This year’s Point In Time Homeless Count in Prince George uncovered some disturbing trends in our homeless population.
Eleven agencies were surveyed by 25 volunteers who took part in the initiative led by the United Way of Northern BC back in April.
One gender saw a substantial spike from the year prior.
“The number of respondents who are homeless that are women went up by eight percent over last year, we’re looking at 50% of respondents who are female compared to the last time the point in time was done so that’s a concern,” says Roberta Squire, United Way of Northern BC CEO.
Compared to the last homeless count that was conducted a couple of years ago, where there were more men between the ages of 30 and 50 living on the street, Squire noticed the median the age go up this time around.
“Our median age jumped up from 44 to 46.5 so that is a concern and I think that might speak to the number of people displaced from last year’s wildfires where we had people come up and just never left.”
“And I think those were the younger group because they could find their way up here since they had transportation and they’ve never left or they just found it that they feel safer here. Those are concerns and it’s about reaching those individuals, which is going to be difficult because we found that even though we changed when we did the survey from first thing in the morning to 6:30 at night a lot of people did not want to participate in the survey.”
While they were not pleased with the uptick in the number of women and youth without a home, Squire adds there was one positive that stood out.
“There was almost double if not more than double the amount of individuals in transitional housing, meaning that they are already in the process and have already received some help, even though it is temporary they are on that road to permanent housing.”
Other notable findings uncovered that 45% of participants had been in foster care or group homes while 34% first became homeless before their 18th birthday.
“We need to maybe attract those youth differently and maybe attack them differently or deal with their situations differently than we would have before, the aboriginal count has also gone up and we’re going to have to sit with some chiefs and discuss that because it would be a massive concern for them.”
Of the 150 people who responded, 14% of them stayed outdoors the night before, while 44% slept in emergency shelters.
Of those surveyed:
– 79% identified themselves as indigenous descent
– 48% of respondents are between the ages 25-44, 43% 45-64, 7% under the age of 25, 2% older than 65 and 3% had served in the RCMP or Military.
The findings will be part of a final report at the end of the month and will be presented to council and other groups.