Campbell River and District Coalition to End Homelessness director Stefanie Hendrickson said she “wasn’t surprised” that the amount of people experiencing homelessness went up by 70 per cent since the last time the count was done in 2021.
“We did a really good job surveying this year. So we had probably twice the number of like drop sites for surveys and also outreach teams,” she said. “So just because of that we were expecting a higher number but also because we are seeing homelessness rise across the province and that was shown in the data from every community that participated in a point in time count through HSABC this year.”
However, Hendrickson hopes that this data can show the province the gravity of the situation.
“It was literally every single community that had an increase. So unfortunately that’s not surprising,” she said. “But at least the province now has new data to show just how dire the situation is across the entire province.”
One of the results that stood out to Hendrickson was the fact that this year “not enough income” was a top reason for housing loss.
“We know that people are struggling significantly more in 2023 financially. With high housing costs, shortage of housing, rising household costs with inflation, it’s a substantial impact,” she said. “And in 2021, it didn’t show up in the top three.”
“I thought it was interesting that we saw food services as the top service accessed and again that didn’t show up at all in the top three in 2021,” she said. “So I thought that was interesting and kind of spoke to how food security is affecting folks with inflation and the cost of living going up.”
Hendrickson also noted a “fairly significant uptake in people sleeping in vehicles,” as well as more seniors who were unhoused this year.
“None of this was a surprise, which is really unfortunate. But it’s really nice to have the data because we actually have something to back up all the things that we’re hearing from community partners, all of these anecdotal stories that we’re hearing from community members and community partners are now backed up with data,” Hendrickson said. “So that really gives things some teeth to be able to take back to the province or to funders or when nonprofit organizations are looking at developing new programs or services.”
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Campbell River sees 70 per cent increase in number of people experiencing homelessness since 2021