City homelessness falls a “whopping” 3.16 percent

For what it’s worth, here’s the count of Vancouver’s homeless population from 2002 to 2015,

Results of the City of Vancouver’s March 24, 2015, homeless count were presented to City Council today.

According to numbers in a press release from the city, the 2015 Report on Homelessness shows that Vancouver’s total homeless population decreased a mere 3.16 percent in the last 12 months.

On March 24, city enumerators counted 488 homeless people living on the streets and another 1258 in shelters, for a total of 1746.

This is slightly down from 2014, when a total of 1803 homeless people were counted across the city, with 536 living on the streets and 1267 in shelters.

Even the city can’t spin the numbers into something positive, though it tries:

“The annual homeless count on March 24, 2015, revealed that even with the opening of 615 net new permanent and interim/supportive housing units over the last year which housed 458 street/sheltered homeless, a total of 488 homeless people remain unsheltered – a decrease of 10 percent in street homelessness compared to last year.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that the number of unsheltered homeless people has only decreased by 9 percent over the last year (536 to 488).

Something doesn’t add up

The City of Vancouver’s website still touts the 1,700 new supportive housing units it would have to put towards ending street homelessness by 2013 — the year that the city’s stand-alone count only found a total of 1600 homeless!

Add in the 458 unit mentioned in today’s press release and you have 2158 units of dedicated homeless housing, which is 355 more units than the highest number of homeless the city has ever counted.

Yet there are still 1746 homeless people in Vancouver — some living on the streets; more in temporary shelters but all homeless.

The city’s media release says that of those counted in 2015, about 50 per cent had been homeless for less than one year. This is another way of saying that about 873 of those homeless people were not in Vancouver in 2014 and it at least implies that an equal number were housed.

It would give some meaning to these homeless counts to know the housing side of the story:

• How many homeless people have been housed in each 12 month period?
• How long have they stayed housed?
• What is the annual recidivism rate (how many people end up back on the streets)?
• How many transition from fully-paid-for and subsidized housing to independent housing?

As it is, the public is annually shown homeless numbers which can be placed in no context whatsoever.

When the city’s press release ends with the statement that currently there are almost 4,000 people in Vancouver on B.C Housing’s waiting list for social housing, we can only assume that some of those waiting are experiencing homelessness.

But we don’t know that and you know what happens when you assume, right?

And wouldn’t we all like to know what this standalone 2015 homeless count and the reporting of the count cost the taxpayers of Vancouver? Click the image to enlarge it.