless (also 0.3%, of whom roughly one in four are from Ontario.)
Under the National Housing Strategy and its National Housing Co-investment Fund, the federal government pledged $1.47 billion for low-cost housing projects to respond to homelessness. Of that sum, $1.4 billion (95.2%) has gone to Toronto, largely to repair and revitalize 60,000 pre-existing units. Winnipeg received $25.6 million (1.4% of the total) from the same federal plan for 110 new housing units. $7.4 million (just 0.5% of the total) was provided to Vancouver for two projects of a total 66 new units.
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